AUGUST • 1963

50C

HOT
|PLAI\IET
Ha! Clement

THE
PAIN PEDDLERS
Robert
SHverberg

-D M

""“Learthbound
S ]\Lester Del Rey
^
>%]

and
Clifford D
Simak
 ALL STORIES NEW

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AUGUST, 1963 • VOL.

CONTENTS
21, NO. 6

FREDERIK PDHL
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 SPACEWAR, 1963
¥3 EMEMBER M.I.T.’s
trial design course a few
years ago? It was a simple term
project, designing cars, clothes,
houses and so on for an export
market . except that the export
. .
market was a little remote, being
a planet of the star Arcturus, and
the customers were three-legged,
light-framed, non-human
imaginary.
Well, they’ve done it again.
This time it’s M.I.T.’s computer
section that is borrowing from the
science-fiction magazines.
dropped in not long ago to see
what was going on and had the
unanticipated pleasure of fight-
ing a full-fledged space war.
The hardware behind the game
is a computer, programmed with
all it needs to know about space
indus- Fun? Sure, but that’s only the
beginning. Feed in a few more in-
structions and your rocket be-
comes a battleship equipped with
a dozen space torpedoes.
fire them at will,
you
hit with them on the screen
goes up in a satisfying, soundless
pyrotechnic flare. Another tape
— and puts another ship on the screen,
with its own controls and its own
torpedoes. Go ahead: You be
Dick Seaton and we’ll be the
Fenachrone, and may the best
We space warrior win
Want more excitement? Add
another tape, and one of your
controls will shoot you into hyper-
space at a critical moment. Your
ship disappears from the tube,
and reappears, a random interval
later, at a random point in space
Secrets
You can entrusted
and whatever to a
few
. . .
THERE are some things that cannot organization) an age-old brotherhood
be generally told — things you ought to of learning, have preserved this secret
know. Great truths are dangerous to wisdom in their archives for centu-
some— but factors for personal power ries. They now invite you to share the
and accomplishment in the hands of practical helpfulness of their teaching.
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thousands of men and women who pri- I use my faculties and powers of mind.
et ship across a cathode-screen designers who are thus learning vately use them in their homes today. '
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Name
readout. Swing your control to what the darn things are capable I
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The Rosicrucians (not a religious I City I

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all controls neutral and it drifts. — FREDERIK POKE Rosicrucians CAMORO SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.SA.

4
 HOT PLANET By HAL CLEMENT

Illustrated by FINLAY

6 GALAXY HOT PLANET 7

 teen different samples of rock and I’llhave a really precise check in
Mercury had no atmosphere dust. I ha^e examined in detail an hour, but I can tell right now
that you have about one and a
— everyone knew that. Why
twelve
looked
crystal growths
vaguely like vegetation.
which
half metric tons to split up among
was it developing one now? Nothing was alive or contained the three of you.
living things by any standards I “Ideal departure time is three
could conscientiously set.” hundred ten hours away, as you
I take all of them to make any Mardikian’s gesture might have all know. We
can stay here until
sense out of it.” meant sympathy. then, or go into a parking-and-
WIND which had nearly Schlossberg nodded; the words “Camille?” survey orbit at almost any time
turned the Albireo’s landing had not been necessary. His as- “I may as well stop now as any before then. You have all the sur-
into a disaster instead of a mathe- tronomical program had been one never be through. Tape vey you need, I should think,
time. I’ll
matical exercise was still playing of those sabotaged by the transfer
didn’t make much difference to from the other time. But suit
tunes about the fins and landing of tapes to the seismic survey.
me, but I wish I knew what yourselves.”
legs as Schlossberg made his way “I just hoped,” he said. “We soon be space-sick
weight of specimens I could take “I’d just as
down to Deck Five. each have an idea why Mercury home.” as seasick,” remarked
Camille
The noise didn’t bother him par- developed an atmosphere during “Eileen?” Mardikian’s glance Burkett. “I hate to think that
still
ticularly, though the endless seis- the last few decades, but I guess the entire planet is as shivery as
at the stratigrapher took the place
mic tremors made him dislike the the high school kids on Earth will of the actual question. the spot we picked.”
ladders. But just now he was able know whether it’s right before we “Cam speaks for me, except Willard Rowson smiled. “You
to ignore both. He was curious — do. I’m resigned to living in a that I could have used any more researchers told me where to land
though not hopeful. chess-type universe —
few and tape you could have spared. What after ten days in orbit mapping
“Is there anything at all ob- simple rules, but infinite com- have gone.” this rockball. I set you justwhere
I is
vious on the last sets of tapes, binations of them. But it would “All right, that leaves me, the you asked. If you’d found even
Joe?” be nice to know an answer some- tape-thief. The last spools are in five tons of juice we could use in
Mardikian, the geophysicist, time.” the seismographs now, and will the reaction tanks I could still
shrugged. “Just what you’d ex- “So would. As a matter of
it
start running out in seventeen take you to another one if you —
pect ... on a planet which has at fact, I need to know a couple hours. The tractors will start out could agree which one. I hate to
least one quake in each fifty-mile- right now. From you. How close on their last rounds in sixteen, say ‘Don’t blame me,’ but I can’t
square area every five minutes. to finished are the other programs and should be back in roughly a think of anything else that fits.”
You know yourself we had a nice — or what’s left of them?” week. Will, does that give you “So we sit until the last of the
when
seismic program set up, but “I’m all set,” replied Schloss- enough to figure the weights we tractors is back with the precious
we touched down we found we berg. “I have a couple of instru- rockhounds can have on the re- seismo tapes, playing battleship
couldn’t carry it out. We’ve done ments still monitoring the sun turn trip?” while our back teeth are being
our best with the natural tremors
— incidentally stealing most of
just in case, but everything in the shaken out by earthquakes ex- —
revised program on tape.”
is >’|''HE ALBIREO’S captain nod- cuse the word. What a thrill!
the record tapes the other pro- “Good. Tom, any use asking ded. “Close enough. There Glorious adventure!” Zaino, the
jects would have used. We
have you?” really hasn’t beenmuch question communications specialist who
a lot of nice information for the The biologist grimaced. “I’ve sinceit became evident we’d find had been out of a job almost con-
computers back home; but it will been shown two hundred and six- stantly since the landing, spoke
nothing for the mass tanks here.

8 GALAXY HOT PLANET 9

sourly. The captain was the only
one who saw fit to answer.
“If you want adventure, you
made a mistake exploring space.
The only space adventures I’ve
heard of are second-hand stories
builton guesswork; the people
who really had them weren’t
around to tell about it. Unless Dr.
Marini discovers a set of Mer-
curian monsters at the last minute
and they invade the ship or cut
off one of the tractors, I’m afraid
you’ll have to do without adven-
tures.” Zaino grimaced.
“That sounds funny coming
from a spaceman. Captain. I
The radioman looked around
The geologists and the
hopefully.
biologist shook their heads nega-
tively, firmly and unanimously;
but the astronomer pondered for
a moment. Zaino watched tensely.
“It may be all right,” Schloss-
berg said at last. “What I want
to get is a set of wind, gas pres-
sure, gas temperature and gas
composition measures around the
route. I didn’t expect to be more
meteorologist than astronomer grudges. Matter of fact, I’m even
when we left Earth, and didn’t a little uneasy about having the
have exactly the right equipment. girls along, though I’m no miso-
Hargedon and Aiello helped me “Remember though, it wasn’t gynist.”
improvise some, and this is the made just for talking into.” “Girls? They’re not — ”

didn’t really mean adventure, first chance to use it on Darkside. Schlossberg, now on his feet, cut “There goes your foot again.
though; all I want is something to If you can learn what has to be in quickly. Even Harmon is about ten years
do besides betting whether the done with it before starting time, “Come on, Arnie. We’ll have to older than you, I suppose. But
next quake will come in one min- though, you are welcome to my suit up to see the equipment; it’s they’re girls to me. What’s more
ute or five. I haven’t even had to place.” outside.” important, they no doubt think
fix a suit-radio since we touched He shepherded the radioman to of themselves as girls.”
down. How about my going out 'T'HE COMMUNICATOR got the hatch at one side of the deck “Even Dr. Burkett? That is —
with one of the tractors on this to his feet fast enough to and shooed him down toward the I mean — ”

last trip, at least?” leave the deck in Mercury’s engine and air lock levels. Both “Even Dr. Burkett. Here, get
“It’s all right with me,” replied feeble gravity. were silent for some moments; into your suit. And maybe you’d
Rowson, “but Dr. Mardikian runs “Lead me to it. Doc. I guess I but safely out of earshot of Deck better take out the mike. It’ll be
the professional part of this oper- can learn to read a home-made Five the younger man looked up enough if you can listen for the
ation. I require that Spurr, Track- weathervane!” and spoke. next hour or two.” Zaino made no
man, Hargedon and Aiello go as “Is that merely bragging, or a “You needn’t push. Doc. I answer, suspecting with some jus-
them even
drivers, since without challenge?” drawled a voice wasn’t going to make anything of tice that anything he said would
a minor mechanical problem which had not previously joined it. Luigi was right, and I asked for be wrong.
would be more than an adven- •the discussion. Zaino flushed a it.” The astronomer slowed a bit Each made final checks on the
ture.As I recall it. Dr. Harmon, bit. in his descent. other’s suit; then they descended
Dr. Schlossberg, Dr. Marini and “Sorry, Luigi,” he said hastily. “I wasn’t really worried,” he one more level to the airlock.
Dr. Mardikian are scheduled to “I didn’t mean it just that way. replied, “but we have several This occupied part of the same
go; but if any one of them is But I still think I can run the months yet before we can get deck as the fusion plants, below
willing to let you take his or her stuff.” away from each other, and I don’t the wings and reaction mass tanks
place, I certainly don’t mind.” “Likely enough,” Aiello replied. like talk that could set up but above the main engine. Its

10 GALAXY HOT PLANET 11

outer door was just barely big
enough to admit a spacesuited
person. Even with the low air
pressure carried by spaceships, a
large door area meant large total
force on jamb, hinges and locks.
It opened onto a small balcony
from which a ladder led to the
ground. The two men paused on
the balcony to look over the
landscape.
This hadn’t changed noticeably
since the last time either had been
out, though there might have
been some small difference in the
volcanic cones a couple of miles
away to the northeast. The fur-
rows down the sides of these,
which looked as though they had
been cut by water but were ac-
tually bone-dry ash slides, were
always undergoing alteration as
gas from below kept blowing fresh
scoria fragments out of the cra-
ters.
^1 'HE SPINES — steep, jagged
-* fragments of rock which thrust
upward from the plain beyond
and to both sides of the cones
seemed dead as ever.
The level surface between the
Albireo and the cones was
more interesting. Mardikian and
Schlossberg believed it to be a
lava sheet dating from early in
Mercury’s history,
volatilesubstances
when
still
more
existed
in the surface rocks to cut down
their viscosity when molten. They
12
supposed that much —
perhaps this would melt its way to the than a luxury this close to the
most —
of the surface around surface, giving the zone a period
of intense volcanic activity and,
sun. The tractors were parked in
this shadow, and beside and be-
the “twilight” belt had been
incidentally, giving the planet a tween them were piles of equip-
flooded by this very liquid lava,
temporary atmosphere. ment and specimens. The appara-
which had cooled to a smoother
The idea was reasonable. It tus Schlossberg had devised was
surface than most Earthly lava
had, the astronomer admitted, beside the tractor at the north
flows.
been suggested long before to end of the line, just inside the
How long had stayed cool
it
account for supposed vulcanism shaded area.
they didn’t guess. But both men
on the moon. It justified the care- It was still just inside the shade
felt sure that Mercury must have
ful examination that Schlossberg when they finished, four hours
periodic upheavals as heat ac-
cumulated inside it —
heat com- and Zaino gave the plain before
they descended the ladder; for it
later. Hargedon had joined them
during the final hour and helped
ing not from radioactivity but
made reasonable the occasional pack the equipment in the tractor
from tidal energy. Mercury’s or-
changes which were observed to he was to drive. Zaino had had
bit is l^ighly eccentric. At peri-
occur in the pattern of cracks no trouble in learning to make
helion, tidal force tries to pull it
weaving over its surface. the observations Schlossberg
apart along the planet-to-sun line,
No one was certain just how wanted, and the youngster was
while at aphelion the tidal force
permanent the local surface was almost unbearably cocky. Schloss-
is less and the little world’s own
gravity tries to bring it back to
— though no one could really berg hoped, as they returned to
on board the
justify feeling safer the Albireo, that no one would
a spherical shape. The real change
Albireo than outside on the lava. murder the communications ex-
in form is not great, but a large
If anything really drastic hap>- pert in the next twelve hours.
force working through even a
pened, the ship would be no pro- There would be nothing to worry
small amount of distance can
tection. about after the trip started;
mean a good deal of energy.
If the energy can’t leak out — The sun, hanging just above Hargedon was quite able to keep
and Mercury’s rocks conduct heat
the horizon slightly to the A^atch-
er’s right, cast long shadows which
anyone in his place without being
nasty about it. If Zaino had been
no better than those of Earth
— the temperature must rise.
made the cracks stand out clear- going with Aiello or Harmon —
— Sooner or later, the men ar-
ly; as far as either
nothing
man
had changed recently.
could see, but he wasn’t, and it was point-
less to dream up trouble.
gued, deeply buried rock must
They descended the ladder care- And no trouble developed all
fuse to
would let
magma. Its liquefaction
the bulk of the planet
fully —
even the best designed by itself.
spacesuits are somewhat vulner-
give farther under tidal stress, so
heat would be generated even
able — andmade their way to II
the spot where the tractors were
faster. Eventually a girdle of mag-
parked. ^AINO WAS not only still alive
ma would have to form far be-
low the crust all around the twi-
A sheet-metal fence a dozen ^ but still reasonably popular
feet high and four times as long when the first of the tractors set
light strip, where the tidal strain
provided shade, which was more out, carrying Eileen Harmon and
would be greatest. Sooner or later
HOT PLANET 13
GALAXY
Eric Trackman, the Albireo’s nu- thus far was unchanged, and see the horizon; as it was, more he had something to do in the
kicked in highest speed. of the “sea level” lava plain was tractor. However, this state of
clear engineer.
It started more than an hour The cabin was pretty cramped, in shadow than not even near affairs did not last. Before the ve-

before the others, since the even though some of the equip- the ship, and their route now lay hicle was four hours out of sight

drilling program,
stratigrapher’s
“done” or not, took extra time.
The tractor hummed off to the
south, since both Darkside routes
required a long detour to pass the
chasm to the west. Routes had
been worked out from the stereo-
photos taken during the orbital
survey. Even Darkside had been
covered fairly well with Uniquan-
ment had been attached outside.
The men could not expect much
comfort for the next week.
Hargedon was used to the trips,
however. He
disapproved on prin-
who complained
ciple _of people
about minor inconveniences such
as having to sleep in spacesuits;
and
fortunately, Zaino’s interest
excitement overrode any thought
in semi-darkness. of the Albireo, a broadcast by
The light came from peaks Camille Burkett reached them.
projecting into the sunlight, from The mineralogist’s voice con-
scattered sky-light which was tained at least as much profes-
growing rapidly fainter and from sional enthusiasm as alarm, but
the brighter celestial objects such everyone listening must have
as Earth. Even with the tractor’s thought promptly of the dubious
it was getting harder to spot
lights stability of Mercury’s crust. The
crevasses and seismometer mark- call was intended for her fellow
Zaino quickly found the fun geologists Mardikian and Har-
ers.

he might have had about discom- wearing off though his pride mon. But it interested Zaino at
tum film under Venus light. . . .

The Harmon-Trackman vehi- fort. made him cover this fact as best least as much.
“Joe! Eileen! There’s a column
cle was well out of sight when This lasted through the time he could.
they spent doubling the vast crack If Hargedon saw this, he said of what looks like black smoke
Mardikian and Aiello started out
on one of the Brightside routes, in Mercury’s crust, driving on a nothing. He set Zaino to picking rising over Northeast Spur. It

little to the north of the ship on up every other instrument, as can’t be a real fire, of course; I
and a few minutes later Marini
set out on the other with the the other side and then turning any partner would have, making can’t see its point of origin, but

spacesuit technician, Mary Spurr, west toward the dark hemisphere. no allowance for the work the if it’s the convection current it

driving.
disappeared
Both vehicles
quickly into a valley to the
northeast, between the ash cones
and a thousand-foot spine which
rose just south of them. All the
tractors were in good radio con-
tact;Zaino made sure of that be-
fore abandoned the radio
he
watch to Rowson, suited up and
The route was identical to that
of Harmon’s machine for some
time, though no trace of its pas-
sage showed on the hard surface.
Then Hargedon angled off toward
the southwest. He had driven
this run often enough to know it
well even without the markers
which had been set out with the
seismographs. The photographic
youngster was doing for Schloss-
berg. This might, of course, have
had the purpose of keeping the
radioman too busy to think about
discomfort. Or it might merely
have been Hargedon’s idea of
normal procedure.
Whatever the cause, Zaino got
little chance to use the radio once
they had driven into the darkness.
seems to be the source must be
pretty hot. It’s the closest thing
to a genuine volcano I’ve seen
since we arrived; it’s certainly not
another of those ash mounds. I
should think you’d still be close
enough to make it out, Joe. Can
you see anything?”
The reply from Mardikian’s
tractor was inaudible to Zaino

joined Hargedon at the remain- maps were also aboard. With He managed only one or two brief and Hargedon, but Burkett’s an-
ing one. They climbed in, and them, even Zaino had no trouble talks with those left at the ship. swer made its general tenor plain.

