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20017_MS1MXAUQ_2 | What isn't something Unmade Beds showed its audience? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"how desperate people are in Manhattan",
"a person's size can sometimes affect their happiness",
"people are all inherently judging others",
"the reality of dating in New York"
] | 3 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_3 | How did the author feel about Unmade Beds? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"the movie didn't show the real truth about its characters",
"it displayed many hidden truths about people",
"it was uncomfortable to watch but worth watching",
"Barker created something that people will be talking about for a long time"
] | 0 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_4 | What does the author think would have improved The Slums of Beverly Hills? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"a more realistic plot",
"more episodes to explain the situation",
"a more experienced director",
"more attractive actors"
] | 2 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_5 | How are Unmade Beds and The Slums of Beverly Hills similar? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"they both have an eye-opening message",
"they both have first-time directors",
"they both mix genres to make a unique film",
"they're both meant to be a documentary"
] | 2 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_6 | How does the author feel about Don MacPherson? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"many famous actors what to work with him",
"his movie lacked the quality that the original did",
"he's made some good and some bad movies",
"he's a better critic than a screenwriter"
] | 1 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_7 | What is the author's purpose for writing this? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"to inform people that documentaries aren't always accurate",
"to persuade people to be critical of movies they watch",
"to explain different films he's seen recently",
"to inform the audience of the changes in cinema"
] | 2 |
20017_MS1MXAUQ_8 | What would the author likely say about himself? | Dirty Laundry
Now and then, a documentary
film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern
the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a
documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How
much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're
striving, at least in theory, to capture?
Unmade Beds , Nicholas
Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a
"directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face
of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four
aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in
the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast,
excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular
openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside.
This is
not cinema
vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The
director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates,
followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and
dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in
mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters
and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate
larger dramatic truths."
Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two
weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded
to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In
part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and
commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really
don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens
to become a cause
célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater
near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of
"difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing.
Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak
show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the
Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard
pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths."
Those
truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch
lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were
to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature
might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger
dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is
very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however,
Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains
about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males.
Michael turns out to be the film's most
sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy
54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind
dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one
of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco ,
Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in
the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose
pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a
pathetic little loser--a mutt.
Aimee, on
the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds.
Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside
bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her
thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly
the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has
always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This
is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if
you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks,
"if you're 225 pounds?"
The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous
exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a
Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money
and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too
difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks
a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks.
Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article)
is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint.
Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their
dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them
for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and
steps into the shower and soaps up.
Barker
might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has
robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't
thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your
eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed
like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection.
The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You
can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and
elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you
should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action."
Call me square, but I find this antithetical to
the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before
going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his
material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels
prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not
go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for
$10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial,
following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was
"true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that
real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished
characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of
her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary
filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected
patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than
the one they set out to portray.
So what are Barker's "larger
dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people
fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and,
in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably,
that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to
regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to
see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger
dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together
and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to
the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and
then, hey, he's a documentarian.
Unmade
Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its
subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and
the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that
you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you.
Anything to keep from turning into one of those people.
The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two
genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue.
Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd
juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic
upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being
shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP
code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them
to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is
permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or
the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts.
We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor,
or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and
robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite
figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are
there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost
wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things
that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out.
The
Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's
exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of
'70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his
wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy,
dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play
with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the
proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic
awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the
children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van,
cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly
Hills.
Grading on the steep curve established by
summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few
months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact ,
Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake
Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving
Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser
for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was
tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About
Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo
66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after
Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at.
And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so
rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard
production designers but can't fake class.
I don't know who the
credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever
seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of
its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph
Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel
(Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his
private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be:
The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his
bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff
associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea
of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés.
Whereas the original Steed,
Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal
caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more
apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and
her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master
villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible,
acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far
beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings. | [
"he only likes certain film genres",
"he's an expert at critiquing films",
"his opinion is different from most peoples'",
"his films are better than most that he's seen"
] | 1 |
20022_V83PHBTD_1 | Who is the least lovable character in The Thin Red Line? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"Private Bell",
"Lieutenant Colonel Tall",
"Captain Staros",
"Seargant Welsh"
] | 1 |
20022_V83PHBTD_2 | What wouldn't the author say of Malick? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"he knows how to bring out the beauty amongst war",
"he told a well-rounded story of war",
"he's a philosophical thinker",
"he did more than just make a war movie"
] | 1 |
20022_V83PHBTD_3 | How doesn't the author feel about Bill Clinton? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"he's a self-serving person",
"no one can capture his personality in film",
"he knows when to quit",
"he's a corrupt politician"
] | 2 |
20022_V83PHBTD_4 | Which would the author say of both directors? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"they missed a key component in their films",
"there were times when the movies were unclear",
"the films portrayed the real characters poorly",
"the visual imagery was done well"
] | 0 |
20022_V83PHBTD_5 | When discussing these films, which word best describes the author? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"vague",
"optimistic",
"knowledgeable",
"biased"
] | 2 |
20022_V83PHBTD_6 | What isn't true about A Civil Action? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"it is weaker than the book at times",
"the actors portray the character emotions well",
"the protagonists win at the end of the film",
"Beatrice and Grace were financially impacted because of the film"
] | 2 |
20022_V83PHBTD_7 | Why did the author discuss the movies in this text? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"they're all based on real-world events",
"they're all meant to improve our views on historical events",
"they all had famous, excellent actors",
"they're all well-written by famous screenwriters"
] | 0 |
20022_V83PHBTD_8 | What does the author seem to like to see in movies? | War and Pieces
No movie in the last decade
has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful,
rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema
after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my
responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private
Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle
montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified
intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and
Days
of
Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a
different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his
sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic
voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: "Why does nature vie with
itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?" Or
"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?" First you
get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather.
Those existential
speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but
otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here
to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not
specious. In the combat genre, the phrase "war is hell" usually means nothing
more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get
his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and
Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a
meditation on the existence of God.
He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a
big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars
(John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After
an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier,
Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a
heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces
on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a
genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical
terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features
the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially
unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts
nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more
relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving
soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the
final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of
life beginning anew.
The Thin Red
Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes
to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist
New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife,
viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. ("Love: Where does it come from? Who
lit this flame in us?") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over
one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the
human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt
poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the
movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's
increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like
optimism. Says Welsh, "In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't
no world but this one." Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, "I seen another
world." At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's
vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns
out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an
absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and
love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my
soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things
you made, all things shining."
Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen:
soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of
National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception
of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost
every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of
images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is
crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the
man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small,
white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely
trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a
hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to
advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall,
yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a
captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal,
laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese
soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, "Are you righteous? Know that I
was, too."
Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are
strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is
nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all
his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching
the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides
the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other
organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's
ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to
send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a
bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick.
Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war
or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick
never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation.
In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes
Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and orders a meaningless bombardment to "buck the
men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell." Soldiers shoot at hazy
figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow
themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves
frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the
stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded,
flutters in the grass.
Malick is convincing--at
times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on
order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple
mouthpieces: "Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with?
Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind." I think I'd have an
easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some
concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of
nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and
Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies'
cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into
Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that
there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter,
World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was
at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed
mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a
few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view
Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are
killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most
rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several
centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes
seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness.
John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill
Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a
jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the
center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent
of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the
side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is
certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability
case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly
carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the
book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke
(stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons
of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and
psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria.
Director Steven
Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while
reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford
Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's
The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of
work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip.
Schlichtmann doesn't take this "orphan" case--brought by the parents of several
children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he
figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the
parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might
succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice
lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's
financial resources dwindle to nothing.
Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth
between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court
and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension
of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives
Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more
fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a
more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the
deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome
of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is
surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack
as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity
accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan
knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to
emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote.
To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the
real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight
of hand, "let's call the Environmental Protection Agency," upbeat ending of the
movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side
and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years.
The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK
legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking
about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little
kids. | [
"movies that stay true to the books and original scripts",
"movies that dig deeper into life's realities",
"unpredictability in the story line",
"movies that show the good in people"
] | 1 |
20061_B4O6328H_1 | Which word would least describe the character, Elizabeth? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"strong",
"intelligent",
"uncompromising",
"feminine"
] | 3 |
20061_B4O6328H_2 | How does the author feel about the film, Elizabeth? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"the story is well-told but inaccurate",
"it has great acting, but confusing plot",
"it is overall enjoyable to watch",
"the focus of the film takes away from the plot"
] | 2 |
20061_B4O6328H_3 | Which word least describes Velvet Goldmine? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"unique",
"honest",
"inspirational",
"sequential"
] | 3 |
20061_B4O6328H_4 | Which isn't an apparent theme in Velvet Goldmine? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"music is a powerful force",
"some people will give themselves up for money and fame",
"power can be deadly",
"be whoever you want to be"
] | 2 |
20061_B4O6328H_5 | What do Elizabeth and Velvet Goldmine seem to have in common? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"the story line is based on real events",
"powerful, convincing main characters",
"the main character transforms throughout the film",
"in the end, the main character is disliked"
] | 2 |
20061_B4O6328H_6 | Who does the author seem to appreciate the most in Meet Joe Black? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"Martin Brest",
"Bo Goldman",
"Brad Pitt",
"Claire Forlani"
] | 3 |
20061_B4O6328H_7 | What is the author's main purpose in this text? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"to compare the abilities of three directors",
"to persuade us to pay attention to the hidden meaning in the films",
"to compare the queenly characteristics of the three films",
"to inform us of the pros and cons of each movie"
] | 3 |
20061_B4O6328H_8 | Who is the best actor mentioned, according to the author? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"Anthony Hopkins",
"Miranda Richardson",
"Cate Blanchett",
"Johnathyn Rhys-Meyers"
] | 2 |
20061_B4O6328H_9 | What does the author seem to value the most in films? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"the theme represented in the film",
"the clarity of the story line",
"the length of the film",
"the quality of acting"
] | 3 |
20061_B4O6328H_10 | Which is probably the author's favorite movie? | Warrior Queens
Elizabeth is a lurid
paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: "I knew the Virgin
Queen before she was a virgin." As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan,
redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph
Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of
conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary
(Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and
therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the
throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of
skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers
(lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking
orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman
will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal.
(Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats
slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a)
"unsex" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England;
and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are
affixed to spikes.
You can't
be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael
Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point
in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of
scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate?
Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head
for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the
beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions
about How Things Work in a barbarous state.
That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama.
The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans
such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the
Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to
a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates
by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup
and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and
so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to
be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then
walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon.
With all
due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite
Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on
the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high
executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, "There are thousands of Catholics
simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to
organize it.") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the
transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon
subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and
permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an
awe-inspiring center.
A more subversive sort of queen is on display
in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era
of "glam" or "glitter" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer
called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego,
Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar
Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade
pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a
swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual
superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an
Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena
rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state.
Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary
exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen
Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct
Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts.
Whatever you make of
Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually
dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling,
discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a
TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every
other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers
of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to
keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the
'80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from
anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard
Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition)
began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover
by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept
her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991),
Haynes' Genêt-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own
artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne
Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing
meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic
detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing
oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly
nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man.