Hargedon set it in motion. keeping track of their progress “I hadn’tthought of that. Yes,
At about the same time, the while they remained in sunlight. ^^HE TALKS might have I’d say it was pretty close to the
first tractor came into view again, However, the sun sank as they helped his morale, since they Brightside route. It wouldn’t be
now traveling north on the farther traveled west. In two hours its certainly must have given the practical for you to stop your run

side of the chasm. Hargedon took lower rim would have been on the impression that nothing was go- now to come back to see. You
this as evidence that the route horizon, had they been able to ing on in the ship while at least couldn’t do much about it any-

14 GALAXY HOT PLANET 15


way. I could go out to have a
look and then report to you. If
the way back is blocked there’ll
be plenty of time to work out
another.” Hargedon and Zaino
passed questioning glances at each
other during the shorter pause
that followed.
“I know there aren’t,” the voice
then went on, responding to the
words they could not hear, “but
it’s only two or three miles, I’d
say. Two to the spur and not
much farther to where I could see
the other side. Enough of the way
is in shade so I could make it in
a suit easily enough. I can’t see
calling back either of the dark-
side tractors. Their work
that from the maps in the mean-
The darkness deepened around ing. I’d advise all tractors to turn
the patches of lava shown by the back. Captain Rowson reminds
time, just in case.”
driving lights; the sky darkened me that only one takeoff is pos-
Zaino looked again at his com-
toward a midnight hue, with stars sible. If we leave this site, we’re
panion.
“Isn’t that just my luck!” he
showing ever brighter through it; committed to leaving Mercury.
and radio reception from the AI- Arnie and Ren, do you hear me?”
exclaimed. “I jump at the first
bireo began to get spotty. Gas Zaino responded at once. “We
chance to get away from being
density at the ion layer was high got most of it. Doctor. Do you
bored to death. The minute I’m
enough so that recombination of really think the ship is in dan-
safely away, the only interesting
molecules with their radiation- ger?”
thing of the whole operation hap-
pens — back at the ship!” freed electrons was rapid. Only
occasional streamers of ionized
“I don’t know. I can only say
that if this flow continues the
“Who asked to come on this
gas reached far over Darkside. ship will have to leave, because
trip?”
As these thinned out, so did radio this area will sooner or later be
“Oh, I’m not blaming anyone
reception. Camille Burkett’s next covered. I caii’t guess how likely
but myself. If I’d stayed back
broadcast came through very check further to get some
the volcano would have
. . .
there
poorly. It’s different from
sort of estimate.
popped out here somewhere, or
else waited until we were gone.”
There was enough in it, how- any Earthly lava source may- —
is just “If it is a volcano. Dr. Burkett
ever, to seize the attention of the be you heard —
should try to get

as important as the rest any- — didn’t seem quite sure.”

two men in the tractor. Eileen and Eric back, too. I can’t
raise them. I suppose they’re well
way, Eileen is probably out of “No, and bet a nickel she’s
I’ll

range. She hasn’t answered yet.” suiting up now to go out

right
^HE WAS saying; real all out from under the ion layer by
Another pause. and see. I hope she comes back
^ and dangerous. It’s the
right, now. Maybe you’re close enough
I ever saw
thing kinds to them to catch them with dif-
“That’s true. Still, it would with something while we’re still . . . . . .

of lava from what looks like fracted waves. Try, anyway.

mean sacrificing that set of seis- near enough to hear about it.” . . .

mic records — no, wait. We could^ Hargedon shrugged. “I suppose same vent. There’s high viscosity
stuff building a spatter cone to
Whether you can raise
not you’d better start back your-
them or

go out later for those. And Mel it was also just your luck that

could take his own weather meas- sent you on a Darkside trip? You end all spatter cones, and some self.”

ures on the later trip. There’s
plenty of time!”
Pause, longer this time.
“You’re right, of course. I just
wanted to get an early look at
this volcano, if it is one. We’ll let
the others finish their runs, and
know the radio stuff. You knew very thin fluid
we couldn’t reach as far this way at the bottom. The flow has al-
with the radios. Didn’t you think ready blocked the valley used by
the Brightside routes and is com-
of that in advance?”
“I didn’t think of it, any more
ing along it. A new return route
will have to be found
than you would have. It was bad
tractors that
luck, but I’m not grousing about
. .
from somewhere Hargedon cut in at this point.
“What does Dr. Mardikian say
about that? We still have most
of the seismometers on this route
to visit.”
for the “I think Captain Rowson has
was spreading the deciding word here, but if it
.

when you back you can check

get it. Let’s on with this job.”
get
when I saw it. I can’t tell how
fast helps your decision Dr. Mardikian
the thing from the other side Hargedon nodded with approval, much will come. But unless it has already started back. He
yourself. If it is blocking your and possibly with some surprise, stops there’s nothing at all to hasn’t finished his route, either.

way there’s time to find an alter- and the tractor hummed on its keep the flow away from the ship. So hop back here, Ren. And
nate route. We could be doing way. It isn’t coming fast, but it’s com- Arnie, put that technical skill you

16 GALAXY HOT PLANET 17

haven’t had to use yet to work hours, driving off and on for ten which, he hoped, would change to the suggestion of switching
raising Eileen and Eric.” of them; I’m about to drive for his output from broadcast to some drivers. They came in sight of
“What I can do, I will,” replied another six; and then I’m to stand sort of beam; after this he kept the Albireo and doubled the
Zaino, “but you’d better tape a by for more.” probing the sky with the “beam,” chasm with Hargedon still at the
recall message and keep it going “Would you me to do some
like first listening to the Albireo’s wheel, Zaino still at his radio
out on. Let’s see —
band F.” of the driving?” asked Zaino. broadcast in an effort to find pro- and both of them still uncertain
be ready to check
“All right. I’ll have to, whether
“I guess you’ll jecting wisps of ionosphere and whether any of the calls had got-
the volcano as soon as you get I like it or not,” was the rather then, whenever he thought he had ten through.
back. How long?” lukewarm reply. “I’ll keep on for one, switching on his transmitter Both had to admit, even before
“Seven hours —
maybe six and awhile, though —
until we’re and driving his own message at they could see the ship, that
a half,” replied Hargedon. “We back in better light. You get at it. Burkett had had a right to be
have to be careful.” your radio job.” Not once he complain
did impressed.
“Very well. Stay outside when about lack of equipment or re- The smoke column showed
you arrive; I’ll want to go right Ill mark how much better he could starkly against the sky, blowing
out in the tractor to get a closer do once he was back at the ship. back over the tractor and block-
look.” She cut off. yAINO TRIED. Hour after Hargedon’s silence began to ing the sunlight which would
“And that came through clearly ^ hour he juggled from one carry an undercurrent of approval otherwise have glared into the
enough!” remarked Hargedon as band to another. Once he had not usual in people who spent driver’s eyes. Fine particles fell
he swung the tractor around. Hargedon stop while he went out much time with Zaino. The tech- from it in a steady shower; look-
“I’ve been awake for fourteen to attach a makeshift antenna nician made no further reference ing back, the men could see tracks

18 GALAXY HOT PLANET 19

 by their vehicle in the de-
left
positwhich had already fallen.
As they approached the ship
the dark pillar grew denser and
narrower, while the particles rain-
ing from it became coarser. In
some places the ash was drifting
into fairly deep piles, giving
Hargedon some anxiety about
possible concealed cracks. The
last part of the trip, along the
edge of the great chasm and
around its end, was really dan-
gerous; cracks running from its
sides were definitely spreading.
The two men reached the Albireo
later than Hargedon had prom-
ised, and found Burkett waiting
impatiently with a pile of appara-
tus beside her.
She didn’t wait for them to get
out before starting to organize.
“There isn’t much here. We’ll
take off just enough of what
you’re carrying to make room for
this. No — wait. I’ll have to check
some of your equipment; I’rh go-
ing to need one of Milt Schloss-
berg’s gadget’s, I think, so leave
that on. We’ll take ” —
“Excuse me, Doctor,” cut in
Hargedon. “Our suits need serv-
icing, or at least mine
want me to drive you.
Arnie can help you load for a
while,if you don’t think it’s too
important for him to get at the
radio — ”
“Of course. Excuse me. I should
have had someone out here to
20
help me with this. You two go sharp curve by now anything
half-melted particles which were for
on in. Ren, please get back as
fusing together as they fell that— less.
soon as you can. I can do the was
might be what Burkett had meant Zaino’s final gesture to set
work here; none of this stuff is “spatter-cone.” Still, if that his transmission beam on the
by
very heavy.” the case, the material foun- lowest frequency the tractor
were
Zaino hesitated as he swung would pick up, aim it as close to
taining from the cone’s top should
out of the cab. True, there wasn’t the vehicle’s direction as he could
be lighting the plain with its in-
too much to be moved, and it calculate from map and itinerary
candescence rather than casting
wasn’t very heavy in Mercury’s and set the recorded return mes-
an inky shadow for its entire
gravity, and he really should be sage going. He told Rowson as
height.
at the radio; but the thirty-nine- much.
Well, that was a problem for the
year-old mineralogist was a geologists;Zaino climbed aboard “Can’t think of ansdhing else?”
middle-aged lady by his stand- the captain asked. “Well, neither
and settled to his task.
ards, and shouldn’t be allowed to
The trouble was that he could can I, but of course it’s not my
carry heavy packages field. I’d give a year’s pay if I
. . .
do very little more here than he
“Get along, Arnie!” the middle- could in the tractor. He could could. How long before they
aged lady interrupted this train improvised longer-wave should be back in range?”
have
of thought. “Eric and Eileen are transmitting coils whose radia- “About four days. A
hundred
getting farther away and harder hours, give or take a few. They’ll
tions would have diffracted a lit-
to reach every second you daw- be heading back anyway by that
tle more effectively beyond the
dle!”
horizon, but the receiver on the time.”
missing vehicle would not have “Of course. Well, keep trying.”
¥TE GOT, though he couldn’t detected them. He had more “I am — or rather, the equip-
help looking northeast as he power at his disposal, but could ment is. I don’t see what else I
went rather than where he was only beam it into empty space can do unless a really bright idea
going. with his better antennae. He had should suddenly sprout. Is there
The towering menace in that better equipment for locating any anywhere else I could be useful?
direction would have claimed projecting wisps of charged gaS I’m as likely to have ideas work-
anyone’s attention. The pillar of which might reflect his waves, ing as just sitting.”
sable ash was rising straighter, but he was already located under “We can keep you busy, all
as though the wind were having a solid roof of the stuff the — right. But how about taking a
less effect on it. An equally black Albireo was technically on transmitter up one of those moun-
will if you cone had risen into sight beyond Brightside. Bouncing his beam tains? That would get your wave
Perhaps Northeast Spur —
a cone that from this layer still didn’t give farther.”
must have grown to some two him the range he needed, as he “Not as far as it’s going al-
thousand feet in roughly ten ready. I’m bouncing it off the ion
had found both by calculation
hours. It had far steeper sides and trial. layer, which is higher than any
than the cinder mounds near it; What he really needed was a mountain we’ve seen on Mercury
it couldn’t be made of the same relay satellite. The target was even if it’s nowhere near as high
loose ash. Perhaps it consisted of simply too far around Mercury’s as Earth’s.”
GALAXY HOT PLANET 21
 “Hmph. All right.” with your cone samples, there are after school for drawing pictures near the middle of the valley one
“I could help Ren and Dr. practical difficulties,” replied Zai- hundreds yards from the front. I
in math class.
Burkett. I could hang on outside no. “I haven’t quit yet, though.” my judgment the am getting out, and will walk as
the tractor ” — “I should think not. If some of
flow
“Because in
is far more likely to be lava close as I can with a sampler and
“They’ve already gone. You’d us were paid by the idea we’d must be wrong a radiometer. I assume that the
than mud, and if I
better call them, though, and keep be pretty poor, but the perspira- I’d rather my error were one that radio equipment will continue to
a log of what they do.” tion part of genius is open to all left us alive. I have no time at relay my suit broadcast back to
“All right.” Zaino turnedback of us.” the moment to explain the basis you.” Zaino cringed a little, cer-
to his board and with no trouble “You mean I should charge a of my
judgment. I will be report- tain as he was that the tractor’s
raised the tractor carrying Harge- bonus for getting this electronic apparatus was in per-
call ing our activities quite steadily
don and the mineralogist. The through?” retorted the operator. from now on, and would prefer fect order.
latter had been trying to call the Whatever Burkett’s reply to him that Dr. Burkett
that you not interrupt unless a It struck
Albireo and had some acid com- this might have been was never serious emergency demands it, was being more snappish than
ments about radio operators who learned; her attention was di- or you get a call from Eileen. usual. It never crossed his mind
slept on the job. verted at that point. “We are about three hundred that the wornan might be afraid.
“We’ve just come in sight of yards away now. The front is “Ren, don’t get any closer with
I
'HERE’S ONLY one of me, the flow. It’s about five hundred moving about as fast as before, the tractor unless I call. I’ll get
and I’ve been trying to get yards ahead. We’ll get as close which suggests that the flow is a set of temperature readings as
the Darkside team,” he pointed as seems safe, and I’ll try to make coming only along this valley. soon as I’m close enough. Then
out. “Have you found anything sure whether it’s really lava or It’s only three or four feet high, I’ll try to get a sample. Then I’ll

new about this lava flood?” just mud.” so viscosity is very low or density come back with that to the trac-
“Flow, not flood,” corrected the “Mud? that possible? I
Is very high. Probably the former, tor,leave it and the radiometer
professional automatically. “We’re thought there wasn’t couldn’t — considering where we are. It’s as and get the markers to set out.”
not in sight of it yet. We’ve just be — any water on this planet!” black as the smoke column.” “Couldn’t I be putting out the
rounded the corner that takes us “It is, and there probably isn’t. “Not glowing?” cut in Zaino ,
markers while you get the sam-
out of your sight. It’s over a mile The liquid phase of mud doesn’t thoughtlessly. ple, Doctor?”
yet, and a couple of more corners, have to be water, even though it “Black, I said. Temperature “You could, but I’d rather you
before we get to the spot where usually is on Earth. Here, for will be easier to measure when stayed at the wheel.” Hargedon
I left it. Of course, it will be example, it might conceivably be we The front is nearly
get closer. made no answer, and Burkett re-
closer than that by now. It was sulfur.” straight across the valley, with sumed her description for the
spreading at perhaps a hundred “But if it’s just mud, it wouldn’t just a few lobes projecting ten record.
yards an hour then. That’s one hurt the ship, would it?” or twelve yards and one notch “I’m walking toward the front,
figure we must refine ... Of “Probably not.” where a small spine is being sur- a good deal faster than it’s flow-
course. try to get samples, too.
I’ll “Then why all this fuss about rounded. By the way, I trust ing toward me. I am now about
I wish there were some way to getting the tractors back in a you’re taping all this?” Again twenty yards away, and am going
get samples of the central cone. hurry?” Zaino was reminded of the after- to take a set of radiation-tempera-
The whole thing is the queerest noon after school. ture measures.” A brief pause.
volcano I’ve ever heard of. Have •'''HE 'VOICE which answered “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied. “On “Readings coming. Nine sixty.
you gotten Eileen started back?” reminded him of another lady my one and only monitor tape.” Nine eighty. Nine ninety —
that’s
“Not as far as I can tell. As in his past, who had kept him “Very well. We’re stopping from the bottom edge near the

22 GALAXY HOT PLANET 23

 spine that’s
Nine eighty-five
being
— surrounded.
” The voice
droned on until about two dozen
readings had been taped. Then,
“I’m going closer now. The sam-
pler is just a ladle on a twelve-
foot handle we improvised, so
I’ll have to get that close. The
stuff moving slowly;
is there
should be no trouble. I’m in reach
now. The lava is very liquid;
there’s no trouble getting the sam-
pler in —
or out again —
it’s not
very dense, either. I’m heading
back toward the tractor now. No,
Ren, dop’t come to meet me.”
There was a minute of silence,
while Zaino pictured the space-
suited figure with its awkwardly
Idng burden, walking away from
the creeping menace to the rela-
tive safety of the tractor. “It’s
frozen solid already; we needn’t
worry about spilling. The tem-
perature is about —
five eighty.
Give me the markers, please.”
Another pause, shorter this
time. Zaino wondered how much
of that could be laid to a faster
walk without the ladle and how
much tothe lessening distance
between flow and tractor. “I’m
tossing the first marker close to
the edge —
it’s landed less than
a foot from the lava. They’re all
on a light cord at ten-foot inter-
vals; I’m paying out the cord as
I go back to the tractor. Now we’ll
stand by and time the arrival at
each marker as well as we can.”
24
“How close are you to the
main cone?” asked Zaino.
“Not close enough to see its
base, I’m afraid. Or to get a sam-
pie of it, which is worse.
goodness, what was that?”
We
Zaino had just time to ask,
“What was what?” when he found
nut.
rOR A moment, he thought that
the Albireo had been flung
bodily into the air. Then he de-
cided that the great metal pillar
had merely fallen over. Finally
he realized that the ship was still
erect, but the ground under it had
just tried to leave.
Everyone in the group had be-
come so used to the almost perpe-
tual ground tremors that they had
ceased to notice them; but this
one demanded attention. Rowson,
using language which suggested
that his career might not have
been completely free of adven-
ture after all, flashed through the
communication level on his way
down to the power section.
Schlossberg and Babineau fol-
lowed, the medic pausing to ask
Zaino if he were all right. The
radioman merely nodded affirma-
tively; his attention was already
back at his job. Burkett was
speaking a good deal faster than
before.
“Never mind the sample
if isn’t
GALAXY
i
lashed tight yet —
if it falls off patches of red and yellow incan-
f
there’ll be plenty more.
There descence showed briefly in the
) time! Arnie, get in touch pillar, and glowing sparks rather
isn’t
than black cinders rained back
with Dr. Mardikian and Dr.
i
— | Marini. Tell them that this vol- on the steep slopes. Far above,
a ring of smoke rolled and
j
cano is explosive, that all esti-
spread about the column, form-
J mates of what the flow may do
we can make more ing an ever-broadening blanket
j
are off until
of opaque cloud above a land-
measures, and in any case the
whole situation is unpredictable. scape which had never before
Everyone should get back as soon been shaded from the sun.
Streamers of lightning leaped be-
as possible. Remember, we
cided that those big craters Eileen
de-
tween cloud and pillar, pillar and
checked were not meteor pits. I mountain, even cloud and ground.
j
don’t know whether this thing Any thunder there might have
;
will let go in the next hour, the been was drowned in the howl
i
next year, or at all. Maybe what’s of the escaping gas, a roar which
happening now will act as a safety seemed to combine every possible
j
1
valve —
but let’s get out. Ren, note from the shrillest possible
that flow is speeding up and get- whistle to a bass felt by the chest
f
ting higher, and the ash rain is rather than heard by the ears.
Rowson’s language had become
!
getting a lot worse. Can you see
inaudible almost before he had
j
to drive?”
disappeared down the hatch.
} She
of her
fell silent.
orders,
Zaino, in spite
set long
left his For long moments the radio-
J
'
enough to leap to the nearest port man watched the spreading cloud,
\ for a look at the volcano. and wondered whether the Al-
He never regretted it. bireo could escape being struck
Across the riven plain, whose by the flickering, ceaseless light-
cracks were now nearly hidden ning. Far above the widening ring
under the new ash, the black cone of cloud the smoke fountain
towered above the nearer eleva- drove, spreading slowly in the
tions.
it
It was visibly taller than
had been only a few hours be-
thinning atmosphere and beyond
it. Zaino had had enough space
fore. The fountain from its top experience to tell at a glance
was thicker, now jetting straight whether a smoke or dust cloud
up as though wind no longer was This wasn’t, at
in air or not.
meant a thing to the fiercely upper extremity
least at the . . .
driven column of gas and dust. And quite calmly, he
then,
The darkness was not so complete; turned back to his desk, aimed
HOT PLANET 25

the antenna straight up,
called Eileen Harmon. She an-
swered promptly.
fpRE STRATIGRAPHER
tened without interruption to
his report and the order to return.
She conferred briefly with her
companion, replied “We’ll be back
in twelve hours,” and signed off.
And that was that.
Zaino settled back with a sign,
and wondered whether it would
be tactful to remind Rowson of
his offer of a year’s pay.
All four vehicles were now
homeward bound; all one had to
worry about was whether any of
them would make it. Hargedon
and Burkett were fighting their
way through an ever-increasing
ash rain a scant two miles away
ash which not only cut visibility
but threatened to block the way
with drifts too deep to negotiate.
The wind, now blowing fiercely
toward the volcano, blasted the
gritty stuff against their
window as though it would erode
through; and the lava flow, mov-
ing far faster than the gentle ooze
they had never quite measured,
surged — and glowed — grimly
behind.
A hundred miles or more to
the east, the tractors containing
Mardikian, Marini and their driv-
ers headed southwest along the
alternate route their maps had
suggested; but Mardikian, some
26
—
and three hours in the lead, reported
that he could see four other smoke
columns in that general direction.
Mercury seemed to be enter-
lis- ing a new phase. The maps might
well be out of date.
Harmon and Trackman were
having no trouble at the moment,
but they would have to pass the
great chasm. This had been shoot-
ing out daughter cracks when
Zaino and Hargedon passed it
hours before. No one could say
what it might be like now, and
no one was going out to make
sure.
“We can see you!” Burkett’s
voice came through suddenly.
“Half a mile to go, and we’re way
ahead of the flow.”
“But it’s coming?” Rowson
asked tensely. He had returned
from the power level at Zaino’s
phoned report of success.
“It’s coming.”
“How When will it get
fast?
here? Do you know whether the
front ship can stand contact with it?”
“I don’t know the speed exactly.
There may be two hours, maybe
five or six. The ship can’t take it.
Even the temperature measures
I got were above the, softening
point of the alloys, and it’s hotter
and much deeper now. Anyway,
if the others aren’t back before
the flow reaches the ship they
won’t get through. The tractor
wheels would char away, and I
doubt that the bodies would float.
GALAXY

You certainly can’t wade through
the stuff in a spacesuit, either.”
“And you think there can’t be
more than five or six hours before
the flow arrives?”
say that was a very opti-
“I’d
mistic guess. I’ll stop and get a
better speed estimate if you want,
but won’t swear to it.”
Rowson thought for a moment.
“No,” he said finally, “don’t
bother. Get back here as soon as
you can. We need the tractor and
human muscles more than we
need even expert guesses.” He
turned to the operator.
“Zaino, tell all the tractors
there’ll be no answer from the
ship for a while, because no one
will be aboard. Then suit up and
come outside.” He was gone.
rpEN MINUTES later, six
manbeings and a tractor were
assembled in the flame-lit near-
darkness outside the ship. The
cloud had spread to the horizon,
and the sun was gone. Burkett
and Hargedon had arrived, but
Rowson wasted no time on con-
gratulations.
“We have work to do. It will
be easy enough to keep the lava
from the ship, since there seems
to be a foot or more of ash on the
ground and a touch of main drive
would push it into a ringwall
around us; but that’s not the main
problem. We have to keep it
from reaching the chasm any-
28
”
where south of us, since that’s the
way the others will be coming.
If they’re cut off, they’redead. It
will be brute work. We’ll use the
tractor any way we can think of.
Unfortunately it has no plow at-
tachment, and I can’t think of
anything aboard which could be
turned into one. You have shov-
els, such as they are. The ash is
light, especially here, but there’s
a mile and a half of dam to be
built. I don’t see how it can pos-
sibly be done . but it’s going
. .
to be.”
“Come on, Arnie! You’re young
and strong,” came the voice of
the mineralogist. “You should be
able to lift as much of this stuff
as I can. I understand you were
lucky enough to get hold of Eileen
— have you asked for the
yet? — but your work
hu- isn’t
“It wasn’t luck,” Zaino retorted.
Burkett, in spite of her voice,
seened much less of a schoolmis-
tress when encased in a spacesuit
and carrying a shovel, so he was
able to talk back to her. “I was
simply alert enough to make use
of existing conditions, which I
had to observe for myself in spite
of all the scientists around. I’m
charging the achievement to my
regular salary. I saw — ing
He stopped suddenly, both with
with tongue and shovel. Then,
“Captain!”
“What is it?”
“The only reason we’re
GALAXY
thiswall here is to keep well
ahead of the flow so we can work
as long as possible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I never
thought of trying anywhere else.
The valley would mean a much
shorter dam, but if the flow isn’t
through it by now it would be
before we could get there oh!—
Wait a minute!”
“Yes, sir. You can put the main
switch anywhere in a D. C. cir-
cuit. Where are the seismology
stores we never had to use?”
Four minutes later the tractor
set out from the Alhireo, carrying
Rowson and Zaino. Six minutes
after that it stopped at the base
of the ash cone which formed the
north side of the valley from
which the lava was coming. They
parked a quarter of the way
bonus
around the cone’s base from the
done.”
emerging flood and started to
climb on foot, both carrying bur-
dens.
Forty-seven minutes later they
returned empty-handed to the ve-
had been
hicle, to find that it
engulfed by the spreading liquid.
With noticeable haste they
floundered through the loose ash
a few yards above the base until
they had outdistanced the glow-
menace, descended
started back across the plain to
and
where they knew the ship to be,
though she was invisible through
the falling detritus. Once they had
to detour around a crack. Once
starting
HOT PLANET
they encountered one which wid-
ened toward the chasm on their
right, and they knew a detour
would be impossible. Leaping it
seemed impossible, too, but they
did it. Thirty seconds after this,
forty minutes after finding the
tractor destroyed, the landscape
was bathed in a magnesium-white
glare as the two one-and-a-half
kiloton charges planted just in-
side the crater rim let go.
CiCHOULD WE go back and
^ see if it worked?” asked
Zaino.
“What’s the use? The only other
we had were in the trac-
charges
tor. Thank goodness they were
nuclear instead of H. E. If it
didn’t work we’d have more trou-
ble to get back than we’re having
now.”
“If it didn’t work, is there any
point in going back?”
“Stop quibbling and keep walk-
ing. Dr. Burkett, are you listen-
ing?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“We’re fresh out of tractors,
but if you want to try it on foot
you might start a set of flow meas-
ures on the lava. Arnie wants to
know whether our landslide slid
properly.”
However, the two were able to
tell for themselves before getting
back to the Albireo.
The
flow didn’t stop all at
once, of course; but with the val-
29
ley feeding it blocked off by a “Just a belt of white-hot calderas It has happened a hundred times in the long history
hundred
pile of volcanic ash fotir
on one side, nearly fifty
feet high
all around the planet. Pretty, if
you like symmetry.”
of Barth — and, sooner or iater, will happen again!

on the other and more than a “I like being able to see it from
quarter of a mile long, its enthusi-
asm quickly subsided. It was thin,
fluid stuff, asBurkett had noted;
this distance,” replied Zaino, float-
ing
the way,
weightless beside
how much bonus should
her. “By THE GREAT
but as it spread it cooled, and as I ask for getting that idea of put-
it cooled it thickened.

Six hours after the blast it had

stopped with its nearest lobe al-
ting the seismic charges to use
after all?”
“I wouldn’t mention it. Any
NEBRASKA SEA
most a mile from the ship, less one of us might have thought of
than two feet thick at the edge. that. We all knew about them.”
When Mardikian’s tractor ar- “Anyone might have. Let’s
rived, Burkett was happily trying speculate on how long it would
to analyze samples of the flow, have been before anyone did.”
and less happily sjjeculating on “It’s still not like the other
how long it would be before the idea, which involved your own
entire area would be blown off specialty. I still don’t see what
the planet. When Marini’s and made you suppose that the gas
Harmon’s vehicles arrived, almost pillar from the volcano would be
together, the specimens had been heavily charged enough to reflect
loaded and everything stowed for your radio beam. How did that
acceleration. Sixty seconds after idea strike you?”
the last person was aboard, the
Albireo left Mercury’s surface at ^AINO THOUGHT back, and
—
two gravities. ^ smiled a little as the picture
r^VERYONE
at any
all

rate
the geolo-
— had
was about
sionals
all even the profes-
were interested in know-
The haste, it turned out, wasn’t around pillar,
of lightning blazing
gists,
known about the Kiowa Fault for ing. There was never so much as
really necessary. She had been cloud and mountain rose before
in parking orbit nearly forty-five years. That was before there was a landslide to bring the Fault to
his eyes.
hours before the first of the giant anything very interesting to know the attention of the general pub-
“You’re not quite right,” he
volcanoes reached its climax, and said. “I was worried about it for
about it. The first survey of Colo- lic.

the one beside their former site
a while, but it didn’t
was not the first. It was the fourth.
strike me.”
“Andthat seems to be that,’’
It fell rather flat; Camille Bur-
said Camille Burkett rather tritely
kett, Ph.D., had to have it ex-
as they drifted a hundred miles
plained to her.
above the little world’s surface. — HAL
rado traced its course north and
actually
south in the narrow valley of
Kiowa Creek about twenty miles
east of Denver; it extended south
to the Arkansas River. And
CLEMENT
By ALLAN DANZIG
It was still a matter of aca-
demic interest when in the late
’40s geologists speculated on the
relationship between the Kiowa
that Fault and the Conchas Fault far-
illustrated by WOOD

30 GALAXY THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA 31

ther south, in New Mexico, and demanded the headlines, partments to approve budgets.
risingabove a virtually uninhab- U. S.?”
which followed the Pecos as far ited area along Black Squirrel and some papers even left off the They found, of course, that
question mark. Schwartzberg had been perfectly
south as Texas. Creek, and a plane was sent out
It may seem odd that the
Nor was there much in the for a report.
sim- correct.

papers a few years later when it The report was —

no fire at plest explanation was practically
Only Joseph rpHEY FOUND themselves on
was suggested that the Niobrara all. The rising cloud was not not mentioned.
Fault (just inside and roughly smoke, but dust. Thousands of Schwartzberg, head geographer the scene of what was fast
parallel to the eastern border of cubic feet of dry earth rising laz- of the Department of the Inte- becoming the most violent and
Wyoming) was ily on the summer air. rior, wondered if the
disturbance widespread earthquake North
a northerly ex- Rock
tension of the Kiowa. By the slides, they guessed; certainly no might not be a settling of the —
America probably the world
mid sixties it was definitely es- fire. The Forestry Service had Kiowa Fault. His suggestion was has ever seen in historic times.
tablished that the three Faults other worries at the moment, and mentioned on page nine or ten To describe it in the simplest
were in fact a single line of fis- filed the report. of the Monday newspapers (page terms, land east of the Fault was
sure in the essential rock, stretch- But after a week had gone by, 27 of the New York Times). The settling, and at a precipitous rate.

ing almost from the Canadian the town of Edison, a good twen- idea was not nearly so exciting Rock scraped rock with a
border well south of the New ty miles away from the slides, as a volcano, even a lava-less one, whining roar. Shuddery as a
Mexico-Texas line. was still complaining of the dust. and you couldn’t draw a very squeaky piece of chalk raked a-
not really surprising that
It is Springs were going dry, too, ap- dramatic picture of it. cross a blackboard, the noise was
it took so long to figure out the parently from underground dis- To excuse the other geologists, deafening. The surfaces of the
connection. The population of turbances. Not even in the Rock- it must be said that the Kiowa land east and west of the Fault
the states affected was in places Fault had never acted up before. seemed no longer to have any
ies could anyone remember a
as low as five people per square series of rock slides as bad as It never sidestepped, never jig- relation to each other. To the
mile! The land was so dry it this. gled, never, never produced the west, tortured rock reared into
seemed impossible that it could Newspapers in the mountain regular shows of its little sister cliffs. East, where sharp reports
ever be used except for sheep- states gave it a few inches on the out in California, which almost and muffled wheezes told of con-
farming. front page; anything is news in daily bounced San Francisco or tinued buckling and dropping,
It strikes us today as ironic late August. And the geologists Los Angeles, or some place in be- the earth trembled downward.
that from the late ’50s there was became interested. Seismologists tween. The dust volcano was on Atop the new cliffs, which seemed
grave concern about the level of were reporting unusual activity the face of it a more plausible to grow by sudden inches from
the watertable throughout the in the area, tremors too severe theory. heaving rubble, dry earth fissured
entire area. to be rock slides. Volcanic activ- Still, it was only a theory. It and trembled, sliding acres at a
ity? Specifically, a dust volcano? had to be proved. As the tremors time to fall, smoking, into the
EVEN more ironic solu- Unusual, they knew, but right on grew bigger, along with the af- bucking, heaving bottom of the
tion to the problem began the Kiowa Fault —
could be. fected area, as several towns in-
cluding Edison were shaken to
depression.
There the devastation was e-
in the summer of 1973. It had Labor Day crowds read the
been a particularly hot and dry scientific conjectures with late pieces by incredible earthquakes, ven more thorough, if less spec-