(It was
partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his
indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a
nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of
Velvet Goldmine --like my review of
Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of
a partisan. But not a blind partisan.)
In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate
the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to
fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out
not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness
to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer
that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him,
Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's
allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade
album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell
Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the
LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the
uncomprehending world at bay.
But if Haynes wants Velvet
Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace
of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to
portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality
for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of
repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these
two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make
his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's
self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet
Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one.
A case can
be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who
has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie
that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the
picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in
stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his
filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from
hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet
Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are
strung.
Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case
could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays
two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but
wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's
body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising
moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels
all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very
slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner
transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as
blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an idée fixe by someone who
doesn't appear to have an idée in his head.
Martin
Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then "finding"
his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he "found" when he
scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his
sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was
the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A
conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension,
but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either
Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has
leased the screen by the year.
Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron
whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd
choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal
helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments
that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the
great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982),
labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that
begin "Am I to understand that ...?" and a corporate villain who directs
another character to "wake up and smell the thorns." It apparently never
occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful
realization that he'd "never write the great American novel"--no kidding, given
his flagrantly Welsh accent.
Actually, Hopkins gives this
humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him
before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children
becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal
fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank "Hey now!" Kingsley on The Larry
Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his
party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter,
the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos
on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's
hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or
is that the Black Death of Pitt? | [
"Velvet Goldmine",
"Meet Joe Black",
"Elizabeth",
"Shooting to Kill"
] | 0 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_1 | Who didn't understand Dole's accusations towards the Times? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"the author of this text",
"Dole's staff members",
"Times readers",
"Times reporters"
] | 2 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_2 | Who didn't agree with Dole about the way the Times treated him? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"Dole's campaign officials",
"Katharine Seelye",
"John Buckley",
"Andrew Rosenthal"
] | 3 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_3 | Why does Seelye say she's hard on Dole? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"because of the way he treated her at the beginning",
"because of the way he speaks",
"because he tried to get her fired",
"because of the way his campaign is being run"
] | 3 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_4 | What is a similarity between Dole and Clinton? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"the Times has showed them both at their worst",
"the Times has downplayed both of their scandals",
"the Times has published unflattering pictures of both of them",
"the Times improperly quotes what they've said"
] | 0 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_5 | Who felt the most sympathetic towards Dole? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"Bill Clinton",
"the author",
"Andrew Rosenthal",
"John Buckley"
] | 3 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_6 | Who would the author most likely side with? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"Dole, because the Times was publishing many unflattering things about him",
"Dole, because he deserved to be treated better on his way out of politics",
"The Times, because Dole was blowing their treatment of him out of proportion",
"The Times, because it is their job to show both sides of all politicians"
] | 2 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_7 | Which word would the author use to describe Dole? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"confused",
"frustrated",
"well-spoken",
"respected"
] | 1 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_8 | What is a reason that Dole attacked the Times? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"he wanted to away with all newspapers",
"to glean positive support from anti-Times voters",
"his advisers recommended doing so",
"he was angry at the reporters from the Times"
] | 3 |
20043_A7NBNRPC_9 | What isn't a way that the Times treated Dole unfairly? | Dole vs. the
Times
For several weeks now,
pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a
negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he
leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been
settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the
New York Times .
Dole's spat with the gray
lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper
with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White
House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the
New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any
anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in
the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days.
"We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in
Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York
Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a
crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed
up, but the other papers will get it right."
On Sunday
(the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the
apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the
Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said
the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They
hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on
section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it,
referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about
what I got in the New York Times today."
The Times has reacted to this assault by
highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers
baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact,
Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper.
According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his
campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first
protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The
real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides
billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section.
Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors
with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment.
Reporters traveling with Dole
caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press
secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield
told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an
appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't
reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present,
Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times
would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to
the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from
Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington
Editor Andrew Rosenthal.
That
letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of
a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being
AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of
thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have
started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff
finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole
accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of
control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe
that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing
around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter
continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with
the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going
on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so
in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your
coverage."
No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this
story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon
the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,"
the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day
one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With
Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape
accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering
Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the
little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official
cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a
platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers
as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the
official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends
to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the
official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black
velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole
crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends.
Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the
Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make
editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob
Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an
editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing
around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami
drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of
not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is
the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the
incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part
series too," he says.
"Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye
says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's
own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides
emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days
ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's
another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole,
Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately,
depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema verité " style.
Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane,
Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down.
For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times ,
Seelye writes:
"In Phoenix on Friday night,
he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial
contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From
INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes,
but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is
gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him."
Two days later, she quoted
Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I
don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most
reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an
"animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least
compos mentis.
But though
unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It
is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply
observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be
happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid
looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing
too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is
simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like
their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for
instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times
ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a
decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the
same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the
offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks.
Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the
paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities
trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of
potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the
Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton
on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as
even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is
institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained,
overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that
disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988,
Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is
that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday.
None of these factors,
though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's
attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in
populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to
explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media.
They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely
make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist
voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And
in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the
candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the
objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in
picking fights with the press.
But if Dole is attacking the
Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help
him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there
has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him
which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the
Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of
the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never
suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the
press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington
Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social
affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,"
Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living
cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the
same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly
shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he
says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide. | [
"they published unfavorable pictures of him",
"the way they quoted him emphasized his flaws",
"they had no full-time reporters following him",
"they omitted information about Dole's successes"
] | 2 |
42111_6E81CZUW_1 | Which theory didn't they rule out for how Superior went missing? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"secret government experiments",
"explosives",
"factory explosion",
"magnetized levitation"
] | 3 |
42111_6E81CZUW_2 | Who seems to know the least about Superior's situation? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"Professor Garet",
"Don Cort",
"Mayor Civek",
"the train conductor"
] | 3 |
42111_6E81CZUW_3 | Who seems to have the least to hide in the text? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"Don Cort",
"Jen Jervis",
"Ed Clark",
"Mayor Civek"
] | 2 |
42111_6E81CZUW_4 | Which would Alis be least likely to say? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"\"I'd love to leave Superior.\"",
"\"Most people in Superior are a little different.\"",
"\"I know how to get us back down.\"",
"\"Don, I'd love to get to know you better.\""
] | 2 |
42111_6E81CZUW_5 | Which word least describes Ed Clark? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"sarcastic",
"clever",
"pushover",
"humorous"
] | 2 |
42111_6E81CZUW_6 | Why did Don want to walk by the creek? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"to see if they could get off of Superior via the creek",
"to learn more about the levitating town",
"to get to know Alis better",
"to help get rid of the handcuff"
] | 1 |
42111_6E81CZUW_7 | Which word least describes Don? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"secretive",
"calm",
"inquisitive",
"caring"
] | 3 |
42111_6E81CZUW_8 | Who will likely be in charge of all future decisions for Superior? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"Alis Garet and Don Cort",
"Vincent Grande and Don Cort",
"Professor Garet and Mayor Civek",
"Mayor Civek and Ed Clark"
] | 2 |
42111_6E81CZUW_9 | What isn't likely to happen next? | <!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
And Then the Town Took Off
by RICHARD WILSON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
For
Felicitas K. Wilson
THE SIOUX SPACEMAN
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U.S.A.
THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what
was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply
picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!
Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But
Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that
nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they
accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local
townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious
that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up
to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his
days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.
A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had
been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent
over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If
he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where
Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,
but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was
his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then
sped off to a telephone.
The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several
directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they
confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to
the National Guard.
The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were
needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over
it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into
the Ohio countryside.
The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains
was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not
stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the
disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was
the witching hour.
Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil
defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook
it and rapped on it, it refused to click.
A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,
having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but
when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,
relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no
people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself.
The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes
had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic
Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret
experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest
made bubble gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November
1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer
and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object
loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his
co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the
terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church steeple on it.
A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of
Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.
One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first
day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying
plaintively:
"
Cold
up here!"
Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye
Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,
hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it
wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen
hurried along the tracks.
The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom
Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did
we stop?"
"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station
stop at Superior on this run."
The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the
club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair
along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the
opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and
untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which
indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.
The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet
lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had
given her.
Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had
been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe
that it was more than adequate.
If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had
been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in
his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered,
with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome
nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between
his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.
But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he
carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss
his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd
get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one
reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.
"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and
went down to the tracks.
Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it
sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive
and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was
covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red
lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even
an old red shirt.
Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking
to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat
and riding boots.
"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.
Look."
The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor
the old man. Then let's go."
The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the
fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along
the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?
I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the
darkness.
"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.
"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."
The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."
They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet
swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of
the world."
True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on
the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the
professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there
before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.
Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,
not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused
by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.
Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over
the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit
on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the
situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big
section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.
Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his
face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I
believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the
old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the
club car, asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you
say your name was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."
"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't
exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.
"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the
world, hasn't it?"
"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say
is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor
said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was
watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and
reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all
of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then
the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis
asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of
Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor
Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector
Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of
course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory
about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey
was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.
Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about
magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so
the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town
had flown the coop."
"What's the population of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand
and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us
for a while."
"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"
"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about
anywhere."
"No helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the
rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.
You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor
Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me."
The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who
was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I
was
going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"
"Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have
thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably
close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs
National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"
Mister
Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that
S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting
late."
"
Places
to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.
"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of
this cuff."
He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply
beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the
cosmolineator blew up."
They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going
around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white
laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to
pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever
was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to
himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had
had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and
did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,
and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A
bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat
building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty
members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.
Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of
Superior were up in the air.
He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The
others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped
outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out
visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take
a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.
The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he
got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he
knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and
gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"
"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm
Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did
you escape from jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.
Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been
two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,
I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."
"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and
fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.
"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order
them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and
the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out
of here by then."
"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get
down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up
here."
"You were levitated, like everybody else."
"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a
whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell
, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be
a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there were any."
"Actually there's only one, the
Superior Sentry
, a weekly. This is an
extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened
her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the headline:
Town Gets High
"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"
Alis said.
Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an
apparently grave situation.
Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are
advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by
Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.
A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in
the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of
gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if
the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on
investigating....
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."
Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across
to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't
get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,
bottom."
Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his
thanks, and read:
Mayor Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said
today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as
his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against
by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been
held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)
colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired
against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously
handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to
set.
Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up
to Father."
"Does your father claim that
he
levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a
skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a
science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave
me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,
being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually
ever since."
"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"
She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,
emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described
the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth
of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be
kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more
densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.
"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going on?"
"Three months past. How old are
you
, Mr. Cort?"
"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go
with you to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from
the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been
solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the
double entendre
," Alis said. "What I meant—for
now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to
the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a
demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.
On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The
train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned
except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What
are you going to do?"
"What
can
I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that
Superior's water supply?"
Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.
Let's go look at the creek."
They found it coursing along between the banks.
"Looks just about the same," she said.
"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."
The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.
Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with
the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South
Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,
with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."
"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall off!"
"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed
him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for
a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a
topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.
"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on
his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he
could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of
his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,
panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his
ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she
said.
"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and
tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going
over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved
and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.
He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the
end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water
isn't
going off the
edge!"
"It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical
tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming
back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself
off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."
"The other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed
in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to
go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball
out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of
the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis
said.
The fence, which had a sign on it,
warning—electrified
, was
semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it
so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under
the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.