August, and the Forestry Service summer lassitude. Sunday sup- whole bus- and plane-loads of tacular. Dry earth churned like
was keeping an anxious eye out plements ran four-color artists’ geologists set out for Colorado, mud, and rock shards weighing
for the fires it knew it could ex- conceptions of the possible vol- without even waiting for their tons bumped and rolled about
pect. Dense smoke was reported cano. “Only Active Volcano in university and government de- like pebbles as they shivered and

32 GALAXY THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA 33

cracked into pebbles themselves.
“It looks like sand dancing in a
child’s sieve,” said the normally
impassive Schwartzberg in a na-
tionwide broadcast from the
scene of disaster. “No one here
has ever seen ansrthing like it.”
And the landslip was growing,
north and south along the Fault.
“Get out while you can,”
Schwartzberg urged the popula-
tion of the affected area. “When
it’s over you can come back and
pick up the pieces.” But the band
of scientists who had rallied to
his leadership privately wondered
if there would be any pieces.
The Arkansas River, at Avon-
dale and North Avondale, was
sluggishly backing north into the
deepening trough. At the rate
things were going, there might be
a new lake the entire length of
El Paso and Pueblo Counties.
And, warned Schwartzberg, this
might only be the beginning.
By 16 September the landslip
had crept down the Huerfano
River past Cedarwood. Avondale,
North Avondale and Boone had
totally disappeared. Land west of
the Fault was holding firm,
though Denver had recorded sev-
eral small tremors; everywhere
east of the Fault, to almost twen-
ty miles away, the now-familiar
lurch and steady fall had already
sent several thousand Coloradans
scurrying for safety.
All mountain climbing was
34
prohibited on the Eastern Slope
because of the danger of rock
slides from minor quakes. The
geologists went home to wait.
There wasn’t much to wait for.
The news got worse and worse.
The Platte River, now, was cre-
ating a vast mud puddle where
the town of Orchard had been.
Just below Masters, Colorado,
the river leajjed 70-foot cliffs to
add to the heaving chaos below.
And the cliffs were higher every
day as the land beneath them
groaned downward in mile-
square gulps.
As the Fault moved north and
south, new areas quivered into
unwelcome life. Fields and whole
mountainsides moved with de-
ceptive sloth down, down. They
danced “like sand in a sieve”;
dry, they boiled into rubble. Tel-
ephone lines, railroad tracks,
roads snapped and simply disap-
peared. Virtually all east- west
land communication was sus-
pended, and the President de-
clared a national emergency.
¥>Y 23 September the Fault
was active well into Wyom-
ing on the north, and rapidly ap-
proaching the border of New
Mexico to the south. Trinchera
and Branson were totally evacu-
ated,but even so the over-all
deathtoll had risen above 1,000.
Away to the east the situation
was quiet but even more omi-
GALAXY
nous.Tremendous fissures opened remain calm,” declared the Gov-
up perpendicular to the Fault, ernor of Nebraska. “We must
and a general subsidence of the sit thisthing out. Be assured that
land was noticeable well into everything possible is being
Kansas and Nebraska. The west- done.” But what could be done,
ern borders of these states, and with his state dropping straight
soon of the Dakotas and Okla- down at a mean rate of a foot
homa as well, were slowly sink- a day?
ing. The Fault nicked off the south-
On the actual scene of the dis- east corner of Montana. It
aster (or the scenes; it is impos- worked its way north along the
sible to speak of anything this Little Missouri. South, it ripped
size in the singular) there was a past Roswell, New Mexico, and
horrifying confusion. Prairie and tore down the Pecos toward
cracked open under intolera-
hill Texas. All the upper reaches of
shuddered
ble strains as the land the Missouri were standing pud-
downward in gasps and leaps. dlesby now, and the Red River
Springs burst to the surface in west of Paris, Texas, had begin
hot geysers and explosions of to run backward.
steam. Soon the Missouri began slow-
The downtown section of ly slipping away westward over
North Platte, Nebraska, dropped the slowly churning land. Aban-
eight feet, just like that, on the doning its bed, the river spread
afternoon of 4 October. “We must uncertainly across farmland and
THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA 35
prairie, becoming a sea of mud
beneath the sharp new cliffs
which rose in rending line, ever
taller as the land continued to
sink, almost from Canada to the
Mexican border. There were vir-
tually no floods, the usual
in
sense. The water moved too slow-
ly, spread itself with no real direc-
But the vast sheets
tion or force.
of sluggish water and jelly-like
mud formed death-traps for the
countless refugees now streaming
east.
Perhaps the North Platte dis-
aster had been more than anyone
could take. 193 people had died
in thatone cave-in. Certainly by 7
October it had to be officially ad-
mitted that there was an exodus
of epic proportion. Nearly two
million people were on the move,
and the U. S. was faced with a
gigantic wave of refugees. Rails,
roads and air-lanes were jammed
with terrified hordes who had
left everything behind to crowd
eastward.
All through October hollow-
eyed motorists flocked into Tul-
sa, Topeka, Omaha, Sioux Falls
and Fargo. St. Louis was made
distributing center for emergency
squads which flew everywhere
with milk for babies and dog
food for evacuating pets. Gaso-
line trucks boomed west to meet
the demand for gas, but once in-
side the “zone of terror,” as the
newspapers now called it, they
36
found their route blocked by
eastbound cars on the wrong side
of the road. Shops left by their
fleeing owners were looted by
refugees from further west; an
American Airlines plane was
wrecked by a mob of would-be
passengers in Bismarck, North
Dakota. Federal and State troops
were called out, but moving two
million people was not to be
done in an orderly way.
And still the landslip grew
larger. The new cliffs gleamed in
the autumn sunshine, growing
higher as the land beneath them
continued its inexorable descent.
On 2 1 October, at Lubbock,
Texas, there was a noise various-
ly described as a hollow roar, a
shriek and a deep musical vibra-
tion like a church bell. It was
simply the tortured rock of the
substrata giving way. The second
phase of the national disaster
was beginning.
NOISE traveled due east
at better than 85 miles per
hour. In its wake the earth to the
north “just seemed to collapse on
itself like a punctured balloon,”
read one newspaper report. “Like
a cake that’s failed,” said a Tex-
arkana housewife who fortunate-
ly lived a block south of Thayer
Street, where the fissure raced
through. There was a sigh and a
great cloud of dust, and Okla-
homa subsided at the astounding
GALAXY
rate of about six feet per hour.
At Biloxi, on the Gulf, there
had been uneasy shufflings under
foot all day. “Not tremors, exact-
said the captain of a fishing
ly,”
boat which was somehow to ride
out the coming flood, “but like as
if the land wanted to be some-
where else.”
Everyone in doomed Biloxi
would have done well to have
been somewhere else that eve-
ning. At approximately 8:30 p.m.
town shuddered, seemed to
the
rise a little like the edge of a
hall carpet caught in a draft, and
sank. So did the entire Missis-
sippi and Alabama coast, at about
same moment. The tidal wave
the
which was to gouge the center
from the U. S. marched on the
land.
From the north shore of Lake
Ponchartrain to the Appalachi-
cola River in Florida, the Gulf
coast simply disappeared. Gulf-
port, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola,
Panama City: 200 miles of shore-
line vanished, with over two and
a half million people. An hour
later a wall of water had swept
over every town from Dothan,
Alabama, to Bogalusa on the
Louisiana-Mississippi border.
“We must keep panic from our
minds,” said the Governor of
Alabama in a radio message
delivered from a hastily arranged
all-station hookup. “We of the gal-
lant southland have faced and
THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA
withstood invasion before.” Then,
as ominous creakings and groan-
ings of the earth announced the
approach of the tidal wave, he
flew out of Montgomery half an
hour before the town disappeared
forever.
One head of the wave plunged
north, eventually to spend itself
south of Birmingham.
in the hills
The main sweep followed the
lowest land. Reaching west, it
swallowed Vicksburg and nicked
the corner of Louisiana. The
whole of East Carroll Parish was
scoured from the map.
The River now
Mississippi
ended at about Eudora, Arkansas,
and minute by minute the ad-
vancing flood bit away miles of
river bed, swelling north. Chicot,
Lake Village, Arkansas
Jennie,
Snow Lake, Elaine, Helena
City,
and Memphis felt the tremors.
The tormented city shuddered
through the night. The earth con-
tinued its descent, eventually tip-
ping 2 V2 degrees down to the
west. The “Memphis Tilt”
is to-
day one of the unique and charm-
ing characteristics of the gracious
Old Town, but during the night
of panic Memphis residents were
sure they were doomed.
^OUTH and west the waters
^ carved deeply into Arkansas
and Oklahoma. By morning it
was plain that all of Arkansas
was going under. Waves ad-
37
 we knew there were people down on a har-
port, Colorado, is built
vanced on Litlle Rock at almost the utmost haste in evacuating
there. When the water hit the bor created in such a way.
100 miles an hour, new crests the entire area between Colorado
cliffs, it was like a collision be- The water had found its far-
forming, overtopping the wave’s and Missouri, from Texas to
tween two solid bodies. We thest westering. . But still it
leading edge as towns, hills and North Dakota.
couldn’t see for over an hour, poured north along the line of
the thirst of the soil temporarily Lubbock, Texas, went under. Irresistible
because of the spray.” the original Fault.
broke the furious charge. On a curling reflex the tidal wave on Sterling, Colo-
Salt spray. The ocean had fingers closed
Washington announced the of- blotted out Sweetwater and Big
come to New Mexico. rado, on Sidney, Nebraska, on
ficial hope that the Ozarks would Spring. The Texas panhandle dis-
Hot Springs, South Dakota. The
stop the wild gallop of the un- appeared in one great swirl.

The cliffs proved to be the entire tier of states settled, from

leashed Gulf, for northwest
in
Arkansas the land rose to over
2,000 feet. But nothing could
save Oklahoma. By noon the wa-
ter reached clutching fingers
around Mt. Scott and Elk Moun-
tain, deluging Hobart and almost
all of Greer County.
Despite hopeful announce-
ments that the wave was slow-
ing, had virtually stopped after
inundating Oklahoma City, was
being swallowed up in the desert
near Amarillo, the wall of water
continued its advance. For the
land was still sinking, and the
floods were constantly replen-
ished from the Gulf. Schwartz-
berg and his geologists advised
Whirlpools opened. A great
south to north, down to its even-
only effective barrier against
welter of smashed wood and hu-
the westward march of the water, tual place of stability one thou-
man debris was sucked under,
which turned north, gouging out
vomited up and pounded to
pieces. Gulf-water crashed on the
lumps of rock and tumbling
cliffs of New Mexico and fell
down blocks of earth onto its
back on foam. Would-be
itself in
own back. In places scoops of
granite came out like ice cream.
rescuers on the cliffs along what
had been the west bank of the The present fishing town of Rock-
Pecos River afterwards recalled
the hiss and scream like tearing
silk as the water broke furiously
on the newly exposed rock. It
was the most terrible sound they
had ever heard.
“We couldn’t hear any shouts,
of course, not that far away and
with all the noise,” said Dan
Weaver, Mayor of Carlsbad. “But

38 GALAXY THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA 39

sand feet below the level of the four days straight,” recalled gen- T WAS in such a cataclysmic middle west must have been like

new sea. ial Mrs. Creeth when she after-

I birth that the now-peaceful before the amelioration of cli-

Memphis was by now a sea-
port. The Ozarks, islands in a
mad formed precarious ha-
sea,
vens for half-drowned humanity.
Waves bit off a corner of Mis-
souri, flung themselves on Wi-
chita. Topeka, Lawrence and Bel-
leville were the last Kansas
towns to disappear. The Gover-
nor of Kansas went down with
wards appeared on a popular
spectacular. Her
evision
good-humor undamaged by an
ordeal few women can ever have
been called on to face, she add-
“We sure wondered why
ed,
never came out
flushes
Jimanettly, we’d left the king of
hearts behind, in the rush!”
But such lightheartedness and
Nebraska Sea came to America.
tel-
rural Today, nearly one hundred
years after the unprecedented
— and happily unrepeated dis- — say nothing of the submerged
aster, it is hard to remember the
terror and despair of those weeks
right. in October and November, 1973.
inconceivable to think of the
It is
United States without its beauti-
and economically essential
ful
mate brought about by the prox-
imity of a warm sea? The now-
temperate state of Minnesota (to
Dakotas) must have been Si-
berian. From contemporary ac-
counts Missouri, our second Cali-
fornia, was unbelievably muggy,
almost uninhabitable during the
summer months. Our climate to-

such happy endings were by no curve ofinterior ocean. Two- day, from Ohio and North Caro-
his State.
Daniel Bernd of Lincoln, means typical. The world could thirds aslong as the Mediter- lina to the rich fields of New
only watch aghast as the water ranean, it graduates from the Mexico and the orchards of Mon-
Nebraska, was washed up half- ^

raced north under the shadow of warm waters of the Gulf of Mex- tana, is directly ameliorated by
drowned in a cove of the Wyom- |

the which occasionally ico through the equally blue the marine heart of the continent.
ing cliffs, having been sucked cliffs

from one end of vanished Neb- crumbled, roaring, into the roar-
j

. waves of the Mississippi Bight, Who today could imagine the

ing waves. Day by day the re- becoming cooler and greener United States without the majes-
raska to the other. Similar hair-
swallowed what had
lentless rush north and west of the pleasant tic sea-cliffs in stately parade
breadth escapes were recounted
on radio and television. been dusty farmland, cities and fishing isles of the Ozark Archi- from New Mexico to Montana?
pelago, finally shading into the The beaches of Wyoming, the
Virtually the only people saved towns.
Some people were saved by the gray-green chop of the Gulf of American Riviera, where fruit
out of the entire population of
helicopters which flew mercy mis- Dakota. trees grow almost to the water’s
Pierre, South Dakota were the
sions just ahead of the advancing What would the United States edge? Or Colorado,
incredible
six members of the Creeth fam-
waters. Some found safety in the have become without the 5600- where the morning skier is the
ily. Plucky Timothy Creeth car-
peaks of western Nebraska and mile coastline of our inland sea? afternoon bather, thanks to the
ried and dragged aged par-
his
the Dakotas. But when the wa- It is only within the last twenty monorail connecting the highest
ents to the loft of their barn on
came to rest along what is years that any but the topmost peaks with the glistening white
the outskirts of town. His brother ters
roughly the present shoreline of layer of water has cleared suf- beaches?
Geoffrey brought along the
our inland sea, it was estimated ficiently to permit a really exten- Of course there have been
younger children and what pro-
visions they could find
—
“Mostly that over fourteen million peo- sive fishing industry. Mud still losses to balance slightly these

a ham and about half a ton of
vanilla cookies,” he explained to
his eventual rescuers. The barn,
luckily collapsing in the vibra-
had lost their lives. held in suspension by the restless strong gains. The Mississippi was,
ple
waves will not precipitate fully before 1973, one of the great
No one could even estimate the
even in our lifetimes. Even so, rivers of the world. Taken to-
damage to property; almost the
entirety of eight states, and por- the commercial fisheries of Mis- gether with its main tributary,
^

tions of twelve others, had sim- souri and Wyoming contribute no the Missouri, it vied favorably
waves bore down oh
tions as the
ply vanished from the heart of small part to the nation’s econ- with such giant systems as the
them, became an ark in which
the North American continent
^

' omy. Amazon and the Ganges. Now,

they rode out the disaster.
“We must of played cards for forever. i
Who can imagine what the ending as it does at Memphis