"As if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said:
Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of
two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is
sufficient to kill.
It was signed:
Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,
Hector Civek, Mayor
.
"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don
asked.
"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed
to swim."
"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"
"I don't know."
"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder
what would happen?"
"I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you
found out."
She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth
below and to the west.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I
mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here
as it used to down there?"
"We could tell by the sun, silly."
"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not
high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great
Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a
cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL
on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see
faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or
two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was
gone.
"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know
that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not
answers, then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you
like it here?"
"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if
I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into
clean clothes, you're not going to like me."
"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still
holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"
she said, "before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case
at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him. | [
"Professor Garet will tell Don how to get down",
"more people will find out about Superior seceding",
"Don will find a way off of Superior",
"Alis will find out what's in the briefcase"
] | 0 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_1 | What isn't something that Harshorne-Logan has? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"doorbells",
"strong liquor",
"a time machine",
"vacuum cleaner bags"
] | 3 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_2 | What is the time warp typically used for? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"to visit deceased family members",
"to look into the future to discover inventions",
"to fix mistakes made recently by the company",
"to revisit holiday parties"
] | 2 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_3 | What wasn't strange about the dress purchased? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"it spoke to Sally",
"it wouldn't come off",
"it made Sally levitate",
"it changed colors"
] | 0 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_4 | Which word least describes Mrs. Burnett? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"neighborly",
"serious",
"irritable",
"elderly"
] | 0 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_5 | What wasn't abnormal in the detective kit? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"the white powder",
"the toy gun",
"the Detectolite",
"the flashlight"
] | 3 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_6 | What didn't Ann receive from Hartshorne-Logan? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"a letter regarding money owed",
"a package with incorrect items",
"a response to her complaint letter",
"a manky"
] | 2 |
51092_VJQSP2IZ_7 | What theme could be taken from this story? | RATTLE OK
By HARRY WARNER, JR.
Illustrated by FINLAY
What better way to use a time machine than
to handle department store complaints? But
pleasing a customer should have its limits!
The Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was
threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.
The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under
the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had
screamed: "He'll drown!"
One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had
remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another
story.
The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three
times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed
trees and midnight church services.
The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of
the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in
one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty
pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary
opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the
foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump
against the wall.
He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.
Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its
glass splintered against the floor.
The noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even
felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.
"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!" cried Mr. Hawkins, the
assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,
worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the
broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of
glasses.
Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait
to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung
the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.
"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the
holiday," he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his
attention on any working day.
With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy
picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as
the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put
it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a
drink that would make him feel even better.
A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She
picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening
machine.
"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!" someone shouted at her. "Have
another!"
Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and
returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: "Oh, I see.
They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old."
Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's
voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: "I'll bet that's been in
there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that
that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago."
"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this." Milly
turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.
The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.
Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly
and picked up the order form.
"This thing has never been processed!" Raising his voice, he shouted
jovially, "Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that
Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This
poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!"
Milly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:
"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for
vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl." She turned to the
assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in
her young life. "Let's fill this order right now!"
"The poor woman must be dead by now," he objected, secretly angry
that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he
brightened. "Unless—" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent
a great proposal and the room grew quiet—"unless we broke the rules
just once and used the time warp on a big mission!"
There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:
"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it
must be used only for complaints within three days."
"Then let's find out!" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and
pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. "Someone scoot down to the
warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the
stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the
catalogue numbers—they've changed a hundred times in all these years."
Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal
of excitement.
"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order—it's my great-grandmother!
Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can
barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my
grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some
trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to
come to work here because of that."
Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to
look fatherly. It didn't. "Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's
thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll
substitute a manky!"
Ann Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the
large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared
pugnaciously at the bundle.
"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!" she
told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper
wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never
seen before.
The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to
the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But
the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to
the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and
therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.
Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely
spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the
house.
Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby
legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. "Want!" she said decisively.
"Your dress ought to be here," Ann said. She found scissors in her
sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to
open the parcel.
"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should
throw away my letter of complaint," she told her daughter. "And by the
time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.
Then they'll write again." Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted
the expletives that she wanted to add.
The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to
hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the
cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were
alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.
"There!" Sally said.
Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she
tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A
slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the
dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.
It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble
the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue
illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small
girl's dress should be.
But Sally was delighted. "Mine!" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.
"It's probably the wrong size, too," Ann said, pulling off Sally's
dress to try it on. "Let's find as many things to complain about as we
can."
The dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally
was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started
to look vacantly at the distant wall.
"We'll have to send it back," Ann said, "and get the one we ordered."
She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed
her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.
It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to
loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then
began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before
she collided with the far wall.
Sally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed
in delight.
Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling
uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.
"It's me," her husband said. "Slow day at the office, so I came home
early."
"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed
her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small
box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:
MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.
A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no
wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must
have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.
Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It
had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug
for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.
"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of
the doorbell."
The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had
ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover
and said: "Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she
does."
Les stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to
walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on
which the manky lay.
His jaw dropped. "My God! Ann, what—"
Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. "Les! The hassock! It
used to be brown!"
The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming
green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann
had furnished the room.
"That round thing must be leaking," Les said. "But did you see Sally
when she—"
Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She
jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two
fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.
"Drop it!" she yelled. "Maybe it'll turn you green, too!"
Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after
it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire
interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.
When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The
wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant
green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.
Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let
it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally
jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front
teeth green.
She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.
He said: "It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the
shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and
that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green
dye or whatever it is will wash off."
Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled
off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental
about her removing it.
"I'll get dinner," she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.
"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into
the kitchen, Sally."
Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes
determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron
pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of
propulsion.
A half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:
Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice
said from the front of the house, "Don't answer the front door."
Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit
under his arm.
She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on
hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. "Neatest trick I've seen
in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up
while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady
Burnett out there pushed the button?"
"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on
them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there
repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get
boring after a while. And it might insult someone."
Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The
figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted
impatiently on the porch.
Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked
up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part
of the door frame.
"Queer," he said. "That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't
see how it can keep the door from opening."
Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: "Won't you come to the
back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck."
"I just wanted to borrow some sugar," the woman cried from the porch.
"I realize that I'm a terrible bother." But she walked down the front
steps and disappeared around the side of the house.
"Don't open the back door." The well-modulated voice from the small
doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann
looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.
"If this is ventriloquism—" she began icily.
"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the
office," Les said. "But you'd better let the old girl in. No use
letting her get peeved."
The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen
door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open
when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her
neighbor.
"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather
hectic day in an awful lot of ways."
Something seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.
She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.
It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into
the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked
suspiciously behind her.
"The children have some new toys," Ann improvised hastily. "Sally is
so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see
now—it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?"
"I already have it," Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.
The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the
kitchen table.
"Excitement isn't good for me," Mrs. Burnett said testily. "I've had a
lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet."
"Your husband is better?"
"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me." Mrs.
Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the
house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.
Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed
with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed
the threshold.
Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She
nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.
"Where did this come from?" Les held a small object in the palm of
his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something
unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably
like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and
rather bloodshot veins.
"Hey, that's mine," Bob said. "You know, this is a funny detective kit.
That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works."
"Well, put it away," Ann told Bob sharply. "It's slimy."
Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled
from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then
rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The
eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.
"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry," Ann said. "She's so
upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting
her."
Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe
distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.
"Hey, watch out!" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,
landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light
across Les's hands.
Bob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced
through an instruction booklet, frowning.
"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy," Les told his
wife. "I don't know why you ordered such a thing." He tossed the
booklet into the empty box.
"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up," she replied. "Look
at the marks you made on the instructions." The black finger-marks
stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.
Les looked at his hands. "I didn't do it," he said, pressing his clean
fingertips against the kitchen table.
Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling
polished table's surface.
"I think the Detectolite did it," Bob said. "The instructions say
you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a
long time."
Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him
silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap
and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when
Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.
"My God!" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. "She got out of
that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?"
Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But
in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in
the parcel. Her heart sank.
She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: "Les, I think
it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time
for a nap. It seems impossible, but—" She shrugged mutely. "And I
think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed."
She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who
whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,
keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward
out of her arms.
The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after
dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.
Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.
Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann
put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the
rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall
closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.
When daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into
the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.
She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les
called the doctor before going to work.
The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the
manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to
school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing
a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood
out on its side:
"
Today is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate
today.
"
The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly
at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly
quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have
crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.
She tore open the envelope and read:
"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the
balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will
readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume
the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent
order as soon...."
Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,
knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after
work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint
department when the phone rang.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris," a
voice said. "Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with
something that his parents gave him."
"My son?" Ann asked incredulously. "Bob?"
"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son
insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He
claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking
by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family
in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and
we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity
involving his name, if you'll—"
"I'll be right down," Ann said. "I mean I won't be right down. I've got
a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And
I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,
too. I'm sorry for—for everything. Good-by."
Just as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a
normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without
difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.
"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor," Ann said while he took the
child's temperature, "but we can't get that dress off Sally."
"Kids are stubborn sometimes." Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he
looked at the thermometer. "She's pretty sick. I want a blood count
before I try to move her. Let me undress her."
Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist
as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and
began to pull it back, she screamed.
The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point
where it touched Sally's skin.
"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't
understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight."
"Don't bother trying," Ann said miserably. "Just cut it off."
Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When
he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges
of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The
physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.
He looked helpless as he said to Ann: "I don't know quite what to do.
The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to
death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may
kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin."
The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of
the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself
under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder
rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.
Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. "An ambulance. Looks as if
they're stopping here."
"Oh, no," Ann breathed. "Something's happened to Les."
"It sure will," Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. "I won't
have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black
fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or
shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing
out front?"
"They're going to the next house down the street," the physician said.
"Has there been sickness there?"
Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. "What's wrong with me?
My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I
touch."
The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. "Every human has natural
oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their
fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this
sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin
specialist."
Ann was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite
her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless
and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.
A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.
Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like "Murder!" came sharply
through the window.
"I know those bearers," Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.
"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?"
The front man with the stretcher looked up. "I don't know. This guy's
awful sick. I think his wife is nuts."
Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,
gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.
"It's murder!" she screamed. "Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's
going to die! It means the electric chair!"
The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into
her mouth to quiet her.
"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him," Dr. Schwartz
shouted to the men. "We've got a very sick child up here."
"I was afraid this would happen," Les said. "The poor woman already has
lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks
that somebody is poisoning him."
Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared
unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.
Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start
shaking him.
"I got something important to tell you," Bob said rapidly, ready to
duck. "I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to
tell you what I did."
"I heard all about what you did," Ann said, advancing again. "And
you're not going to slip away from me."
"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,"
Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.
Ann looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The
doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: "Don't answer me,
don't answer me, don't go to the door."
"Why did you do it?" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into
weary sadness. "People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the
rest of your life. You can't possibly explain—"
"Don't bother about the girls' clothing," Bob said, "because it was
only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did
before I left the house."
Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the
knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.
"I forgot about it," Bob continued, "when that ray gun accidentally
went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time
to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective
kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to
see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect—"
"He put stuff in the sugar?" A deep, booming voice came from the front
of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood
on the threshold of the front door. "I heard that! The woman next door
claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you
under arrest."
The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from
the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman
staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone
drifted through the house.
"Close the door, close the door," the doorbell was chanting urgently.