G A L A X.Y THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA 41

40
and drawing its water chiefly
from the Appalachian Mountains,
it is only a slight remnant of
what it was. And though the Neb-
raska Sea today carries many
times the tonnage of shipping in
its ceaseless traffic, we have
the old romance of river ship)-
ping. We
may only guess what it
was like when we look upon the
Ohio and the truncated Missis-
sippi.
And transcontinental shipping
is somewhat more difficult, with
trucks and the freight-railroads
obliged to take the sea-ferries
across the Nebraska Sea. We shall
never know what the United
States was like with its numerous
coast-to-coast highways busy with
trucks and private cars. Still, the
ferry ride is certainly a welcome
break after days of driving, and
for those who wish a glimpse of
what it must have been
there is always the Cross-Canada
Throughway and the magnificent
U. S. Highway 73 looping north
through Minnesota and passing
42
through the giant port of Alexis,
North Dakota, shipping center
for the wheat of Manitoba and
crossroad of a nation.
ri^HE POLITICAL situation
lost has long been a thorny prob-
lem. Only tattered remnants of
the eight submerged states re-
mained after the flood, but none
of them wanted to surrender its
autonomy. The tiny fringe of
Kansas seemed, for a time, ready
to merge with contiguous Mis-
souri, but following the lead of
the Arkansas Forever faction, the
remaining population decided to
retain political integrity. This has
resulted in the continuing anom-
aly of the seven “fringe States”
represented in Congress by the
usual two Senators each, though
the largest of them is barely the
size of Connecticut and all are
like, economically indistinguishable
GALAXY
from their neighboring states.
Fortunately it was decided
some years ago that Oklahoma,
only one of the eight to have
completely disappeared, could not
in any sense be considered to
have a continuing political exist-
ence. So, though there are still
families who proudly call them-
selvesOklahomans, and the Ok-
lahoma Oil Company continues
to pump oil from its submerged
real estate, the state has in fact
disappeared from the American
political scene.
But this is by now no more
than a petty annoyance, to raise
a smile when the talk gets
around to the question of State’s
Rights. Not even the tremendous
price the country paid for its new
sea —fourteen million dead, un-
told property destroyed —really
offsets the asset we enjoy today.
The heart of the continent, now
open to the shipping of the world,
was once dry and land-locked,
cut off from the bustle of trade
and the ferment of world culture.
It would indeed seem odd to
an American of the ’50s or ’60s
of the last century to imagine
sailors from the merchant fleets
of every nation walking the
THE SKY IS FALLING and DADGE OF INFAMY
2 complete novels by Lester del Rey in one book —
at your favorite newsstand now!
THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA
streets of Denver, fresh ashore at
Newport, only fifteen miles away.
Or to imagine Lincoln, Fargo,
Kansas City and Dallas as world
ports and great manufacturing
centers. Utterly beyond their ken
would be Roswell, New Mexico;
Benton, Wyoming; Westport,
Missouri, and the other new ports
of over a million inhabitants each
which have developed on the new
harbors of the inland sea.
Unimaginable too would have
been the general growth of popu-
lation in the states surrounding
the new sea. As the water tables
rose and manufacturing and trade
moved in to take advantage of
the just-created axis of world
communication, a population ex-
plosion was touched off of which
we are only now seeing the dimi-
nuation. This new westering is to
be ranked with the first surge of
pioneers which created the Amer-
ican west. But what a difference!
Vacation paradises bloom, a new
fishing industry thrives; her wa-
ter road is America’s main artery
of trade, and fleets of all the
world sail . where once the
. .
prairie schooner made its labori-
ous and dusty way west!
—ALLAN DANZIG
,
43

earthbound
He wanted above anything else
to go into space. He had been
waiting for
By LESTER DEL REY
T WAS hours after the last
I official ceremony before Clif-
ton could escape the crowd of
planetlubbers with their bab-
daughters
blings, their eligible
and their stupid self-admiration.
They’d paid through the nose to
get him here, and they meant to
get their money’s worth.
The exit led only to a little bal-
cony, but it seemed to be de-
serted. He took a deep breath of
the night air and his eyes moved
unconsciously toward the stars.
Coming back to Earth had
been a mistake, but he’d needed
the money. Space Products Un-
limited wanted a real deepspace
44
it — a long timet
hero to help celebrate its hun-
dredth anniversary. He had just
finished the Regulation of Rigel,
so he’d been picked. Damn them
and
and their silly speeches
awards —
and damn Earth! What
was one planet when there were
a biljion up there among the
stars?
From the other side of a potted
plant there was a soft sigh.
Clifton swung his head, then
relaxed as he saw the other man
was not looking at him. The
eyes behind the dark glasses were
directed toward the sky.
“Aldebaran, Sirius, Deneb, Al-
pha Centauri,” the voice whis-
GALAXY
pered. It was a high-pitched voice tried again. A plague grounded
with an odd accent, but there was the first ship. A strike delayed
the poetry of ancient yearning in another. Then one exploded on
it.
He was a small, shriveled old
man. His shoulders were bent. A
long beard and the dark glasses
the pad and only a few on board
were saved. It was then I realized
I was meant to wait here — here
on Earth, and nowhere else. So I
covered most of his face, but stayed, making space boots.”
could not entirely conceal the
deep wrinkles, even in the moon- T>ITY and impulse forced un-
light. expected words to Clifton’s
sudden touch of
Clifton felt a lips.“I’m taking off for Rigel
pity and moved closer, without
quite knowing why. “Didn’t I see
again in four hours, and there’s a
spare cabin on the Maryloo.
you on the platform?” You’re coming with me.”
“Your memory is very good. The old hand that gripped his
Captain. I was awarded publicly arm was oddly gentle. “Bless you.
— for fifty years of faithful serv- Captain. But it would never work.
ice making space boots. Well, I I’m under orders to remain here.”
was always a good cobbler, and “Nobody can order a man
perhaps my boots helped some grounded forever. You’re coming
men out there.” The old man’s with me if I have to drag you,
hand swept toward the stars, then Mr.—”
fell back to grip the railing tightly. “Ahasuerus.”
“They gave me a gold watch, The old man hesitated, as if
though time means nothing to expecting the name to mean
me. And a cheap world cruise something. Then he sighed and
ticket. As if there were any spot
on this world I could still want to
lifted his
Clifton
dark glasses.
met the other’s gaze for
see.” He laughed harshly. “For- less than a second. Then his own
give me if I sound bitter. But, you eyes dropped, though memory of
see, I’ve never been off Earth!” what he had seen was already
Clifton stared at him incredu- fading. He vaulted over the bal-
lously. “But everyone — cony railing and began running
“Everyone but me,” the old away from Ahasuerus, toward his
man “Oh, I tried. I was ut-
said. ship and the unconfined reaches
terly weary of Earth and I looked of space.
at the stars and dreamed. But I Behind him, the eternal wan-
failed the early rigid physicals. derer tarried and waited.
Then, when things were easier, I — LESTER DEL REY
EARTHBOUND 45
 fey MACK

then moved from

mmti, tondin^ them rOUt.
The jisen screamed again,
touched their torches to Ih® over-
hanging of the huts._ then tore
down the hangings and leaped
througli the doors, torehfe*^ fla-
They had onty one mission in
ming a path. .

the Oalaxy, with its infinite The interiors ofhuts flie

problems — make more of "emi leaped to life. Forms hurtled by

the men and into the night as the
pitch-caulked thatching blazed
into an ipferoo. The rightful in-
habitants of the huts crashed into
the tall grass of the surrounding
plains, the sounds of their pas-
sage quickly dying away as fear

HE PROBLEM MAKERS 47
 unfinished handle a quarter-turn He sighed again, and stifled
lent wing to their rapidly fleeing Luke laughed and turned his
socket, then held the head a yawn. From the corner of his
in his
attention to his team. watched the shadow line
heels.
to his lips. “Team B,” he said. eye, he
The fires quickly burned The men were all out now, “Mission accomplished.” He marching up the wall. When it
through the thatching, sending watching the huts crack under touched the cobwebby corner of
twisted the handle back and slip-
dancing the intense heat within. One
ped the axe into his belt. A few
little fingers of flame the ceiling, a slave came in and
along the lashed saplings that shuddered, then collapsed in- lighted a pair of oil lamps. The
j moments later, the soft chatter
supported the roofs. Luke took ward, sending up choking clouds through the and soot-heavy smoke they gave off
|
of rotcfrs cut air,

one last look around the interior of dust as it smothered the dropped into the clear- quickly had Sam wishing the
j
a copter
of his hut and started to leave, flames. After a moment, Luke room had been left in darkness.
j

ing by the cooking fire.

when he spotted something wrig- whistled. Half of the men melted | The team mounted by the dy- Another interminable hour
pile of skins. into the grass and followed the
gling under a ing glow of the fires. As soon as passed, during which he several
Crossing the room in three natives, while the others gathered last man was in, the door times repeated the operation with
|
the
strides, he tore away the cover- around him, squatting and rest- swung shut and the copter took collar and cuffs, all the while en-
ings and grabbed the native child ing their axes on the ground. off into the night. vying the guards their ability to
by the scruff of its neck. He Luke waited until the others re- remain in one position like frozen
wheeled on one heel and re- turned to report no further sign AM CARTER eased the statues, seemingly carved from
traced his passage. He got out of of the villagers, then he squatted S scratchy material of the ruf- the living rock of the palace. At
the door just as the saplings gave himself, and accepted a canteen last, just when he had resigned
fed collar away from his neck,
up the ghost and the fiery mass from someone. He drank his fill, ,

then shot his cuffs to return them himself to the probability of

crashed to the ground. gasped, wiped the back of his acceptable half-
socially spending the night in the ante-
to the
Luke whistled and wiped hand across his mouth and hand- inch showing beyond
his jacket room, the inner door swung open
sweat from his brow. The bronze ed the canteen back. sleeve. He sighed, placed his and a chamberlain beckoned.
head of the axe caught and re- “It’s hot,” he said, conversa- “Prince Kahl will grant you a
hands on his knees and glanced
flected the fires from its myriad tionally.
for the umpteenth time at the moment now.”
beaten facets. Using the head, he “It’llbe hotter before we’re armored soldiers guarding the Sam bowed his thanks, and
beat out several sparks that had done,” said one of the team. They door between the anteroom and followed the man into Kahl’s
landed on his clothes, then were all dressed in rough-cured Prince Kahl’s private chambers. chambers.
turned his attention to the child skins and leather moccasins. The The afternoon sun dipped below “Ah, my friend from the south-
who still dangled from his other axes were the only tool they car- the level of the high window- ern kingdoms!”
hand. ried. Faces thick with war paint slits, sending shadows scamper- Prince Kahl was a lean, sat-
The child’s eyes were rolled and grime, it was impossible to ing up the walls. urnine individual, uncomfortably
nearly into his head with his tellthem from natives. Sam had been waiting since aware that the prime of life was
fright. Luke grinned, baring his “Anybody hurt?” asked Luke. noon. His stomach was repeating slipping through his grasp while
teeth. He brought the child up Disclaimers came from the vari- its rumbled protests against that his father obstinately held onto
until their noses were less than ous members of the group. interrupted meal. Prince Kahl the throne. It was Kahl’s consid-
an inch apart. The fetid smell of “Good.” He stood up and had sent word that Sam might ered opinion that the old man
the child’s breath made him stretched. “Well, gentlemen, shall wait upon his pleasure; quieting had lived long enough. It rank-
choke. Yelping, the child twisted we be on our way?” misgivings. Carter had rushed to led him to realize that he had
free and ran after its already- “Might as well.”
do just that. held the same opinions as a
departed parents. Luke took his axe, twisted the

THE PROBLEM MAKERS 49

48 GALAXY
 r

youth barely out of his teens. role at all in society, even as own good time. But why It is true that I once thought of
jfieir
The thirty intervening years had slaves. duplicate effort, eh? They are
something mildly amusing while
been spent devising and trying “Not at not at said
'

who grumble at my passing long evening hours with

all, all,”
lazy dolts
methods to assure his succession; Kahl. “Now tell me. What is it He chor- one of your ministers. But it was
royal largesse as it is.”
mere idle dreaming, no more.”
j

unfortunately his father had that brought you so far from tled lustily,although Sam could
twenty years before that to safe- your home lands to grace my nothing even remotely hu- “You prattle long, southerner.”
;

see
guard his own rule. humble presence?” in his statement. But he Kahl’s eyelids lowered suspici-
'

morous
“How the southern king-
go “The usual business of politic, was well-schooled in the idiocies
ously. He
picked up a silver knife
and began paring his nails, scat-
doms, my friend?” Kahl waved your graciousness,” said Sam, of diplomacy; he
laughed duti-
a particularly enticing fruit as growing weary of the necessity to tering the shavings suggestively
fully-
Carter stopped short, a dozen repeat the title with every reply “But come!” said Kahl. in Sam’s direction. “Perhaps you
paces away. to Kahl’s words. He also wished “Enough of childish prattle! You do not want to see me king?”
“Tolerably well, your gracious- for a chair, despite the fact that another load in your “There is none so deserving of
carry
ness.” He neglected to add that he had been sitting all afternoon.
'

thoughts, my southern friend. the honor as you,” said Sam. “But

it had been nearly a year since He felt like a naughty school- Have out with it!” while you laugh at the utter
he had visited the supposed lands child, standing always in the “Your graciousness?” childishness of my ideas, please
of his birth. Kahl was fully aware man’s presence. “Trade treaties, “You needn’t pretend,” he said, remember that you insisted . . .

how long Carter had been kept
cooling his heels. Palace protocol
dictated how long foreign visitors
might be kept waiting. But even
visiting royalty could not hope
for an audience in less than a
month’s time. In his role as am-
bassador, Carter was happy that
a year was all he had been kept
waiting.
i6V7^0UR lord and master’s
mutual armament pacts, the chortling again. “My ministers
he Ehrlan delegate to the
like.”
“Ummm, so. You’ve discussed
are like the winds. They cannot
keep a single thing to themselves,
T Central Worlds Conference
them with my ministers?” but instead need spread it over was well past the entrance to the
“They have permitted me this the far reaches of the entire Park when the pudgy little man
honor and, if I may be so bold, world. You’ve been talking
— caught up with him, sides heav-
found a great deal to our mutual foolishlyperhaps —
but I have ing from the unaccustomed strain
liking. Our countries are indeed perceived a certain sense within of running.
far separated, and the journey your nonsense, and I must con- “Citizen Lund!” he cried, pant-
between arduous. I find much in fess that your words have ing. “Please wait!”
your provinces in the way of aroused my interest. You have a Lund turned and eyed the
technology and armaments that plan to see me king. Now out little man suspiciously. The fel-

-* gifts were received,” said we totally lack. By the same •

with it, lest I make you a gift of low was a stranger, and therefore
Kahl. “You may inform him of token, have thought of a few
I you to my torturer. He can re- automatically under suspicion.
my royal gratitude.” inconsequential things which move anything — including stub- “Yes?”
“My humble thanks, your gra- might serve to ease your royal ,
born vocal cords!” “A moment of your valuable
ciousness.” Sam’s mouth watered burdens, if but brought from my !
“You do me undeserved honor, time. Citizen. Please? I assure

as Kahl polished off the one
fruit and selected another from
a platter born by a manservant.
Despite his now-long stay on the
planet, Sam still could not under-
stand why women were given no
lands.” graciousness,” said Sam.
“Possible, possible,” said Kahl. “Undoubtedly. And you begin
“Of course, I have a large college to weary me.”
of tinkerers and mechanics who “Very well.” Sam sighed. “I
probably would have produced must admit that my tongue is too
my own
the little toys you speak of in loose for general welfare.
you, you have nothing to fear
from me. I am not a Yanoian.”
The name spattered out acidly.
“Indeed?” said Lund. “And
just who, then, are you?” There
was a vague sensation of familiar-

50 GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 51

 ity troubling the back of his beyond the protection of the “But why?” he wailed, in frus-
They plan to scuttle you
mind. The omnipresent watch- before
monitors. Their skins tingled as
After “Give me a logical rea-
tration.
dog in his subconscious pounced they went through the shimmer- you have a chance to speak.
instantly on the feeling, magnify- cut you into little son!”
ing haze of the force screen. The that, they’ll
ing it, turning it inside out and
'

and devour you!” “The greater good. Citizen.”

monitors stopped just in time to ’

pieces
shaking it around, but drawing “You’re insane, man!” Lund With those cryptic words, the
avoid touching the screen, while stud of the
no
>

the widdy man pressed the

satisfaction from the act. Lund and the little man hurried started to reach for
“A |
beamer. Lund gasped, as a giant
friend. Citizen. You must down a path that wound into a tendrils.
believe that. can’t
,

You must not present hand closed around his heart,

I explain copse of widdy trees from Lund’s “Don’t!
further right now —time is too own homeworld, Ehrla. your plans to the Conference, then collapsed to the ground in
a strange dying parody of slow
precious.” He grabbed Lund’s The widdy tendrils stopped Citizen.”
motion. Just before the clouds of
arm and started tugging him their aimless flowing through the A new tone had crept into the
be- eternity shut away his vision, he
back towards the Park entrance. trees and
curved down and man’s voice: a strength that
and general at last recognized the man.
“Please? I beg you, come.” around the two men, tips melting lied the pudginess
—
“Oh very well.” He gave in into the ground and tendrils
i

clownishness of the figure. Lund

himself
Himself!
ungraciously, following the man broadening into wide blades that turned slowly, and found
winking
until they \^ere just inside the sheltered and shielded the pair staring at a stunner, the
showing that II
Park. Then Lund stopped, dig- from possible watchers. red of the telltale
ging his heels into the gravel of “Now!” said Lund, shaking the it was set
to lethal bands.
the walk. The man looked back other man’s hand from his ang-
|

“Wha •” He gulped his OHN REILLY was tired, in-

J
. .
i

down into his tensely tired, beyond any

at him. “Perhaps you will do me the
rily. adam’s apple back
feeling of exhaustion he had ever
i