"Where's that ambulance?" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the
steps. "The child's getting worse." | [
"don't try to change the past",
"it's important to try new things",
"people can't be trusted",
"there's a solution to every problem"
] | 0 |
51170_N4I8DROP_1 | What didn't Pendleton and Templin have in common? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"they had similar jobs",
"they went to school together",
"they had similar personalities",
"Tunpesh was both of their first attache assignments"
] | 3 |
51170_N4I8DROP_2 | What isn't a setting that took place in the text? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"Pendleton's residence",
"Earth",
"Tunpesh",
"a rocket"
] | 1 |
51170_N4I8DROP_3 | What word doesn't describe the natives from Tunpesh? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"generous",
"secretive",
"skeptical",
"beautiful"
] | 2 |
51170_N4I8DROP_4 | What doesn't Tunpesh seem to have less of than Earth? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"weapons",
"beautiful people",
"illness",
"bad weather"
] | 1 |
51170_N4I8DROP_5 | Which word least describes Eckert? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"experienced",
"observant",
"nervous",
"open-minded"
] | 2 |
51170_N4I8DROP_6 | How does Templin change in the story? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"he begins to enjoy himself more",
"he becomes more careful in his actions",
"he begins to question the natives less",
"he grows more suspicious of the Tunpeshans"
] | 0 |
51170_N4I8DROP_7 | What isn't a secret that Eckert has kept from Templin? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"he broke Templin's power pack",
"they're living in the same place as Pendleton did",
"he expects Templin to act just like Pendleton did on Tunpesh",
"he knows that Pendleton didn't commit suicide"
] | 3 |
51170_N4I8DROP_8 | What native experiences didn't Eckert experience towards the end of the text? | THE FIRE and THE SWORD
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
Illustrated by EMSH
Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that
peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal
man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
Why do people commit suicide?
Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration
bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the
time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within
the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with
the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better
than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.
Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or
financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or
more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve
an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,
perhaps.
He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with
the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke
at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical
disapproval.
He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank
facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old
reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride
because, at one time or another, they had had to.
It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told
him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.
Only Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything
to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something
someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always
come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the
status of a breakfast food testimonial.
The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.
Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was
out.
Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched
his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes
making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled
with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture
of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.
And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.
He shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class
reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton
should have done it? If, of course, he had....
The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy
perfume.
Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton
had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his
family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised
in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school
where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter
the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at
it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and
later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,
hard-working.
How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left
of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he
had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and
such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,
resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would
he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the
All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles
and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday
fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would
actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't
be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.
He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a
matter of minutes before he would be asleep.
Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small
planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently
and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,
so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be
sent and naturally he had gone alone.
There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and
certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or
maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had
received something less than a thorough survey.
And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of
the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried
to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The
natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little
flower-covered plot where they had buried him.
Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.
The natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure
that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,
needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.
People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they
didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.
It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around
the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick
with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't
keep open much longer.
Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two
of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had
killed himself.
But that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew
better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why
Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.
Who had killed Cock Robin?
The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could
feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep—not
quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his
mind.
Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no
trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring
systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff
anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish
data and reports.
"Ted?" he murmured sleepily.
A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. "Yes?"
"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more
information?"
A drowsy mumble from the other cot: "He wasn't there long enough. He
committed suicide not long after landing."
The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was
slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.
Why do people commit suicide?
"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable
breath. "It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be
alive."
Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently
at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly
perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A
few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly
inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the
foliage.
The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,
was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and
discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,
with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.
It won't
be long before it will be green again
, he thought. The grass looked
as though it grew fast—it would certainly have plenty of time to grow
before the next ship landed.
He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was
suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six
months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would
be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were
up.
He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the
warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months
at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the
time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.
I must be getting old
, he thought,
thinking about the warmth and
comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.
Templin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on
his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment
felt vaguely concerned. "Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like
cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the
surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath."
"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this."
Eckert nodded agreement. "It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a
famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the
princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." He gestured toward the
village. "You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward
appearance, could you?"
The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.
The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over
the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched
in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.
It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the
earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't
seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty
retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.
A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of
kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.
Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed
odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of
childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him
and Templin.
Templin studied them warily. "Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be
dangerous."
It's because you never suspect kids
, Eckert thought,
you never think
they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much
damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have
other weapons.
But the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the
piny scent of the trees.
One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.
"The reception committee," Templin said tightly. His hand went inside
his tunic.
He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his
first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton
had been a pretty good friend of his.
"I'd be very careful what I did," Eckert said softly. "I would hate to
start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions."
The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of
white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his
knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had
the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly
seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the
feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look
at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.
"You are
menshars
from Earth?" The voice was husky and pleasant and
the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully
and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most
natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he
was hardly either friendly or hostile.
"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?" Reynolds had
been the anthropologist.
"We have had visitors from Earth before." He hesitated a moment
and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the
Terrestrial sign of greeting. "You may call me
Jathong
if you wish."
He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids
who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.
"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,
if you will follow me."
He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there
for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the
natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.
The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a
wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,
much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.
Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and
practically every house in the village had its small garden.
What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central
square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the
warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and
weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the
native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where
numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the
cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.
It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,
white-washed house midway up a hill.
"You are free to use this while you are here," he said.
Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well
furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they
didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had
carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was
getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,
took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.
"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may
take what you wish of anything within this box." He opened another of
the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods—brightly colored cloth
and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert
knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.
Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to
the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all
impressed. "I am grateful," he said finally, "but there is nothing I
want." He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.
"The incorruptible native." Templin laughed sarcastically.
Eckert shrugged. "That's one of the things you do out of habit, try
and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need
them." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "Did you notice the context?
He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was
nothing
that he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he
already had."
"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?"
"No, I'm afraid it's not." Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.
"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking
lot, aren't they?"
"Too healthy," Templin said. "There didn't seem to be any sick ones or
ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem
natural."
"They're probably just well brought-up kids," Eckert said sharply.
"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the
mud on the way home from school." He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at
the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was
potentially dangerous.
"Ted." Templin's voice was strained. "This could be a trap, you know."
"In what way?"
The words came out slowly. "The people are too casual, as though
they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely
different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual
manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four
times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much
curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the
cute, harmless little kids." He looked at Eckert. "Maybe that's what
we're supposed to think—just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe
that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end."
He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing
things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every
corner.
"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's
keep an open mind until we know for certain."
He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his
body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the
wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,
and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was
going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months—even if the six
months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people
seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some
day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would
be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably
excellent....
He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There
were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't
even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out
that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own
psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own
feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.
A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled
for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A
power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his
tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.
There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.
"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?"
Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his
pipe and tobacco.
"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.
Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical
knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and
nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of
some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and
their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative
art, and their techniques are finely developed."
"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this." Templin threw a shiny
bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected
it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.
"What's it for?"
"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,
of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;
apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are
hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal
there is a scalpel." He laughed shortly. "Primitive little gadget, but
it works well—as well as any of ours."
Eckert hefted it in his palm. "The most important thing is that they
have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at
least in fields where they have to have it."
"How come they haven't gone any further?"
"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you
know."
"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?"
"The important thing," Eckert mused, "is not if they have them, but if
they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here
for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've
had food and water and what fuel we need."
"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the
slaughter," Templeton said.
Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of
sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment
in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It
complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project
seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would
have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could
among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he
didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.
"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?"
Templin nodded. "Sure."
"Why?"
"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along
those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered
any information about him. And he was an attache here for three
years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few
discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,
yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was
here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to
believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any
information about him is being withheld for a reason."
"What reason?"
Templin shrugged. "Murder. What other reason could there be?"
Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the
scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to
market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.
"They grow their women nice, don't they?"
"Physically perfect, like the men," Templin grumbled. "You could get an
inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so
damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or
too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all
look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while."
"Does it? I hadn't noticed." Eckert turned away from the blinds. His
voice was crisp. "I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too," he said. "But
it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what
happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What
we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the
future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already
made up your mind."
"You knew Pendleton," Templin repeated grimly. "Do you think it was
suicide?"
"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come
down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm
trying to keep an open mind."
"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?"
"We've got six months," Eckert said quietly. "Six months in which
we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to
cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking
all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on
Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find
out that we know it is?"
Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked
to the window. "I suppose you're right," he said at last. "It's nice
living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help
thinking that Don must have liked it here, too."
One of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert
thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.
"
Pelache, menshar?
"
"
Sharra!
" He took the small bowl of
pelache
nuts, helped himself
to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to
enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the
halera
a
few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he
and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native
customs. A little anthropology—with refreshments.
The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous
helpings of the roasted
ulami
and the broiled
halunch
and numerous
dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,
they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but
he noticed that nobody drank to excess.
The old Greek ideal
, he thought:
moderation in everything.
He looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and
shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and
enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,
where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that
nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay
in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret
later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.
There will be hell to pay
, Eckert thought,
if Templin ever finds out
that I sabotaged his power pack.
"You look thoughtful,
menshar
Eckert."
Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his
left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a
certain aura of authority.
"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in
any way, Nayova." Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he
knew about Pendleton's death.
"So far as I know,
menshar
Pendleton offended no one. I do not know
what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous
man."
Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender
ulami
bone and tried to
appear casual in his questioning.
"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him
as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to
you for that."
Nayova seemed pleased. "We tried to do as well for
menshar
Pendleton
as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and
we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities."
Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What
Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.
He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and
took another sip of the wine.
"We were shocked to find out that
menshar
Pendleton had killed
himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to
believe he had done such a thing."
Nayova's gaze slid away from him. "Perhaps it was the will of the Great
One," he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.
Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of
information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction
which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even
harder for him to find out by direct questioning.
A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked
into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and
knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated
to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native
dance.
The sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of
drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm
of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed
to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions
of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening
limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was
the Tunpeshan version of the
rites de passage
. He glanced across
the circle at Templin. Templin's face—what he could see of it by the
flickering light—was brick red.
A voice spoke in his ear. "It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing
what
menshar
Pendleton did. It is ..." and he used a native word that
Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to "
obscene
."
The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small
garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching
adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying
routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.
They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too
good.
The bowl of
pelache
nuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned
over to speak to him. "If there is any possibility that I can help you
while you are here,
menshar
Eckert, you have but to ask."
It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's
friends, but there was a way around that. "I would like to meet any
of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or
socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way."
"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you
this coming week." | [
"their music",
"their food",
"their religion",
"their dances"
] | 2 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_1 | What do Lois and Lorraine have in common? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"they both care deeply about Judy",
"they both have a curious nature",
"they got married on the same day",
"they're both unhappy in their marriages"
] | 2 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_2 | Which word least describes Judy? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"humble",
"secretive",
"inquisitive",
"polite"
] | 1 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_3 | Which mystical element didn't Judy claim to encounter? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"gnomes",
"ghosts",
"a magic carpet",
"a talking fountain"
] | 2 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_4 | What was Lorraine the least secretive about? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"her knowledge of the fountain",
"her jealousy of Judy",
"her relationship with her husband",
"why she didn't want to go to the Brandt estate"
] | 1 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_5 | What didn't happen on Judy's first encounter with the fountain? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"she fell asleep",
"she explored the tower",
"she made wishes",
"she tried to find her grandparents"
] | 1 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_6 | Who is Honey? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"Judy's sister-in-law",
"Judy's younger sister",
"their mutual friend",
"Judy's grandmother"
] | 0 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_7 | What did Lorraine likely learn by the end of this text? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"be loyal to your friends",
"honesty can keep you out of trouble",
"be skeptical of stories",
"jealousy can get you in trouble"
] | 1 |
47841_OGLZAMCM_8 | What is likely to happen next? | The Haunted Fountain
CHAPTER I
An Unsolved Mystery
“Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,
it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’t
anything that Judy can’t solve.”
Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sisters
now. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should be
loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’s
part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double
wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believe
she’d understand—understand any better than I do.
Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is no
exception.”
“You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, coming
in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited
for lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do have
problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’t
solve.”
“Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention one
single spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’ll
believe you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—”
“Judy Dobbs, remember?”
“Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solved
all those mysteries. I met you when the whole
valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened
by flood and you solved that—”
“That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,
not me. He was the hero without even meaning to
be. He was the one who rode through town and
warned people that the flood was coming. I was off
chasing a shadow.”
“A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.
“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.”
“It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.
“I know now that keeping that promise not
to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and
could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.”
“Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding
her pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.”
“Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talk
about?”
“You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’ve
solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or
two before the flood, but what about the haunted
house you moved into? You were the one who
tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar
and goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasing
ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did
you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.”
“Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,
“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. There
was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but
what she was or how she spoke to me is more than
I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.
And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.
They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with
this house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some of
them when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’re
stored in one end of the attic.”
“Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimed
Lois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party and
show up the spooks?”
“I didn’t say the attic was haunted.”
Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She
wasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,
but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally
told them, the summer before they met. Horace
had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered
that it was Lorraine’s father, Richard Thornton
Lee, who gave him his job with the
Farringdon
Daily Herald
. He had turned in some interesting
church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him
the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that
he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon
where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted
mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and
loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.
Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, she
confessed now as she reviewed everything that had
happened. She just couldn’t help resenting the fact
that her parents left her every summer while they
went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they
think she would do?
“You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had told
her. “I bought you six new books in that mystery
series you like. When they’re finished there are
plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother
never throws anything away. She has magazines she’s
saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for
them she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know how
you love to read.”
“I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—”
Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tired
eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a
vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too
little to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went to
the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It
was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton
and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy
went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who
scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’t
glad to have her.
“You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,
and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinkling
behind her glasses. “What do you propose to do with
yourself this time?”
“Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad say
you have a whole stack of old magazines—”
“In the attic. Go up and look them over if you
can stand the heat.”
Judy went, not to look over the old magazines so
much as to escape to a place where she could have a
good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth
birthday. In another year she would have outgrown
her childish resentment of her parents’ vacation or
be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a
vacation of her own. In another year she would
be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands
and solving a mystery to be known as the
Ghost
Parade
.
“A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be telling
her, “and you solved everything.”
But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had no
idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There
seemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tears
came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As
Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen
on a picture of a fountain.
“A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”
she remembered saying aloud.
Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of
walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett
mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a
fountain still caught and held rainbows like those
she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
But all that was in the future. If anyone had told
the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one
day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in
their faces.
“That tease!”
For then she knew Peter only as an older boy who
used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day
she yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and so
are you!”
Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her a
kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.
The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the
summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and
spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,
she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to
pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with
all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.
“But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenly
exclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—”
A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered
it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother
and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,
“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people
know your wishes instead of muttering them to
yourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Were they?” asked Lois.
She and Lorraine had listened to this much of what
Judy was telling them without interruption.
“That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.
“There weren’t any of them impossible.”
And she went on to tell them how, the very next
day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain
exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center
of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.
Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the
water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy
had stared at them a moment and then climbed the
steps to the pool.
“Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.
“Is this beautiful fountain real?”
A voice had answered, although she could see no
one.
“Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you
shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely
come true.”
“A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed a
tear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.”
“Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will
surely come true,” the voice had repeated.
“But what is there to cry about?”
“You found plenty to cry about back at your
grandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had reminded
her. “Weren’t you crying on my picture up
there in the attic?”
“Then you—you
are
the fountain!” Judy remembered
exclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. It
doesn’t have a voice.”
“Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain had
said in a mysterious whisper.
CHAPTER II
If Wishes Came True
“Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.
“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense any
longer. What did you wish?”
“Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m coming
to that.”
First, she told her friends, she had to think of a
wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in
those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had
been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved
away.
“You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake of
having just one best friend. There wasn’t anybody
in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how
lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,
and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made
little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before
they vanished, and so I began naming the things I
wanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they were
wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I
wasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,
and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began to
think of others that my wishes started to come true.”
“But what were they?” Lois insisted.
Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.
Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied
airily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lots
of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a
G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as far
as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the
spell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anything
more.”
“Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Lois
asked.
“Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots more
things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep
pets, and have a nice home, and—”
“And your wishes all came true!”
“Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the one
about the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister I
wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That
seemed impossible at the time, but the future did
hold a sister for me.”
“It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezing
Lorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you think
sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?”
“Honey and I always do,” she replied “but then
it was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peter
or that he would become a G-man, and he didn’t
know he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But the
strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.”
“Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it was
enchanted?”
Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she
answered, “I was still little girl enough to think so
at the time. I wandered around, growing very
drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into
it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember
waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain
had been a dream.”
“A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure it
wasn’t a flying carpet?”
“No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assured
her, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in a
beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick
with roses. Did I tell you it was June?”
“All the year around?”
Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,
“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a long
way from June to December.”
“Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judy
said, “but I think this one would be beautiful at any
time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,
and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.
I explored the garden all around the fountain.”
“And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dream
you’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’t
you try to solve the mystery?”
“I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “if
I had been older or more experienced. I really should
have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the
secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went
away it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’t
really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing
for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem
impossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorraine
was your friend.”
“I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.
“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.”
“It was nothing compared to the trouble caused by
the Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After that
things started happening so fast that I completely
forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’t
believe I thought about it again until after we moved
to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and
saw the fountain on your lawn.”
“The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”
Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.”
“You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’ve
seen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think the
picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’ll
show you.”
Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while
Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.
Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She had
tasted it too often while she was making it.
“I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided.
Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up
the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously
with cream.
“Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinks
he’s a person. He eats everything we eat, including
lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?
He wants to explore the attic, too.”
“He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if there
are any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle.
Leaving the table, they all started upstairs with
the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her
grandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’s
tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was
removed. But there was still a door closing off the
narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry
reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.
“He can read my mind. He always knows where
I’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open and
the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling
noise came from the floor above.
“Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraid
of,” Judy urged her friends.
“Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”
confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing
room at the top of the last flight of stairs.
“So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitious
about black cats, but they are creepy. Does
Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?”
“Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.
Pausing at still another door that led to the darker
part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,
“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody
care to explore the past?”
The exploration began enthusiastically with Judy
relating still more of what she remembered about
the fountain.
“When I told Grandma about it she laughed and
said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came
true that easily she’d be living in a castle. But would
she?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember this
house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those
you see on that high shelf by the window. I think
she and Grandpa like the way they lived without
any modern conveniences or anything.”
“I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around the
old attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both died
the same winter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they
wished neither of them would outlive the other. If
they did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on more
thoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.
Another could have been to keep the good old days,
as Grandma used to call them. That one came true
in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the
past when they kept all these old things. That’s what
I meant about turning back the clock.”
“If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a little
myself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if things
were the way they used to be when I trusted
Arthur—”
“Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked.
Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois
and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all
she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched
through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine
was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed
monster coming between her and her handsome husband,
Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had
seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness
in Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one of
the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “It
is. It’s the very same one.”
“But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”
Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”
“I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’m
sure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenly
to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.
But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.
If she did, she pretended not to.
“Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d love
to, wouldn’t you, Judy?”
“I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.
“Do you recognize it, too?”
“I think so,” Lois answered after studying a little
more closely the picture they had found. “It looks
like the fountain on the Brandt estate.”
“The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.
“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fanny
all the way to Farringdon.”
“Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “The
Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you
come into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.”
“Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazine
back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly
to her friends. “I do remember a road turning off
into the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.
“I never thought it led to a house, though. There
isn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents
took?”
“Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”
Lois suggested.
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed
trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to
it under one condition. They were not to drive all
the way to the house which, she said, was just over
the hilltop. They were to park the car where no
one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.
“But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy.
“You’ll remember it, won’t you?”
Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.
She and Lois both argued that it would be better to
inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.
“She’d be glad to show us around. This way it
looks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as they
started off in the blue car she was driving.
It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and
easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed
and said if they did find the fountain she thought
she’d wish for one exactly like it.
“Well, you know what your grandmother said
about wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If you
let people know about them instead of muttering
them to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.”
“Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter know
about this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soon
be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur
coat he gave me last year.”
“Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s too
warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this
trip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curves
as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.
The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they
had covered the distance that had seemed such a
long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’s
wagon.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’ve
just about figured out how it happened. I didn’t
think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough
to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked
queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’s
old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had
some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’t
explain what happened afterwards. When I woke
up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,
wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.”
“How could they?” asked Lois.
“Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance to
see how beautiful everything was before—”
Again she broke off as if there were something
she wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare.
“Before what?” questioned Judy.
“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You
were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,
but you never did explain how you got back home,”
Lorraine reminded her.
“Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,
but it’s beginning to come back now. I do remember
driving home along this road. You see, I thought my
grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise
and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.
There wasn’t a house in sight.”
“The Brandt house is just over the top of this next
hill,” Lois put in.
“I know. You told me that. Now I know why I
couldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless old
tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,
I followed it. There’s something about a path in
the woods that always tempts me.”
“We know that, Judy. Honey told us all about
your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.”
“Well, this trail led out of the rose garden where
the hammock was and then through an archway,”
Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomes
peered out at me from unexpected places. I was
actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.
There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heard
the rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew he
was driving off without me.”
“He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,
and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing like
that?”
“I think now it was just to tease me. He did stop
and wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.
“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered
them, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them for
Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as they
turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.
“Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’s
another car coming.”
As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine
ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind
Judy until the car had passed. The man driving
it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember
his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a
long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered
most of his hair.
“What’s the matter with you two?” asked Lois
when the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old for
playing hide and seek?”
“I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorraine
begged. “I don’t think the Brandts live there
any more.”
“Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,
can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly.
She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew
more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.
Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly
road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge
of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very
green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.
The sky was gray with white clouds being driven
across it by the wind.
“There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I can
see it over to the left. It looks like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?”
“It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonder
what it is.”
“I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. It
would be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “But
if there are new people living here they’ll never give
us permission.”
“We might explore it without permission,” Judy
suggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friends
as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the
road. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants to
explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look for
the fountain.”
“Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “It
won’t be enchanted. I told you—”
“You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “If
you know anything about the people who live here
now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,
I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.”
“I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I do
know who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You remember
Roger Banning from school, don’t you?
I’ve seen him around here. His family must have
acquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working on
the estate.”
“Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t you
tell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go places
together.”
“It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.
“I was just out for a drive.”
“You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with a
car of your own. You’re not interested in Roger
Banning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do better
than that. I did know him slightly, but not from
school. The boys and girls were separated and went
to different high schools by the time we moved to
Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a
lot better. He was in our young people’s group at
church.”
“Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longer
mention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.”
“For what?” asked Judy.
Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts
to gossip.
“Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from
his father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of important
business people. I think he forged some legal
documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.
It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her.
Now Judy did remember. It was something she
would have preferred to forget. She liked to think
she was a good judge of character, and she had taken
Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would
never stoop to crime.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”
Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to look
for it, or aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. That’s what we came for. I
just like to know what a tiger looks like before he
springs at me,” Judy explained.
“You seem to think there’s danger in this expedition
of ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine.
“I don’t know what to think. You’re the one who
seems to know the answers, but you’re not telling.
Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’ve
seen that character who drove down this road and,
for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.
Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?”
Lorraine hesitated a moment and then replied
evasively, “People don’t generally enter private
estates without an invitation. That’s all.”
“I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,
“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expect
we’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused
of trespassing.”
“I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as two
dark-coated figures strode down the road toward
them. “You drove right by a
NO TRESPASSING
sign,
and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming to
meet us!” | [
"the girls will be arrested",
"the girls will get back in their car and drive to Judy's house",
"the girls will locate the fountain and make wishes",
"the girls will meet the people living in the Brandt estate"
] | 3 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_1 | What are the aliens in line hoping will happen? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"that they will get paid to work at a zoo on their home planet",
"their talent will win them a trip to Earth",
"that they will be able to pay for a chance to see Earth",
"that they will get to work for the Corrigan Institute"
] | 3 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_2 | Which word least describes the narrator? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"experienced",
"jealous",
"clever",
"confident"
] | 1 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_3 | What doesn't the narrator believe Gorb to be? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"a non-terrestrial",
"an Earthling",
"a hero",
"a con-man"
] | 0 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_4 | What did the Kallerian and the Stortulian have in common? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"they did not like being turned down",
"they both desired a place in the zoo",
"they were unique creatures",
"they planned to kill the narrator if he refused them"
] | 0 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_5 | Why was the Stortulian so upset? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"he really needed the job because he was out of money",
"he was too proud to go back home without what he wanted",
"he knew his wife wanted to come back but couldn't",
"he'd never see his wife again without this man's help"
] | 3 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_6 | What isn't a reason for narrator to be so skeptical of Gorb? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"Gorb looked just like an Earthling",
"Gorb was asking for too much money",
"Gorb had no proof to back up his claims",
"he had never heard of Wazzenazz"
] | 1 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_7 | Why was the narrator in so much trouble? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"he refused to let certain beings go to Earth",
"he killed a non-terrestrial",
"he was responsible for a non-terrestrial death",
"he was conning non-terrestrials to go to Earth"
] | 2 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_8 | What hit the narrator? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"the Stortulian's gun",
"the wall",
"a Ghrynian policeman",
"Gorb"
] | 3 |
51361_Q2HT9US4_9 | Would the narrator consider his trip worthwhile? | Birds of a Feather
By ROBERT SILVERBERG
Illustrated by WOOD
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo
was no problem—they battled for the honor—but
now I had to fight like a wildcat to
keep a display from making a monkey of me!
It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien
life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented
office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see
and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise
in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens
came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of
them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre
beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old
exhibitionist urge.
"Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the
office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to
begin.
The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official
Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were
accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV
and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals
happy wherever I go.
Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim
sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had
saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding
arrival. Stuff like this:
Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive
world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills
of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,
there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of
Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F.
Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to
Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until
2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches
can be yours!
Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand
languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really
packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,
the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the
other species of the universe.
The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first
applicant is ready to see you, sir."
"Send him, her or it in."
The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on
nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a
big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and
five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.
There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,
one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.
His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?"
"That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need
certain information about—"
"I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even
before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not
a fugitive from the law of any world."
"Your name?"
"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald."
I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick
cough. "Let me have that again, please?"
"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for
Raymond."
"Of course, that's not the name you were born with."
The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,
remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of
an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and
shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see."
The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.
"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay
for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to
remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day."
"And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and
transportation."
The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping
on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I
accept the terms!"
I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were
signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into
the other office to sign him up.
I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;
the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him
didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien
who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker
would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get
to Earth. My conscience won't let me really
exploit
a being, but I
don't believe in throwing money away, either.
The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit
has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few
decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was
followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,
four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple
of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being
so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at
anything short of top rate.
Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a
handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply
of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it
a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get
the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.
The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the
Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had
figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.
It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into
the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years
as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in
2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial
beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.
Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,
a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a
scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.
That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,
of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we
advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth
once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.
We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens
before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.
My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I
reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can.
After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new
specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,
fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no
less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.
It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a
Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some
400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see
how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their
upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any
old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.
"One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even
dozen."
He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long
close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took
another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as
I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.
He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was
tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and
though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look
about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job
with your outfit, Corrigan."
"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only."
"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz
XIII."
I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line
at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known
for my sense of humor. Or my generosity."
"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job."
"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as
Earthborn as I am."
"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I
happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists
anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small
and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary
fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your
circus?"
"No. And it's not a circus. It's—"
"A scientific institute. I stand corrected."
There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I
guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on
his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from
such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?"
"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just
the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate
back to colloquial speech."
"Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin
a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith
from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to
Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low
these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb."
He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big
mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a
hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!
Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—"
I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated.
"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big
attraction. I'll—"
"
Good-by, Mr. Gorb!
"
He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to
the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think
it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you
another chance."
He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.
This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get
a job!
But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness
intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's
only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some
real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket
home.
I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that
reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.
The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a
Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I
had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,
and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.
Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the
Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him
officially.
He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high,
and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three
stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,
and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me
immediately to a contract."
"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks."
"You will grant me a contract!"
"Will you please sit down?"
He said sulkily, "I will remain standing."
"As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are
sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed
life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of
trouble.
The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and
this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his
body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket
of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his
warlike race.
I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our
policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our
Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,
because—"
"You will hire me or trouble I will make!"
I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already
carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.
The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have
four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!
For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to
the noble Clan Gursdrinn!"
At the key-word
avenge
, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian
in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he
didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to
Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!"
I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and
one of the most important of those principles is that I never let
myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally
insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?"
He glared at me in silence.
I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest
possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another
Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon
as a vacancy—"
"No. You will hire me now."
"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to
it."
"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!"
"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll
get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another
Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—"
You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a
zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always
the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting
all the others.
I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and
Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.
They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him
away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked
them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,
but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was
out in the hall.
I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next
applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped
open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.
"Come here, you!"
"Stebbins?" I said gently.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he
came running in—"
"Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you,
honored sir!"
"It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least
fifty ahead of him."
"All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might
as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins."
Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.
The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking
creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a
lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His
tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at
full volume.
"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a
being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel
to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with
yourself."
I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already
carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a
female now and—"
"This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?"
I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian
entry. "Yes, that's her name."
The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she!
It is she!"
"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—"
"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,
she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life
and my love."
"Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was
single. It's right here on the chart."
"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors
of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,
languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You
must
take me to
Earth!"
"But—"
"I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must
reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner
flame?
I must bring her back!
"
My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our
organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?"
"Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race,
if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead
lump of stone?"
It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by
sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I
wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel
happy—not to mention footing the transportation.
I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict
on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for
scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in
coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience
lie
for you, can
I?"
"Well—"
"Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right
along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,
I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your
heart to me."
"I thought the truth would move you."
"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent
criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to
me," I said piously.
"Then you will refuse me?"
"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth."
"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?"
There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an
unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of
scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the
undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low
trick like that on our female Stortulian.
I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back
against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is."
The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask
his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a
living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All
is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman."
He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.
I watched him shuffle out. I do have
some
conscience, and I had the
uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to
commit suicide on my account.
About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life
started to get complicated again.
Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason
or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the
day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.
I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's
outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened
and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII
stepped in.
"How did
you
get in here?" I demanded.
"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily.
"Change your mind about me yet?"
"Get out before I have you thrown out."
Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed
my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I
tell you that I
am
Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your
staff."
"I don't care
what
your story is! Get out or—"
"—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.
Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours
outside
is
. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many
times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?"
I scowled at him. "Too damn many."
"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.
I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to
know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan."
I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of
the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,
I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about
threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about
to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling
me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and
go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.
I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to
claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is
that I'm not looking for any of
those
either. Now will you scram or—"
The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,
came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering
metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding
a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came
dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.
"Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—"
Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out
with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!"
Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to
let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.
Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have
notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the
death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!"
"Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—"
An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun
trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it
savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the
sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of
bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.
Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door
flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the
green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down
at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.
"You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked.
"Y-yes."
"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint
being—"
"—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the
untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of
the Ghrynian policemen.
"The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver
of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several
minutes ago."
"And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest
you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than
$100,000 Galactic or two years in prison."
"Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the
Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and
I'm
responsible?"
"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to
this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman."
Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them
away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was
going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I
remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to
come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000
per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.
I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced
arrival.
The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway
and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian
policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a
moment and turned to eye the newcomer.
I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I
resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I
did
come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against
crackpots.
In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer
worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me
to do."
I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers
going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!
He's—"
Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me
flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the
meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I
guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.
Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole
in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I
saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The
man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting
himself off.
He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that
Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get
you."
I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying
fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed
plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the
struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.
"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian
psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely
abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who
caused their trouble. In this case, you."
I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a
full-bodied laugh.
"Funny," I said.
"What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.
"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and
killed
himself
, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and
pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the
tackle job."
"Don't mention it," Gorb said.
I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take
that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the
local laws?"
"The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the
Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian
and the fine of—"
"—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to
Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them
send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out
of this mess with our skins intact."
"Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.
Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.
"Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help
you. I can."
"You?" I said.
"I can get you out of this cheap."
"
How
cheap?"
Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a
specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a
lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?"
I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't
be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they
were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials
ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,
giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.
"Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on
a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and
the contract. Otherwise, nothing."
Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?" | [
"No - it was more trouble than it was worth",
"All of the above",
"No - it nearly cost him his life",
"Yes - he found many new non-terrestrials"
] | 1 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_1 | What is something that isn't true about the man who saved Gabe? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"he's married to the light-haired girl",
"he regrets his past choices",
"he used to be Gabe",
"he plays a dangerous game"
] | 0 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_2 | What is the likeliest reason that Helen married Gabe? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"it was part of the game they're playing",
"she knew the real him",
"he was kind to her for a long time",
"he is good-looking and wealthy"
] | 3 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_3 | What didn't this "bodyguard" do for Gabe? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"tell his wife the truth",
"pulled him out of a helicopter crash",
"chase him across multiple planets",
"stop him from being beaten up"
] | 0 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_4 | What is foliage? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"a person's ticket into zarquil",
"a transportation pass",
"the leaves on trees",
"the local currency"
] | 3 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_5 | How does Helen feel about her husband? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"he treats her well, but she's just not in love with him",
"she misses the way he used to be",
"she wishes she'd never met him",
"she's in love with his true self"
] | 2 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_6 | Why does Gabe travel to seedy places? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"so he can play more zarquil",
"he thinks he can escape from his \"bodyguard\"",
"it's what his wife is comfortable with",
"it's the only places he can afford"
] | 1 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_7 | How are Helen and Gabriel Lockhard similar? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"they both despise Gabe",
"they are both running away from something",
"they both seek revenge",
"they both regret playing zarquil"
] | 0 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_8 | What would be the worst thing for Helen to do next? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"divorce her husband",
"try to find the real Gabriel Lockhard",
"continue living her life with her husband",
"play zarquil"
] | 2 |
50988_9Z74IVOZ_9 | How do you win at zarquil? | Bodyguard
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM
Illustrated by CAVAT
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course
a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that
he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me."
You could use one
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.
Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?"
The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination
bodyguard
, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.
II
It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no
condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.
"Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he
shook his handsome head.
"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly,
referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,
and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.
Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that
when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little
town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed
on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a
short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.
To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto
the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the
young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there
at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to
remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment
before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.
Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him
speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him
a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have
thrown me back in."
"And that's no joke," the fat man agreed.
The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall
that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?"
"Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked,
glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.
"
Mrs.
," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel
Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.
"Pretty bauble, isn't she?"
"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said,
looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up
from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope
you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming
car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.
Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.
There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the
lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the
newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and
beginning to slide downhill....
Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.
There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,
which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and
his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket
closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your
friend to me, Gabe?"
"I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's
no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?"
"Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification
card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and
Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail
milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks
ago, and now he isn't ... anything."
"You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token
of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier
with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only
casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation
held little gratitude.
The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money,
thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband,
"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the
future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let
something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?"
Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be
careful."
When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,
the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the
commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others
had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate
or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known
colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from
one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you
could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it
extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.
Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care.
Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were
many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word
implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so
deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of
"crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to
zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly
applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as
nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;
otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it
profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's
seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien
human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with
interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many
slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them
zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.
Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been
big money in musical chairs as such.
When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as
they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the
law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court
could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life
spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital
punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the
terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons
could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired
after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because
trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between
Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance
of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.
The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in
which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to
conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.
But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence
of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive
light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was
the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting
involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.
The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,
when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into
darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to
have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew
everybody else far too well.
The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in
coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually
disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed
too logical for the man he was haunting.
However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the
heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green
creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.
"One," the fat man answered.
III
The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays
from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile
patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular
features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine
Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only
weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you
two to come out to a place like this?"
"I really think Gabriel
must
be possessed...." the girl said, mostly
to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be
until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.
It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was
growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect
them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable
and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.
The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you
are
the
same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before
that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?"
The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of
them."
"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people
who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she
reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale
hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not
been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.
He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.
"But why do you do it?
Why!
Do you like it? Or is it because of
Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here
and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was
included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;
is that it?"
"Ask him."
"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I
didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what
we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I
think?"
There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she
wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or
third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it
respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she
must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking
for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,
she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so
casually.
It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her
husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from
some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about
herself. The thin young man began to cough again.
Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk
of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships
embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow
she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a
barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who
followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of
them would stay....
"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then
do you keep helping him?"
"I am not helping
him
. And he knows that."
"You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always
change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to
identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's
something about you that doesn't change."
"Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed
him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out
from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice
less impersonal, "for your sake."
She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but
she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an
outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had
known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect
that he was even more closely involved than that.
"Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the
subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the
risk of getting a bad one?"
"This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's
supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical
examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading
me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty
of foliage."
"How—long will it last you?"
"Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if
that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be
expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then
it was tough on me too, wasn't it?"
"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why
are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard
for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should
know him better than most.
"Ask your husband."
The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,
snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,
and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to
death."
He signaled and a cab came.
"Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver
lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm
getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing.
"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,
in the long run, be most beneficial for my face."
"Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect
except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you
cannot play."
"Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.
"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house."
"But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz
shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee."
The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This
game is really clean."
"In a town like this?"
"That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils
quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through
long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His
heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been
velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung
with him.
"We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole
set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by
no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another
town where they're not so particular?"
The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.
He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.
And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he
wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was
he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own
discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact
that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?
Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the
hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day
win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original
casing had?
He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he
would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,
seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened
and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that
the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand
how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of
information.
The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they
detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it
happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions
to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good
health."
The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured
aloud. "A criminal then."
The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive.
"Male?"
"Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate
standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the
curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it
kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had
also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials
exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or
biological impossibility, no one could tell.
It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever
been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body,
Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held
its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite
being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had
been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on
Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,
"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em."
"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take
such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?"
"Thirty thousand credits."
"Why, that's three times the usual rate!"
"The other will pay five times the usual rate."
"Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific
risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he
himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all
the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.
He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
This might be a lucky break for me after all
, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.
I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it.
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel
Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It
is
a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be
his
wife then. That would be
nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Sure
, she thought,
I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and
thrill-mills.
Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only
once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go
with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash
that experience from her mind or her body.
"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?"
she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,
does he?"
"I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get
it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he
looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed.
"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a
hulk I had!"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to
match your character. Pity you could only change one." | [
"there is no such thing as winning zarquil",
"by finding your body and getting back to it",
"by defeating other participants",
"by being a better person after playing"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_1 | What isn't something the guest expects the younger man to do? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"steal something from a museum",
"take credit for an invention from the future",
"run the time machine",
"listen to his directions very carefully"
] | 3 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_2 | What don't they know about the time machine? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"who invented it",
"what the third set of buttons do",
"where it gets stored when not in use",
"how to make it go back and forth in time"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_3 | Which item doesn't get mentioned while they're in the year 2150? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"flying vehicles",
"diamond makers",
"an elevator that you can't feel move",
"a modified English language"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_4 | Which word doesn't describe the security guard? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"knowledgeable",
"friendly",
"curious",
"helpful"
] | 2 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_5 | Which isn't a feeling that the older man expects of the younger man? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"anger",
"worry",
"confusion",
"surprise"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_6 | Which isn't something the guard did? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"help him carry the atomic generator to the time machine",
"help him find the atomic generator",
"hand him the patent and other helpful information",
"give him time to take it out of the building"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_7 | Which word doesn't describe the people of this futuristic city? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"helpful",
"oblivious",
"happy",
"busy"
] | 3 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_8 | What does the older man plan to do after this event? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"retire",
"grow his company and make more money",
"go to another dimension",
"travel back in time again"
] | 0 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_9 | Why does the older man know so much? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"he was the original inventor",
"he was in the same situation 30 years ago",
"because he had a kid just like this man",
"he's seen it happen by repeatedly travelling in time"
] | 1 |
51046_ILVOCQ22_10 | What does the older man know the younger man will do? | ... and it comes out here
By LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel
with ... everything has a beginning and an end.
But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit
like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.
You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always
have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We
don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.
Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.
Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you
aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the
machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's
hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used
to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.
You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?
And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for
me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same
person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just
how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or
we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.
Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more
years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt
my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.
Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself
for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two
of the same people. You
sense
things. So I'll simply go ahead talking
for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come
along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling
what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I
might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the
same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to
try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.
So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.
You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty
obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen
it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and
a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,
and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes
atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man
who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but
you'll want to go along.
I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I
cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,
and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of
foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that
prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section
isn't protected, though.
You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,
and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but
it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no
there
. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can
guess how things are.
You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out
through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,
all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just
turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your
arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening
and you don't try it again.
Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.
You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth
dimension?" you ask.
Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask
that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it
to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.
"Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might
be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without
traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent
the machine and I don't understand it."
"But...."
I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going
crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of
course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have
been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first,
then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and
saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once
that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space
dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got
bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier
for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as
I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer.
Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,
apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.
You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either
carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small
increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't
think about that then, either.
I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a
bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide
open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
"No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither
time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel
gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a
gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is
responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the
idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You
feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe
easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in
the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement
floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the
machine, just as I do.
I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort
of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels
comfortable.
"I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in
this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to
pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that
atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some
identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they
still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a
pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and
I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming
back with you."
You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this,
anyway?"
I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess,
it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an
interstellar civilization."
You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small
flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,
and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a
coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's
no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the
future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with
nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't
worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,
grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you."
You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.
You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,
you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward
a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking
questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.
You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the
restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at
them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.
Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.
The signs are very quiet and
dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,
and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign
that announces:
Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viin*s, and
x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!
But
there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with
passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get
the hang of the spelling they use, though.
Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.
Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin
suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,
people don't change much.
You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might
be papers on tapes.
"Where can I find the Museum of Science?"
"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around
you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using
stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.
You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface
of the walk:
Miuzi:m *v Syens
. There's an arrow pointing and you turn
left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with
faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building
lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the
maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the
information that it is the museum.
You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You
hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair
is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and
go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs
in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other
guard.
What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort
of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather
pleasant.
"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and
Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study
whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
"Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce
guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your
display of atomic generators."
He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but
obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight
of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got
the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using
them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could
not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a
hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.
Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our
oldest tapes."
You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building
seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your
right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly
plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it
goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row
of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny
toward you.
"Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical
gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known
technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats
in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during
morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,
press the red button for the number of stones you desire."
You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the
corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of
spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is
labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with
miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then
there is one labeled
Wep:nz
, filled with everything from a crossbow
to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,
marked
Fynal Hand Arm
. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big
place that bears a sign,
Mad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez
.
By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of
thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking
in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.
You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a
lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,
and the latest one, marked
2147—Rincs Dyn*pat:
, is about the size
of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,
but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign
on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining
that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically
final form.
You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving
his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that
everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the
fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator
built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,
and full patent application.
They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,
producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any
chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,
and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being
fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the
outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being
investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the
addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added
since the original.
So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box
with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,
plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,
Drop BBs or wire
here
. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on
each side.
"Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of
the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly
as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.
Like to have me tell you about it?"
"Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be
conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls
something out of his pocket and stares at it.
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is
arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine
some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared
to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?"
You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up
to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it
transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned
thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge
it, either.
You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you
can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or
some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But
they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.
And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's
probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it
moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch
it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.
Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I
haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.
You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be
carried.
You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,
if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time
machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will
happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a
lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But
maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,
after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I
probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all
seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend
down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing
happens, though.
You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the
world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate
is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe
a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.
Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in
front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past
people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front
of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out
about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you
dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and
on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop
catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake
your head and come up for air.
"I—I left my money home," you begin.
The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you
an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches
out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency
request. Would you help this gentleman?"
The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?"
You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you
mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other
side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.
Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the
street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming
at you both.
That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might
like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation
here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there
before you.
And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach
it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod
at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some
dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too
dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.
"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says.
"They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A
good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in
this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and
we'll pick it up."
You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and
take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps
you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems
to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction
and heads back to the museum.
You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and
the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.
There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.
You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is
right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.
Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It
forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,
gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how
a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What
the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has
closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at
the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light.
You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back
in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering
here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then
a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.
You've located it.
You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers
down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You
reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one
beside it and you finally decide on that.
Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating
it. Your finger touches the red button.
You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally
doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying
to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around
you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't
been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of
light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.
It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your
nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with
some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30
years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't
because there is only one of you this time.
Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in
your own back yard.
You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the
machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,
land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up
yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,
you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic
generator and taking it inside.
It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some
plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all
things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.
But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice
something.
Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires
missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like
the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.
And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you
get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you
feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't
insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward
in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the
replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of
the makeshift job you've just done.
But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are
all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and
that the date of the patent application is 1951.
It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the
future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be
put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be
the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to
yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to
yourself....
Who invented what? And who built which?
Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little
kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed
history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to
be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the
worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as
common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital
letter.
But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.
One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks
calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few
provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine
that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be
knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your
view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.
But now....
Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me
without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there
came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.
Let's go. | [
"exactly as he's been told",
"invent the next great invention",
"change the future",
"fight with him and try not to go"
] | 0 |
51433_HIJDICJX_1 | What don't Mia and Ri have in common? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"they both think Extrone is going to kill them",
"they've killed farn beasts",
"they're businessmen",
"they both dislike Extrone"
] | 0 |
51433_HIJDICJX_2 | Which doesn't describe Extrone? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"excitable",
"generous",
"wealthy",
"powerful"
] | 1 |
51433_HIJDICJX_3 | Why are Ri and Mia the guides? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"they're part of Extrone's Hunting Club",
"they're the best guides around",
"they have experience with the beasts",
"they needed the money Extrone was going to pay them"
] | 2 |
51433_HIJDICJX_4 | Why is Mia most afraid of Extrone? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"he has the military behind him",
"they know too much about him now",
"he knows too many of their secrets",
"he's the only one with a weapon"
] | 1 |
51433_HIJDICJX_5 | How is their world different from ours? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"there is distrust among the citizens",
"the government is run the same",
"they both have powerful armies",
"powerful people control what happens next"
] | 1 |
51433_HIJDICJX_6 | Who does Extrone trust the most? | HUNT the HUNTER
BY KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE
Of course using live bait is the best
way to lure dangerous alien animals ...
unless it turns out that you are the bait!
"We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude
field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He
drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger,
"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them."
Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?"
Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't
know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the
ridge, too."
Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day
crossing the ridge," he said.
"Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!"
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up
ahead of us."
Extrone raised his eyebrows.
This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.
"It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!"
Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm
glad we won't have to cross the ridge."
Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir."
"We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it
tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry."
"Yes, sir."
Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called.
"Pitch camp, here!"
He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's
party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!"
And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his
collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd
hate to think of making him climb that ridge."
Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's
fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other
side. I told him so."
Ri shrugged hopelessly.
Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he
wanted to get us in trouble."
"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side
of the ridge, too."
"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for
us."
Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right."
"It's the Hunting Club he don't like."
"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least,
then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody
else?"
Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for
it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less
than I pay my secretary."
"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge."
"Hey, you!" Extrone called.
The two of them turned immediately.
"You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some
tracks."
"Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their
shoulder straps and started off.
Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's
wait here," Mia said.
"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in."
They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not
professional guides.
"We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the
forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near
enough for the farn beast to charge us."
They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.
"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go
it alone. Damn him."
Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot.
By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we
were here."
Mia said, "The first time,
we
weren't guides. We didn't notice it so
much then."
They fought a few yards more into the forest.
Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a
blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but
the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.
"This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year
ago!"
Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?"
"No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't
think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we
leased from the Club. Except the one
he
brought."
"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia
asked. "You think it's their blast?"
"So?" Ri said. "But who are they?"
It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been
hunters. They'd have kept the secret better."
"We didn't do so damned well."
"We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had
heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't
our fault Extrone found out."
"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of
us."
Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot,
too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told
Extrone we'd hunted this area."
"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that."
"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to
the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute."
There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.
"
I
didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said.
Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did."
"Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To
hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,
too, when the hunt's over."
Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just
anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even
him
. And besides,
why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too
many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself."
Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the
blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back."
"What'll we tell him?"
"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?"
They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.
"It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously.
"The breeze dies down."
"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There
must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this."
"There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away.
Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot
of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's
damned funny, when you think about it."
Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said.
When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,
obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the
outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the
blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over
Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled
into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its
blasts.
Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat
disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.
Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking
officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,
the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and
knees almost stiff.
"What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked.
They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began.
"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone
demanded, ominously not raising his voice.
"Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted
a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir."
Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there,
gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?"
"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir."
"So?" Extrone mocked.
"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could
locate and destroy it."
Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned
away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring
me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm
staying here."
The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...."
Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was
an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,
didn't you?"
"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir."
"You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said.
"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a
long range bombardment, sir."
Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.
And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you
can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway."
"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir."
Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll
lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.
I'm quite safe here, I think."
The bearer brought Extrone his drink.
"Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers.
Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.
Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the
tangle of forest.
Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,
casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot
breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.
Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,
listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to
his tent.
"Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.
"Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?"
"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east."
Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on
your
trip?"
Ri shifted. "Yes, sir."
Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked
without any politeness whatever.
Ri obeyed the order.
The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,
costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The
floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly
and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the
left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.
They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was
electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to
the bed, sat down.
"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said.
"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir."
Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are
envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent."
Ri looked away from his face.
"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have
never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't
seen
a farn beast."
Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's
glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir."
"Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand
that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their
planets."
"I meant in our system, sir."
"Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his
sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts
in our system."
Ri waited uneasily, not answering.
"Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if
you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?"
Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would
have been."
Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you
to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to
come along as my guide."
"It was an honor, sir."
Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was
safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to
find such an illustrious guide."
"... I'm flattered, sir."
"Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it,
when you discovered the farn beast in our own system."
"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,
sir...."
"Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved
his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave,
know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best."
Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir."
Extrone bent forward. "
Know
me and love me."
"Yes, sir.
Know
you and love you, sir," Ri said.
"Get out!" Extrone said.
"It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him."
Mia nodded.
The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,
were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and
bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a
central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.
"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what
we've read about."
Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to
understand a lot of things, after seeing him."
Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.
"It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid
he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,
me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us
first."
Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have
influence. He couldn't just like that—"
"He could say it was an accident."
"No," Ri said stubbornly.
"He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe
anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it."
"It's getting cold," Ri said.
"Listen," Mia pleaded.
"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.
Everybody would
know
we were lying. Everything they've come to
believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every
picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.
He
knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he
couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is
not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A
bearer overheard them talking. They don't
want
to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from
the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were
ever
plotting
against him. Not even at first. I think they
helped
him, don't you
see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army
put
him in
power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?
You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the
alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.
"
Think.
If he tells them to, they will. They trust him."
Ri looked around at the shadows.
"That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been
preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why
Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from
learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep
them from exposing
him
to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled
like we were, so easy."
"No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance."
"You know that's not right."
Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to
talk like this. I don't even want to listen."
"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command
all
their loyalties.
To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.
He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to
tell the truth."
"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong."
Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even
guess?"
Ri swallowed sickly.
"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?"
Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like
that."
With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.
The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,
uncontaminated.
And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the
flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around
the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.
"Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding
table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of
various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher
and a drinking mug.
Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his
conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with
water and spat on the ground.
"Lin!" he said.
His personal bearer came loping toward him.
"Have you read that manual I gave you?"
Lin nodded. "Yes."
Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very
ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for
guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,
twenty years ago, damn them."
Lin waited.
"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me."
"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?"
"I believe they're carnivorous, sir."
"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only
information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of
course, two businessmen."
"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of
tearing a man—"
"An alien?" Extrone corrected.
"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an
alien to pieces, sir."
Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?"
Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir."
"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But
you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?"
Lin shrugged. "Maybe."
"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how
wonderful it feels to have people
all
afraid of you."
"The farn beasts, according to the manual...."
"You are very insistent on one subject."
"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I
was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of
aliens. Sir."
"All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful."
In the distance, a farn beast coughed.
Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut
a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get
the hell over here!"
Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.
Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked
leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at
the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their
sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy
breathing.
Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank
deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made
oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.
Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen
fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks
for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the
tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.
Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a
powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained
fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a
folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered
two-way communication set.
Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,
arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to
Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.
When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers
slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,
he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,
reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.
"For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.
"Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be
important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The
bearer twiddled the dials.
"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother
me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't
you?"
"Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right
in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir."
"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone
tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back,
find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's
important."
"Yes, sir."
Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and
perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.
Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining
bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.
"I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About
a quarter ahead. It looks fresh."
Extrone's eyes lit with passion.
Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I
think."
"Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward
and look at the spoor."
Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too."
Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood
up.
"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said.
"One is enough in
my
camp."
The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved
agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to
the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering
hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.
"This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started
off.
They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more
alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a
restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to
bring up the column?"
The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.
Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.
The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.
"They're moving away," Lin said.
"Damn!" Extrone said.
"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and
fast, too."
"Eh?" Extrone said.
"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track
down a man for as long as a day."
"Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking
them? Why not make them come to us?"
"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have
surprise on our side."
"You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. "
We
won't be
the—ah—the bait."
"Oh?"
"Let's get back to the column."
"Extrone wants to see you," Lin said.
Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.
"What's he want to see
me
for?"
"I don't know," Lin said curtly.
Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously
at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a
little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to
do
anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...."
"You better come along," Lin said, turning.
Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,
ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where
Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.
Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me
what they look like," he said suddenly.
"Well, sir, they're ... uh...."
"Pretty frightening?"
"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir."
"But
you
weren't afraid of them, were you?"
"No, sir. No, because...."
Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for
me."
"I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.
Lin's face was impassive.
"Of
course
you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A
good, long, strong rope."
"What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified.
"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as
bait."
"No!"
"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you
can
scream,
by the way?"
Ri swallowed.
"We could find a way to make you."
There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,
creeping toward his nose.
"You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll
shoot the animal before it reaches you."
Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?"
Extrone shrugged.
"I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands
were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.
He
killed a farn beast before
I
did, sir. And last night—last
night, he—"
"He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.
Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir.
That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.
He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,
sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I
wouldn't...."
Extrone said, "Which one is he?"
"That one. Right over there."
"The one with his back to me?"
"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir."
Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle
and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see."
Ri was greenish. "You ... you...."
Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist."
"Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't
want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything
should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it."
"Tie it," Extrone ordered.
"No, sir. Please. Oh,
please
don't, sir."
"Tie it," Extrone said inexorably.
Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.
They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.
Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep
toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,
half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they
staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base
of a scaling tree.
"You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed
across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I
imagine."
Ri was almost slobbering in fear.
"Let me hear you scream," Extrone said.
Ri moaned weakly.
"You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward
a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.
Ri screamed.
"See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I
want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I
think."
Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark
peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.
Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.
Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller
crotch.
Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the
excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt."
"I feel it," Lin said.
Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?"
"Yes."
"That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the
weapon.
The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled
Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,
underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's
screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.
Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,
jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's
face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against
them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.
Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.
A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.
Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard."
"We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said.
Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like
this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I
know."
Lin nodded.
"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing
that matters."
"It's not
only
the killing," Lin echoed.
"You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a
minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going
to kill it?"
"I know," Lin said.
"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too."
The farn beast coughed again; nearer.
"It's a different one," Lin said.
"How do you know?"
"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?"
"Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now
let's hear you really scream!"
Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether
tree, his eyes wide.
"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said.
"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He
opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it."
He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,
imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.
Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they
really will come to your bait."
Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.
"I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I
think."
Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to.
For food. For safety."
"No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting."
"Killing?"
"Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly.
The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and
there was a noise of crackling underbrush.
"He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to
scream good."
Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully
eying the forest across from the watering hole.
Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!"
The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his
lap.
The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,
swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.
Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs
behind them, rattling leaves.
"Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!"
"Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved
the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath
beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.
The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.
"Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!"
Ri began to scream again.
Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin
waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.
The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing
a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.
"Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully.
And then the aliens sprang their trap. | [
"Ri",
"Mia",
"businessmen",
"Lin"
] | 3 |
Subsets and Splits