“Please, Citizen!” he urged. honor of telling me who you are throat. “How did you get that
“We don’t have much time!” and just what in the name of the into the Park? The force screens known.
‘So far as I’m concerned, you supposed to pass weapons.” The clock in his desk chimed
Seven Holy Suns this idiocy is aren’t
once. He sighed and picked up
i

don’t have any time at all, unless all about?” “There are ways. Citizen,” the
lecture notes, stuffing them
you tell me right now who you “A matter of the gravest ur- man said, grinning. No longer did his
into a scarred and battered case
he seem clownish. “Many
are and what this is all about.” so-
gency, Citizen! You must not
quite that he had been carrying since
“Not here!” he cried, aghast, called impossible things are
|

present your plans for redistribu-

days at the Academy.
'

as he glanced nervously only you have access his student

around tion of Sector protectorates to simple, if

many j
and con- He cast one weary glance around
at the people entering and this Conference!” to the proper people
leaving the Park. A pair of Con- the cluttered office, then steeled
“What?” Lund stared at him trols.”
ference monitors stopped just “What do you really want?” himself into a passable imitation
in disbelief. “And just how did
outside the gate, fingering their Lund tried to hide his fright, but of military carriage as he left for
you learn of the plans I intend
stun-beamers as they eyed the
actions of the two men. They
to present to the Conference I — he was uncomfortably
was radiating out from
certain the lecture hall.
The Cadet Sergeant-Major
wi// present, at this afternoon that it

started to move into the him, broadcasting to the entire outside his door leaped to atten-
session? Something smacks of
violable hundred-foot circle this world that Citizen Lund was tion only a little less quickly
treachery!”
side of the gate. The man scared silly. than his regular service counter-
little “Never mind how I learned.
returned their sal-
“I told you. Citizen. You must
moved part. Reilly
quickly, grabbing Lund Citizen. The important thing is
utes and fell in behind them.
again and forcibly pulling him not present your plans to the
the Yano delegation also knows!
Conference.” The lecture hall — gymnasi-
52
GALAXY MAKERS 53
THE PROBLEM
 um, really; the Academy was per- Hail to the Chief! filled the hall. wearers of the uniforms, year in contained in these three words
enially overcrowded — was The Sergeants-Major stepped and year out.
from the past.
“ good for the
crowded, as usual. The eager out onto the stage, Reilly follow- “The greater good for the ‘The greater
young cadets filledthe fifty rows ing, case clasped loosely between greater number!” greater number’. If government
of backless benches, while the elbow and side. The cadets out a mutual
let runs on one motto, then civil-
overflow squatted and stood at They passed in front of the none aware that breath had ization is based on this!”
sigh,
the rear until it was impossible half-dozen visitors and moved to been held.
eam B was dead on feet
for a midget to find room to
thread his way through the
either side of the podium, turn-
ing until they were facing each
“A motto, gentlemen: merely
a motto. Like Ad Astra
per As- T when the copter finally re-
its

crowd. Reilly’s class was well-
tended for its honest popularity,
not just because it was compul-
sory. There were many “com-
pulsory” lectures in the curricul-
um that counted themselves
proud to find half their audience
in attendance.
Reilly stopped in the wings
of the stage, listening for a mo-
ment to the comfortable discord-
ances of the student band tuning
their instruments. The regular
service non-com peered through
the hangings, catching the band-
master’s eye. The tuning stopped,
and the band swung into a med-
ley of old Academy drinking
songs. Reilly smiled, as he re-
membered happier days when
he had participated lustily in the
drinking that went along with
such music.
From ^he drinking songs, the
band struck up the National An-
them. The noise the cadets made
in rising nearly drowned out the
music. After the last strains had
been permitted to fade away, the
bandmaster raised his baton once
more and the opening bars of
other, the regular service man on pera, E Pluribus Unum or
the right. They snapped into a Through These Portals Pass the
salute, followed by the entire au- Most Wonderful Custonters in
dience. Reilly lay his case on the the Galaxy.” An appreciative
podium, turned and bowed to the ter ran through the audience.
then faced the audience
visitors, “But what is a motto?” con-
again and returned the salute. tinued Reilly, warming to
overly familiar though
Immediately two thousand subject,
arms dropped to their owners’ was. “It’s more than just
it
sides and the cadets resumed snappy way of stringing words
their seats. together. It has a meaning. Often
Reilly unzipped his case and the meaning, such as in the com-
drew out his notes. mercial example I just gave, is
He arranged them carefully oi^ on the frivolous side. But more
the podium, although he knew often there is something intently
that at no time during the next serious behind a motto. Ad Astra
hour would he so much as glance — ‘To the Stars.’ For centuries
at them again. The case stowed this has been almost a religion
away under the podium, he took for men, as our ancestors broke
a deep breath and placed his the bonds of a single planet and
hands flat on the podium’s sur- spread out into the galaxy. Li-
face. Technicians in the control braries have been written of the
booth over the far end of the hall heartbreaks and joys, the sor-
trained parabolic mikes on his rows and jubilations that have
lips, waiting for him to begin the been found in the far reaches of
lecture as he had begun hundreds space.
of other preceding lectures, be- “E Pluribus Unum — ‘United
fore audiences much like this. We Stand.’ Even older and,
The faces might change; the uni- possible, dearer to the hearts of
forms were the same, and so were men. Our very government is
the underlying feelings of the based on the essential concept
turned to Base with the first rosy
glow of dawn lightening the hor-
izon. They stumbled to the
tit- ground, as sorry a looking group
as Luke Royceton had ever seen.
Their masquerade of grime and
his war paints was nearly obscured
by an honest layer of general
a dirt. They filed into wardrobe
their clothes,
and stripped off
leaving them in ragged piles on
the floor. Then they hit the
showers, luxuriating under the
needle sprays and the caress of
soap sliding over their skin.
The discarded costumes were
gone when they emerged, feeling
closer to human, twenty minutes
later. In place of the animal hid'es
were shorts, doublets and the
calf-length boots of Base-cen-
tered personnel.
All were more than happy to
be back in uniform.
Luke stopped outside ward-
robe for a moment, then started
towards Headquarters, a building
if distinguished from the dozen
other prefabs of. Base only by
the pennant flying from the peak.
The buildings were arranged in

54
galaxy THE PROBLEM MAKERS 55
an irregular circle around the
copter field, nestled in the most
hidden valley of the planet’s
single range of hills high enough
to be graced with the name of
mountains. The highest peak in
the range, visible over the one
directly behind Headquarters,
toward barely a thousand feet.
On a world less primitive, the
range would never have served
its present duty.
The world was primitive, how-
ever. Man had advanced but a
few faltering steps beyond the
level of the cave. Ecology had es-
timated the native human popu-
lation not to exceed three million
people over the entire globe, and
cheerfully admitted that their
estimate was made with every
benefit of doubt given to the na-
tives. Quite possibly not even
half that number roamed the
vast plains of the temperate
zones, or breeded in the opulence
of the equatorial jungles. As yet,
population pressures had not
driven men into the colder
climes of the north and south.
None had been spotted more
than five hundred miles from the
equator.
Luke checked in with the Or-
derly Room before reporting on
to the debriefing room. He
slumped onto a couch and prop-
ped his feet on a low coffee table.
The other four team command-
ers were there ahead of him. One
56
brought him a cup of coffee. He
accepted it with thanks, and in-
haled the bitter smell of the
brew before draining half of it.
The fiery liquid burned into his
stomach and scorched away
some of the tensions built up dur-
ing the night.
“Rough night, Luke?” asked
Andy Singer, sitting next to him.
“The roughest. We hit seven-
teen villages between sunset and
sunrise.”
“That is a load. My
team only
hit seven. But you were work-
ing the big river stretch, weren’t
you?” Luke nodded, as he sipped
again at his coffee. “I thought so.
We were lucky. We had the west
plains. There isn’t too much
water over there, couple little
creeks and a few holes. These
locals don’t stray too far from
water.”
hit half a dozen good-
sized places,” said Luke.
“One of them must have had
thirty-five families. For a min-
ute, I thought we were going to
have to kill a few of them, but
it ended up okay. Nobody hurt,
except for one of my boys who
stayed a second too long in a
hut.” He chuckled. “Got the seat
of his pants burned off a new —
kid, just out from the Academy.
The rest of the night, he was the
fastest man I had.”
“Proves what I said
GALAXY
water. Biggest place I hit had fifty-seven villages. Commander
seven houses, and most of them Royceton merely had more fer-
only had two or three.” tilearea to work in. As we move
Luke started to say something out from the Base I know you
will all have equal opportunities
more, but just then the door
opened and the Base Comman- to prove your prowess with the
dant came in. The Team com- torch.”An appreciative murmur
manders stood up respectfully, ran through the little group.
but none had the energy to prop- “Now I know you’re all tired,
erly snap to attention. He smiled gentlemen, and anxious to hit
as he mounted the low platform the sack. I won’t keep you much
room. longer. I just want to emphasize
to the front of the
“At ease, gentlemen.” Grate- the importance of our mission on
fully, the commanders sat back this world. Many of your men
down and resumed their earlier don’t like making these raids on
positions of comfort. The Com- the natives. They would rather
mandant poured himself a glass be roaming the far starlanes, put-
of water from a ready pitcher ting down pirates and other glor-
and drank it, then gave his full ious deeds of derring-do. But you
attention to the room. men are not cadets; there isn’t a
“First, gentlemen, let me con- one of you without twenty years
gratulate you on a successful field service time. You know the
night’s operation. I congratulate real glory comes from satisfac-
all of you, but particularly Com- tion in a job well done. It is up to
mander Royceton and Team B. you to transfer that feeling of
They rolled up the enviable total satisfaction to the malcontents
of seventeen villages destroyed.” within your ranks. Tonight you
Luke flushed, feeling like a go out again; and you will con-
fresh-out-of-Academy Cadet as tinue to do so until every single
the others raised their coffee cups village on this planet has been
in his direction. razed to the ground! If so much
“None of you spent the even- as one single village is permitted
ing slacking, of course,” continued to escape, then we have failed. I
the Commandant. He was a mid- do not like failure; you do not
dle-aged man; the empty sleeve like failure. Working together, we
'
pinned to his shoulder told why can see to it that failure as a
he had been booted out of field word disappears from the lan-
duty while men twenty years guage. I thank you, gentlemen.
his senior were still leading Dismissed.” He stepped down
about teams. “Total score for the night; and strode rapidly from the
THE PROBLEM MAKERS 57
!
—
I
room. Behind him the audience
rose and burst into talk.
Ill
CAM CARTER moaned
^ ly. He tried for
dredth time since the
began to shift his legs into a posi-
tion where the insides would not
be rubbed raw by the rough hair
of his horse-like mount. He re-
solved for the dozenth time that
one of the “inventions” he would
import from the southern prov-
inces would be a good, comfort-
able saddle.
Another would be silk; the
rough fabrics worn by Kahl’s sub-
jects were a fair substitute for
the mount’s hide.
“Ho, southerner!” Prince Kahl
wheeled his mount back from
the head of the column and
Sam had caught up,
waited until
then he fell in beside
goes it? Does my second
ite mount suit you well?”
“Very well indeed, gracious-
ness,” said Sam. “I cannot in
honesty recall when I’ve had a
—
more ouch ! instructive ride!”
“Good!” Kahl leaned over and
slapped him on the shoulder.
“You’ll be glad to know we’ve but
three more hours to go before
reaching the summer palaces.”
“Only, uh, three more hours?”
The sinking sensation in Sam’s
stomach had nothing at all to do
58
with the undulating motion of his
beast. “Ah, that is good news,
your graciousness. We’ll be there
almost before we know it.”
Sam wished Kahl would go
silent- away and leave him to his mis-
the hun- ery, but the prince seemed dis-
journey posed to talk. “I. think there will
be many surprised faces in my
father’s court tonight. Eh, south-
erner?” He chuckled, and then
burst into raucous laughter as he
considered the idea further. “And
to think, it will all be perfectly
legal! You have the papers safe,
my friend?”
“Yes, your graciousness,” said
Sam, sighing and patting his
saddlebags.
“Good! Don’t lose them I’d —
hate to see you missing your
head!” He laughed again, while
Sam’s stomach turned several
more flipflops. “The sight of
blood always did make me sick.”
him. “How There were sixteen men in the
favor- mounted party, including a
dozen of Kahl’s private guard,
the captain of the troop and the
High Priest of the Sun God, the
nation’s officially sponsored reli-
gion.The High Priest was a little
old man, bent over more from
age than fromthe discom-
forts of the journey. Originally
Sam had planned for one more
member, but that had become
unnecessary when he learned
that the High Priest was also
President of the Royal College
GALAXY
of Chirurgeons. The latter
was even more important
to his
plans than the former. Now all
that worried Sam was the possi-
bility that the priest might not
live to the end of the journey. He
was inflicted witth a hacking
cough that sent chills racing up
and down Sam’s spine every time
he went into a fit.
Kahl grew weary of bantering
small talk with a man really fit
to come up with witty replies. He
wheeled his horse again and
dropped back to the end of the
column for a moment, saying
something to the High Priest,
then he spurred his mount back
to the head of the line, falling
into his original position beside
the Captain of the Guard. The
two men were soon lost in
iniscences that had bored Sam
rem-
to tears, every time he had been
an unwilling audience.
A NOTHER hour passed miser-
ably, while the sun mounted
to the zenith and began the long
summer afternoon drop back
down to the horizon. The mem-
bers of the Guard and Kahl
pulled short stubby loaves of
, intended,
bread and cheese from their sad-
dle bags and munched as they
road on, washing the food down
with vigorous pulls at the wine-
skins that took the place of water
canteens on the planet. Sam had
first thought the constant imbib-
60
role long and as far as you talking ‘Man does not live by bread
ing of alcohol to be a national ”
southerner?” alone.’
vice. Then he ran on half a
tests this,
dozen waterholes. Thereafter he “It’sthe way you travel. Rev- “Much wisdom is afloat in the
drank wine himself. erence. The greatest part of my world, disguised in strange ways.”
journey was by ship.” It had With that, the priest went into
Now, however, he was com-
Sam merely neglected to another coughing spell, after
pletely without an appetite. been;
Looking back over his shoulder, specify that it was a spaceship. which he refused to pick up the
“Ocean travel has its own pecul- threads of the conversation. Car-
he saw that the priest was in the
iar discomforts, but for myself.
ter gave up, and spurred his
same boat. Suddenly, without
knowing why, he pulled his I’ll take it every time.”
mount back to his original place
“Tell me, southerner,” said the in the column.
mount up and waited until the
priest caught up with him, then priest, “why do you make this
he rest of the trip passed in,
fell in at the end of the column.
“How goes it. Reverence?”
trip?”
“Prince Kahl wished it,” he T for Sam, self-commiseration.
The lower the sun sank, the hot-
The priest looked up, watery replied.
“Ah, but there is more to this ter the temperature seemed to
eyes registering surprise at his
company. “Oh, southerner.” He than lies on the surface. Why climb. Several times he found
broke into one should Kahl bring you, a stran- himself with wineskin raised to
of his coughing
spasms. “Ahhh, not well, south- ger and a subject of another lips.The native beverage was
house, along on a venture that littlestronger than the plain
erner. Not well at all. The Sun
God does not ride with me may well ’cast the future course water he would have preferred,
this
—
day not that he’s deserted me, of events for this entire nation?”
“Prince Kahl seems to feel
but even so he found himself
more than a little tipsy by the
you understand: he never rides
with me. The Sun God has more that, ah, Imight, because of my time they crested a low range
sense than a foolish old man who experiences in other lands, serve of hills and saw the summer pal-
should be staying home in the him in some minor capacity of aces nestled by the side of a lake
comfort of his apartments, not usefulness.” Sam
chose his words in the valley below.
with care. The old man was en- The column dismounted in an
galivanting around the country-
side like a frisky kitten.” tirely too observant for his liking. inner courtyard, and Kahl, Car-
“I wish he had imparted some “Kahl an astute man,” said
is ter and the High Priest strode
of his wisdom to me,” said Sam. the priest. “However, he is also past the protesting chamberlain
“I confess I feel as you look, Rev- a hungry man, and such a man into the King’s private apart-
erence. No disrespect on the verge of starvation will ments. The King was lying on a
believe me. eat things that in more normal couch, eating fruits served by a
It’s just that the ar-
dors of this journey have taken circumstances he would pass up manservant and listening to poetr
much from both of us. And
toll without so much as a first look. ry being read to him. He looked
I swear, by the Sun God himself, Ideas are much like food, south- up when the trio came in.
you are bearing up much better erner.” “My son! This is indeed an
than I.” “The philosophers of my coun- unexpected honor. What brings
“A man who has traveled as try have a saying. Reverence. you from the city on a day so hot
GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 61
 as this one?” He smiled, but his Sam, carefully omitting the
“Your graciousness.” Then he covered his eyes. “Blasphemy!” title
eyes were sharp. turned to Kahl. “Your Most Gra- “Guards!” Obar pried himself of respect. It passed unnoticed.
“Greetings, Father,” said Kahl, One final return to
ciousness.” up. “Guards! Arrest these More sure of himself, he contin-
bowing low. “I bring you import- Obar. “One more message from maniacs!” ued, “After all, the idea was
ant news from the Council of inherent in the very structure
the Council, your graciousness. Feet clumped outside, then
Priests.Reverence!” They hope you will accept their turned into the chamber. Sam and strictures of your govern-
“Y our Most Graciousness.” eternal pleasure and gratitude for relaxed,unaware that he had ment. Your divine position comes
The old man was already nearly the excellence of your reign.” been holding his breath, know- from the Sun God. He should be
doubled over. ^Vhen he bowed, able to remove it as easily as he
ing that his plans were going
Sam half expected to hear his A LL during the reading, Obar through after all. The men who grants it.”
forehead crack the tiles of the had been staring
at the High came in were the same who had “True,” said Kahl. “Howsom-
floor.
Priest, a ghost smile half-crin- escorted them from the city, ever, there shall be some changes
“Well, Reverence?” The king kling the corners of his mouth. Kahl’s own private guards. made in that respect, once I have
accepted another fruit and The half-eaten fruit now fell to The captain turned to Kahl consolidated my position. Oh, I
sucked on it, keeping a watchful the pavement with a bowed low. “You called. delude myself not in thinking
sodden and
eye on his son. He suspects some- plop! He licked his lips. Your Most Graciousness?” that the battle is over, my friend.
thing! Sam thought. “This . . . This is some sort of “Yes. Take this blithering idiot But the hardest part has been
The High Priest produced a a joke?” away.” won.”
scroll from his robes and cere- “No joke. Father,” said Kahl, The captain bowed again, and “I’ve been thinking,” said Sam,
moniously broke the seal. Un- a little too heartily for Sam’s gestured. Two of his men grab- slowly.
rolled, it was short for the dyna- “Well, keep it not to yourself!”
liking. bed the former king by the arms
mite it contained. said Kahl. “If any more of your
“But how?” Obar shook his and carried him away, scream-
“Your Most Gracious Person,” head. “How dare you?” ing. ideas prove as useful to me as
he read. “The Council of Priests, “I’mmerely exercising my “Ho, southerner!” Kahl sat the last, then you have a glorious
meet and determined in the Holy duty to our subjects. Father. down on his father’s couch and future indeed.”
Temple of the Sun God this You’ve grown old. You’re no gestured. The manservants had “My thoughts are, I’m afraid,
fifth day of the seventh moon of roaming rather far afield. But
longer capable of carrying out been cowering in the back-
the fifty-first year of the reign of the duties of king.” ground; they came forward now take them for what they might
Obar, King, announce to all and “No.” He refused to be worth. You are king of this
believe. and touched their foreheads to
sundry within the domains of nation now, Kahl; and a very able
“You you have no right. I am
. . . the ground. Kahl took a fruit
Obar, King, that he has incur- king! How
can you How can . . . and bit into it, letting the juice king you shall be. Why limit the
red the wrath and displeasure you just walk in here and tell trickle down his chin. benefits of your rule to this one
of the Holy God, the Sun God,
me that I’m not? What gives you “It worked,” said Kahl, swal- nation? Why not let the rest of
and henceforth from this day this right?” “By the Sun God, it the world know the joys of your
lowing.
shall be no more be known as “The same source that made worked!” He slapped his knee. “I rule?”
Obar, King, but as father of you king in the first place,” said when I “Ummm?” He squinted, one
confess, southerner, first
Kahl, King.” Kahl. “The Sun God.” thought you eye closed. “You think it might
heard your plans, I
He let the scroll snap back “Nonsense! There is no Sun daft indeed. But it worked! I’m work out?”
into its cylinder, bowed again, God!” king!” “Why not?” And the Sun God
then handed the scroll to Obar. help us he added to himself.
The High Priest gasped and “I felt certain it would,” said all!
;

62 MAKERS
GALAXY THE PROBLEM 63
 They Here comes Arko. I’d take a stroll in the Park.
IV to come one block from the hotel. • •

jAayhe he found out something.” There’s quite a large Ehrlan sec-

You’ve been watching too many
you know. Makes one quite
^1 '^HK chambers were crowded
*- as the delegates,
thrillers. Citizen — I hope!”
junior member of the delega-
tion,
homesick to hear the singing

and
alternates
just plain onlookers poured
“Well,
thing.
we have to do some-
The session will be starting A tion came panting down the flowers serenading the passerby.
I can’t wait to get back home
in for the afternoon session of the in afew minutes. If he isn’t here, aisle, shaking his head when he

Central Worlds Conference. Two someone else will have to make saw the others’ eyes on him. again.”

hours before the meeting was due he said, as soon

to an astute member of
begin,
the press, long used to such func-
tions, observed that there would
undoubtedly be 'a record broken
before the day was over. And it
was easy to see why: all eyes
“Sorry, Citizens,” “Ifyou hadn’t shown up, none
the presentation.”
as he was within the Ehrlan area. of use would have had the nerve
“Who?”
“He left the hotel over an hour to go home!”
“I don’t know. How about you.
“Why, Citizen Sterm!” Lund
Citizen?” ago. No one has seen a sign of
him since.” seemed amused by some private
“Now, wait a minute!” said
“Well, that tears it,” said Ev- joke. “Whatever made you think
Evrett. “What’s the matter with
just as the presiding secre- I wouldn’t be here? This is an
you. Citizen? You’re the logical rett,

were trained on the spot low in tary struck his gavel on the little important day for Ehrla, re-
choice. You rank second in the
the tiers with the Ehrlan pen- wooden block, announcing the member?”
group.”
nant floating overhead. opening of the session. “Who has “How could we forget?” said
“I wouldn’t dare,” admitted
the copy of the plans?” Evrett.
As yet, the central figure of Sterm. “What if I should bobble
allthe interest had not arrived, “Here,” said Sterm, digging The presiding secretary fiddled
things?* I’d never be able to live
although the rest of the Ehrlans the papers from his case. with his bank of microphones for
it down. I wouldn’t even dare go
make the presentation a moment, in the manner of pre-
were already in their seats and home. My
wife is Lund’s half-
“I’ll
.” siding secretaries throughout
looking anxiously up the aisles myself . .
sister, you know.”
“Just a minute. Citizen!” said history since the invention of the
towards the bank of elevators. “I’d forgotten. But somebody
Arko. “Look! Here he comes public address system, then
An elevator would open from has to do it, if he doesn’t get here.
time to time, to disgorge a few now!” turned hopelessly to the techni-
This is the only opportunity we’ll
late arrivals. But the man they all turned and looked at
They cians. A man came forward,
have this decade. If we have to
the pudgy figure ambling slowly made a simple adjustment, then
expected was not yet among wait another ten years, we may
them. Below, on the chamber down the aisle, nodding to greet- retreated. The Secretary cleared
as well forget the matter alto-
ings that came from all sides. his throat, sipped at a glass of
floor,the presiding secretary was gether.”
mounting to the rostum and The missing man smiled and water and spoke.
“We do that!” protested
can’t
“The fourth session of the
arranging his papers. shook .hands with a couple of the
Sterm. “We’ve worked too long
onlookers, before entering the Nineteenth Conference of the
“Where the devil can he be!” and too hard on this plan. It’s the
area and taking his seat at the Central Worlds is open for busi-
said Citizen Evrett to Citizen only fair solution anyway. The
head of the delegation. ness. The afternoon session will
Sterm, the second ranking mem- other worlds will never accept
ber of the delegation. “Citizen Lund!” cried Sterm, be devoted to the presentation
anything else.”
“God only knows! You don’t as though speaking to a wayward and discussion of proposals by
“Someof them may not want
child. “Where in the name of the the membership. The Recording
suppose something has hap-
. . . to accept this one, when they
Seven Suns have you been?” Secretary will call the roll of
pened?” hear all of the details. You must
“Why, a beautiful day. Citi- delegations.”
“How could it, here in the admit, we haven’t been too easy
it’s

heart of the city? He only had zens,” explained Lund. “I thought A short stubby man with five
on some of your fellow members.

64 THE PROBLEM MAKERS 65

GALAXY
 o’clock shadow came forward today have been rightly con- announces to this organization tion,you know.” Reilly moodily
and leaned into the bank of mi- cerned with the problems of new day they have annexed regarded his coffee.
that this
crophones, and yelled: “Accryl- systems being developed, Trepi- “Yessir, I knew. The rest of the
the systems of Phelimina,
star
lia!” new races being assimilated into dar and Scolatia.”
faculty knows too. And if I might
Across the chamber a man the federation of free and lawful down and turned
to the be so bold as to say so, sir, we’ll
He sat
stood up, holding his delegation’s worlds. These new worlds need his “Gentle-
delegation. all be sorry to see you go. It
rest of
microphone. “The grand and sov- guidance, a guidance that only men,” he said, smiling, as he won’t be the same Academy
ereign system of Accryllia, long without General Reilly glarin’ a
long experience can provide.” handed a sealed envelope to
known throughout the galaxy for Evrett looked at Sterm, un- “my resignation.” bit at us all.”
Sterm,
the excellence of its citrus fruit, easily. “What is this?” he whisper- “Glaring a bit, is it. Sergeant?”
the beauty of its maidens, the ed. “He isn’t presenting the plan eilly slumped in his chair He glared now, then broke down
virtue of its honorable young
men . . . the grand and sovereign
like this, I hope? He’ll alienate
half the delegations.”
R with a sigh. The
it had ended not
lecture had into a smile. “I suppose I
that. Do the cadets still
do at
call me
gone well, but
state of Accryllia passes.” know what Old Stoneface?”
“I don’t he’s doing,” a moment too soon to suit him.
“Antares!” said Sterm. “I only hope he “I’m growing old,” he said, un- “Not within my heaf-ing, sir.”
“Antares passes.” knows.” aware he was speaking out loud. He grinned. “But you know ca-
“Bodancer!” dets. You were one yourself. I
“In the past,” continued Lund, “Pardon, sir?” The regular serv-
“The system of Bodancer “the various and varied members Sergeant-Major closed the supose it’d be as difficult to stop
ice
passes.” cadets from tagging their teach-
of this honored organization have I
door and brought over his cup of
“Buddington!” provided the same guidance in ers with nicknames as it’d be to
I
coffee. “Did you say something,
“Mr. Secretary, the proud sys- wise and infinitely proper man- ride a star bareback.”
:
sir?”
tem of Buddington yields to ner. It is the hope of Ehrla that “What?” Reilly blinked. “Oh, Reilly sighed, and swiveled his
I

Ehrla!” they will continue to do so in the chair until he could see through
nothing. Nothing at all. Sergeant.
“Ehrla!” future. Therefore the ancient and I Just an old man muttering to the one cluttered window. The
honorable system of Ehrla pro- himself.” parade ground stretched away
/^ITIZEN Lund beneath, the system pennant flut-
^ stood up, un-
clipped the mike from the
poses, to this effect, that the mem-
bers of this organization continue
j

1
“Begging the general’s pardon,
sir, I don’t think you’re an old tered briskly in the stiff breeze.
railing,smiled around at a few as they have in the past.” '
man at all. At least, no older Into his view marched a bat-
more wellwishers and launched Pandemonium was breaking than myself.” He cocked his talion of Cadets. Much the same
into his speech. “Mr. Secretary! scene had repeated itself daily
I

out in scattered sections of the* head. “Although, to be perfectly

during the thirty years he had
j

Ehrla wishes to thank the proud
and ancient system of Budding-
ton for relinquishing its rightful
order in these proceedings, so
that Ehrla may present a plan
that the citizens of Ehrla feel
certain will meet with the
proval of this meeting.
“For hundreds of years, the
various peoples represented here
chamber as various delegations
realized that they were being
snookered by the Ehrlans. Voices
rose up here and there, trying to
drown out Lund’s words. Moni-
tors moved up and down the
full ap- aisles, trying to quell the disturb-
ances.
“Therefore,” said Lund, “Ehrla,
to the implementation of its plan.
honest with both of us, sir, there
are times when I just can’t seem
to keep up with these children
they keep sending us nowadays.”
“We’re both ready for
ment, Sergeant. Old work horses,
ready to be turned out to pas-
ture. I guess this will be the last
class I see through these old
doors. I’ve submitted my
occupied the office. “The faces
change.”
“Sir?”
retire- “The faces change. Sergeant.
How many thousands of boys
have come through these doors?
The uniform never changes,
though. And I suppose that’s
resigna- really the most important thing.

66
GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 67
in its essence — the uniform and “To yesterday, sir. And may “Dismissed, Sergeant.” men, you are fair game from then
the tradition.” these days be as memorable to Sighing, Reilly swiveled his on.
“That sir.” those who be remembering
will and watched the dril- “Now, then,” he said. “Are
it is,
chair again
Reilly chuckled. “You know, fifty years from now.”
lers on the parade ground until there many other questions be-
Sergeant, I never considered my- “And those days fifty years the short rat-a-tat-tat sounded
fore I give you my sales pitch?
self a particularly sentimental further.” They touched glasses, again. He turned around in time Yes, Mr. Kaslov?”
man. Still, the faster the years fly then tossed off the contents, face the gangling teenagers “Sir,” the boy said, hesitantly,
to
by, the dearer old memories be- wincing as the whiskey cut its trooping through the door. “I believe you knew my grand-
come. The clearer, too. I can re- way down. A soft ball of fire ex- “Messrs. Whyte, Phillips, Gar- father. Sub-Colonel Kaslov? He
call things that happened when I ploded in Reilly’s midsection. He Gordon, Kaslov and Poirot, served with you during the
rett,
was a boy much easier than I sighed, capped the bottle and sir,”announced the Cadet Ser- Deneb Crisis.”

can remember what I had for stowed it and the glasses away. geant-Major before withdrawing “Of course!” said Reilly. “Mar-
breakfast this morning.' And I A short rat-a-tat-tat sounded again. tin Kaslov; I should have recog-
know that’s a sign of old age.” on the door; the Cadet Sergeant- “Come gentlemen, come
in, nized the name immediately. He
He picked up his coffee and Major opened it and stuck his
in.” Reilly stood up. “Find
your- was my Team leader. And his

made a face when he found it
cold. “Sergeant, as
sharing the past, how about hav-
ing a cup of something a bit
stronger than this watery brew
with me?”
“Sir! I really don’t think .”
“Oh, bother regulations.
geant! I’m speaking as a man
now, not as a general. I’d deem
it an honor.”
“Then I’d be proud to, sir.”
head through. “Sir?” selves a seat. Just pile those son was fresh out of the Acad-
two old men “Yes, Sergeant?” magazines on the chair, sir. I emy; I remember very well. So
“Six gentlemen to see you, think three of you will fit admir- you might become third genera-
sir.” ably on that couch. You others tion Academy material, eh?
“What?” He glanced at his can draw up those chairs by the Good, good. We’re always glad
memo pad. A notation warned water cooler. Yes, that’s it.” He to have someone whose roots
. . him six prospective cadets were shook hands all around, and then are deep in Academy tradition.
Ser- due to come in. It was not stand- sat down again. That’s why I’m particularly hap-
ard procedure for him to inter- “Now then, your names once py to have all six of you gentle-
view candidates, but all six were more, please?” He fixed them men here this afternoon. I under-
the sons of Academy graduates firmly in his mind as each boy stand you attended my lecture?”
killed in the line of duty. “Give introduced himself in turn. “Ah,

TTE sat down in the visitor’s

me five minutes. Sergeant, then
show them in.”
yes.
Reilly,
And I, of course,
Commandant
am General
of the All six
hand.
nodded; one raised his

chair while Reilly opened “Very good, sir.” He withdrew Academy.” “Yes, Mr. Whyte?”
the bottom drawer of his desk and closed the door. “Sir?” “Sir, I heard your lecture, but,
and drew out a bottle and two “Well, Sergeant,” said Reilly, “Yes, Mr. Kaslov?” frankly, I didn’t get very much
very dusty glasses. He blew into turning to the regular service ‘Would that be the General out of it. I mean, you talked
them, set them on the edge of man. “Perhaps these are the lads Reilly? Of the Deneb Crisis?” a great deal about the service
the desk and poured generous who will be doing that reminis- “I ’see my fame has proceeded and so forth, but it just didn’t
measures of the amber liquid. cing fifty years from now.” me, gentlemen. Yes, I am that make much sense to me. It
The sergeant accepted his with “Quite possible, sir.” He stood Reilly. Please, don’t let the fact was just like Pop — my dad
a bow of his head. They raised up and came to attention. “Do I scare you. I assure you, I don’t used to talk when I was a kid. I
their glasses. have the general’s permission, bite off the head of a boy until don’t suppose it made much
“To yesterday. Sergeant.” sir?” he is in uniform. Then, gentle- sense then, but kids don’t under-

68 GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 69

 stand anyway. But now I’m old no more. But how to explain around a lake. Shall we hit
pride in the fact that that best is
enough to enter the Academy them anyone else’s. them?”
so that someone who does- better than
myself. I think I should know n’t know will know? In a sense, “But so much for numerical “We the closest?”
more about it, what it means, I’ve been trying to do that ever You most want to hear “Singer’s forty miles the other
values.
what it stands for. Uh, do I make my first girl friend threw of them, but he’s tied up
since what we do. And that can best be side
myself clear?” me chasing some mavericks.”
over as an incurable romantic summed up in one word: every-
“As lucid as a mountain spring “Let’s go then.”
when she learned that I intended thing, Everything, and yet
that,
on a bright morning, Mr. Wh5rte. to enter the Academy. For many too, has its limitations.
Impossi- Luke bolstered his glasses and
I only regret my own words were slid down into the cargo hold.
people, I’m afraid there is no ex- bilitiesare beyond even us. Im-
not as concise.” He smiled. The planation. They are incapable of probabilities are given a fair The rest of the team were taking
other boys laughed while Whyte understanding, no matter how chance. Weare constantly seek- advantage of the lull in activity
flushed. hard we try. But
I don’t think ing out courses of action that to catch up on their relaxation.
“But you have expressed a you gentlemen are in that class. will benefit not the individual
They had been constantly on the
very important point,” continued Otherwise you would not be here but the race. And in some in- go since the migrations had be-
Reilly. “I don’t want a man at all. stances, not even a race, when gun in earnest two months ear-
coming in here who doesn’t know Luke kibitzed a card game
“The obvious place to begin is there are many races involved lier.
what the Academy stands for. the beginning. ‘The greater good.’ a particular manner. The for few minutes, then an-
a
in
We have a long tradition, but we Not the greatest, mind you the — methods we follow, the actions nounced: “Action coming up in
niean more than just words greater. There are those who we take in a particular instance, about twenty minutes. Grab
carved over a marble arch. ‘The quibble over words; they are may sometimes seem cruel and something to eat and run a
Greater Good for the Greater responsible for this particular unreasoning ...” check on your costumes.”
Number.’ There are hundreds of delineation. It would be idealistic The copter dropped to tree-
years and hundreds of thousands to try for the greatest in all V top level five miles from the lake
of lives lived and died behind things. Despite his thousands of and came to ground four miles
those seven words. From Earth’s years of development, man is still he were on the
families further on. The team piled out,
first colony in the Centauri sys-
tem to the latest native intelli-
a long ways from being an ideal T move, away from their com- stretched the tensions of the long
out of their bodies, then
creature.There are certain things fortable homes under the ever- j*ide
gence charted in the Crab Neb- that remain beyond his capabili- lasting warmth of the sun. Luke started out through head-high
ula, those seven words have ties. In certain isolated incidents, Royceton^ shifted his weight in dwarf trees that separated their
wrapped up an entire philosophy the course we follow does pro- the copter and trained the glasses landing spot from the lake. They
and dictated the means of livine duce the greatest good possible. on a column of dust rising three wound through the trees and
by it. over a low, rolling series of hills.
But they are isolated. miles to the west and ten thou-
“But what do the words actu- “The same reasoning follows The cover stopped suddenly, two
sand feet below.
ally mean? I think, Mr. Whyte, the choice of ‘The Greater Num- “It’s okay, Harry,” he said to
hundred yards from the beach.
that is the crux of your question. ber.’ Only our limitations prevent swung back “Big family is right!” said Luke
the pilot. “They’ve
Indeed, that is the crux of the us from seeing to it that every softly, gripping his axe.
north again.”
structure on which the Academy There were nearly fifty huts
world in the galaxy is the best of “Right, Luke,” the pilot re-
is founded. Oh, it’s easy to say all possible worlds, insofar as the plied. “Scout report just in says in various stages of construction
that the words mean what they peculiarities of a particular world there’s a real big outfit about along the beach. Twice that num-
say, because they do. That and permit. We do our best, and take eighty miles settling down ber of adult males were working

70
GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 71
on them, while the women were
bringing in armloads of grass for
thatching. The children were
waist-deep in the lake with fish-
ing spears. A still wriggling pile
on the beach
prowess.
testified
Luke glanced over the dozen
members of his team, shaking
know,” he said.
his head. “I don’t
“Those are pretty hefty odds.”
“What’s to worry about,
Luke?” asked one of the men.
“You don’t expect those charac-
ters to put up a fight, do you?”
“God only knows. They just
might take
it in their heads to do
From
that. looks of things, either
this outfit has been traveling far
or else several villages have com-
bined forces. If it’s the last, then
I’m plenty worried.”
“So what do we do? Go back
and yell for reinforcements?”
“Not yet. Not until
these babies ourselves.
body got his courage
up?” There were soft murmurs of
assent from each man. “Make
torches.” Two men faded away
and returned a moment later
with arms full of the same grass
the villagers were using. Half the
team set to work, twisting them
into torches and tying them with
short lengths of a twine-like vine
they had brought along from the
equatorial jungles. The
were passed out, and Luke took
a deep breath: “Let’s go!”
72
'T^HE team the handles. One then tossed his Several minutes passed, dur-
leaped to their feet
into the large pile of thatching ing which Luke recited every
and broke from the cover,
material, while the other stuck prayer he had ever heard, to
screaming their banshee cry. The
his into the unplastered wall of every conceivable deity in the
natives dropped what they were
the nearest hut. The thatching pantheon. At the end of that
doing and wheeled around, then
blazed up quickly, forcing the time! he realized that he wasn’t
to their froze in their tracks at the sight
of the wildly painted devils tear- natives away from the heat. Most going to die after all at least, —
of the team now had their backs not here and now. Rolling over
ing down the beach. The two
to the nearest wall; none had es- onto his good arm, he sat up and
hundred yards separating them
caped the jabbing spears. One got his back against a tree. From
halved, then halved again before
man was completely encircled by the beach came screams of terror,
the natives broke out of their
the natives. Suddenly his axe was growing as he listened
fainter
stupor. One of the workers placed
wrenched from his grasp. They and dying away alto-
finally
his fingers between his teeth and
picked him up, legs flailing wild- gether. Bracing his good arm
whistled. The children ran in
ly in the air, carried him over and against a tree, he worked himself
from the lake, tossing their
threw him onto the fire. up, got himself oriented and
spears to the nearest adult, man
“Let’s get out of here!” scream- started back towards the copter.
or woman.
med Luke, surprising those The pilot threw away his ciga-
By the time the team was
around him by suddenly leaping rette and dropped out of the door
among them, axes whistling
forward and grabbing two of to the cargo hold when Luke
through the air and smashing the
them, forcing them off balance. came limping into view.
walls of the huts, the villagers
He called on every ounce of “My God, man! What hap-
were armed and fighting back.
strength he possessed to run pened?”
“We’ve got troubles!” yelled
through the gauntlet of spears. “I . made a mistake.” He let
. .
Luke, bringing his axe down to
From the corner of his eye, he himself be helped into the copter
we try break several spears being jab-
Every- could see one other man break and took the mike, reporting the
bed at him. The spears were too
loose, only to be recaptured a disaster on the beach to the Com-
screwed short to make good throwing
dozen feet farther on. mandant back at Base. Then he
weapons, so the natives were
By some miracle, Luke out- let the pilot bandage his wounds.
using them just as they would in
going after fish. One got through distanced those pursuing him,
Luke’s guard; he choked back a crashing into the cover. The na- Ci'C'LEVEN men dead,” he
cry of pain as the broad stone tives followed a few yards, then said bitterly.
gave up the chase, heading back “Don’t take it so hard, Luke,”
head went into his flesh and was
twisted. He pulled away, yanking to the easier sport on the beach. said Andy Singer. The team
the shaft out of the native’s hand. Luke tripped over an exposed Commanders were back in the
rootand crashed to the ground. debriefing room again. All had
Two of the team had managed
He tried to get up again, but his commiserated with Luke on the
to get close enough to the cook-
torches injured arm refused to support tragedy; none had been able to
ing fires to light their torches.
They used them now him. Closing his eyes, he waited convince him that it had not
as shields,
for the fatal blow to fall. been his fault.
until the grass burned down to
GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 73
 “Eleven men dead,” he re- Therefore, I repeat: eleven men
peated, no matter what they said. died here yesterday. They did
The commandant came in and not die in vain!”
they rose. “At ease, gentlemen,”
he said, as he mounted the plat-
“Time for a break, I think,”
pressing a button.
form. He stared at them for a said Reilly,

thirty-second eternity. The door opened and the cadet

“Ours is not an easy task.” His Sergeant-Major stuck his head
words broke the tension; all in.

sighed. “Sir?”
“There has been a tragic acci- “Coffee, Sergeant. That will be
men have gentlemen?” The boys
dent, gentlemen. Good suitable,

died. Menjust as good have died nodded and the cadet withdrew.
on a thousand planets in a thou- “While we’re waiting, are there
sand different ways. Sometimes any more questions?”
One of the boys hesitantly
they died because of an error;
sometimes the death was un- raised his hand.
avoidable. But for whatever rea- “Mr. Phillips?”
son, they did not die in vain! “Sir, why is so much of the

“This is a young planet,” he activity by the agents carried out

It all seems rather
secrecy?
continued. “In many ways, it’s as in

near to paradise as any of us will underhanded to me.”

ever see. Man is a young race “By the very nature of them-
here —young in development. selves, what we do must be car-
ried out secretly. Even when we
Yet almost before he has a
.”
act openly, is in secret
chance to prove himself, he has it . .

found himself in a backwater,

stymied as it were by the very N
the distance a bell tolled the
paradise qualities which attract
I supper hour. In the palace,
us. Life is easy here, too easy. He pageboys wandered the corridors,
doesn’t have to exert himself. He knocking on doors
apartment
lives much like his ancestors did, rousing the Carter
occupants.
ten thousand years ago. combed out frowning
his beard,

“There is no future in standing at the liberal sprinkling of gray

still. Whether he likes it or not, hairs in it, donned his cloak and
man must develop, must give the set out for the dining hall. He
future generations a chance for shivered as a chill wind swept
their place in the sun. Despite down the drafty corridors, and
sentimentality, anything that reminded himself to speak to
gives them that chance is good. Kahl again about returning to

THE PROBLEM MAKERS 75

>
 the capital city. Anything would
be better than this.
The
dining hall was crowded,
as usual, with supplicants who
had bribed their way to the royal
tables. Most of them had wasted
their money. The chamberlain
had stuck them away in far cor-
ners where they would be able
to do nothing but stare at the
man they wanted to see. Not that
it would have done them any
good to speak to the king. Kahl
found the petty details of his
office tiring. More and more he
had been shoving them onto the
willing shoulders of Carter.
The chamberlain met him
the door with a copy of the seat-
ing arrangements. Carter read
down the list, pausing here and
there at familiar —
names most
of them p>ests who had long ago
worn out his patience. He pursed
his lips and touched a name with
his finger.
“This Ivra. Fisherman, it says.
He the one with the daughter
Kahl wants?”
“Yes.” Like most of the royal
retinue, the chamberlain was un-
comfortable in Carter’s presence.
The man had no title, no
But he was undeniably the most
powerful person in the realm
after the king himself some —
placed his ^eminence even ahead
of the king’s. “Shall I place him
at the royal table?”
“No. It wouldn’t do any good.
76
But tell him to come see me
—
tomorrow no. Make that three
days from now. He can’t have his
daughter unviolated, but
we can make him happy
her at all.”
He handed the list
made his way to the royal table,
nodding to acquaintances and
enemies. The problem of the fish-
erman bothered him. Carter was
unaware of the fact, but he car-
ried a strong puritanical con-
science, the legacy of unknown
forebears of years back. He dis-
approved of Kahl’s unrestrained
love life and did whatever he
at could to ease the disruptions it
caused in the normal flow of sub-
ject-ruler relations.
He stopped at the royal table
and clapped a uniformed officer
on the shoulder. “Marshal Zants!
A pleasure to see you back at
court. I read your report. I know
His Most Graciousness will be
pleased at your eastern suc-
cesses.”
“Thank you, sir.” The marshal
inclined his head. “And
have had your own successes.
Much has changed during the
office. two years of my campaign.”
“We all live. Marshal,”
Carter. “We all grow a little older.
It’s the natural course of life. A
man who stands still in one posi-
tion all the time wouldn’t
good runner, now would he?”
“Indeed not. I suppose you
GALAXY
wouldn’t be interested in a com-
mission under me? What things
we could do together!”
I think “I’m honored that you think of
to have me so kindly, but I’m afraid my
peculiar talents don’t run in the
back and military manner. Marshal.”
“Ah, but what a strategist you
would make, sir.”
“Oh?” He grinned. “Then our
enemies should be happy to have
me in the capital, not on the
field.”
He reached his seat just
time to touch trousers to
again when Kahl came
and rise
in, whispering something in the
ear of a courtesan. The girl
laughed hysterically, then went
to the woman’s table as servants
started bringing in the first
course. Kahl grunted as he sat
down and rubbed his belly.
leaned over towards Carter.
“I’m getting fat, southerner.
Fat and old.”
“A little exercise would do us
all good.”
I see you Kahl laughed. “That’s what I
like about you. Carter. Not for
you the mealy-mouthed compli-
ments. When you think some-
said thing, you come right out and
say it. I wish more of my minis-
ters had your courage.”
“A few tried it,” said Carter.
make a “As I remember it, you had their
ears cut off and made them eat
them.”
THE PROBLEM MAKERS
“Yes, but I gave them a choice
as to how they were prepared,
didn’t I?” He roared, and the rest
of theroom roared with him, al-
though no one more than six feet
from the head of the royal table
could possibly have known the
jest.
Kahl fell to slurping his soup,
while Carter did his best to hide
his distaste at the man’s table
manners. For that matter, there
was not a person in the hall he
would have invited to the most
informal dinner in his own apart-
in
it ments. Table manners were
something else he had been try-
ing to introduce, but as yet they
were his most notorious failure.
“Ahhh!” The king wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand.
While one servant removed the
soup and another brought up the
He platter of meats and fish, he
leaned over again. “Now, then,
Carter. I’ve been meaning to
speak to you all day. Been busy,
though. Inhuman the number of
demands on my time. Not that
I mind of course. The penalties
of the crown, and all that. But I
really have been meaning to talk
to you. How’s that pet tinkerer of
yours coming along.”
“Which one would that be?
I’ve got most of the college work-
ing, you know.”
“The one working on that
steam gadget you’ve been telling
me about. You know, the one to
77
 make work easier. Not that I can limit to how much may be with other plans. But even so, discarded costume into an access
with-
see why a man should have his drawn from an occupied area — things were off to a good start. panel. Then he gave the now-slim
work made easy. Does the people Although he might not live to little man a boost up through the
if you still want to have that area
good to sweat a bit.” useful to you in the future. A see the complete fruition of all roof of the cage and let himself
“Economically, though, to very wise man in my country of his plans. Carter knew that be helped up.
have one man able to do the once said that an army travels on this world was well on its way “Thank God for tradition,” the
work of half a dozen is very good. its stomach. The plans Zants has towards galactic citizenship. man who had been known as
Just think of how it’ll enrich the been discussing with me for his Lund said when he helped the
treasuries. Besides, the work isn’t next campaign call for a very “There’s a great deal of satis- other man up. Stripping off his
any easier on them: they just large army.” faction in being a power behind uniform jacket and reversing it
produce more.” “You know,” said Kahl, “at the the throne.” Reilly grinned. changed the other’s appearance.
“Yes, yes. You’ve explained rate we’re going, it won’t be long “However, any of you have a
if The elevator slowed automati-
that all before. But how is it before your country is part of my particular yen toward such cally for the ground floor. Word
going?” country.” power, only fair to tell you
it’s had been flashed down from the
“Quite well. I think another “I’m afraid that’ll take a while now that our screening is the Conference hall, but when the
few weeks will bring very prom- yet.” He laughed. “Although most thorough ever devised. And waiting monitors surged into the
ising results. Some of the others there has never been a nation in it is constantly being improved. opening elevator before it had
are coming along well, too. The history with so much territory No man is ever placed in a posi- quite eased to a stop, they found
armory is turning out a hundred under tion where his weaknesses might nothing at all.
its Your name
direct rule.
of the improved crossbows a day, will live as the monarch of this prove the better of him. Overhead, the two men
now. I took Marshal Zants country alone, no matter what “This is not to say that a man threaded their way through a
through the armory and his eyes you might do on your own.” might not find himself in a posi- maze of cables and onto the roof
positively glowed with excite- Events were moving fast on tion where he will be called on of the next cab. It dropped under
ment. He promises new and the planet —almost faster than to do more than his utmost. It’s
surprising just how much a man
them, then stopped halfway be-
tween floors while they climbed
greater victories in his next cam- Carter wanted. Already the lands
paign.” under Kahl’s rule amounted to can do, when he finds out he has down. The new operator eyed
nearly fifty per cent of the known no other choice .” . . them, but said nothing while they
Kahl was chewing on areas of the world. At the rate brushed each other off. At a sig-
the leg of a bird. “He’s things were snowballing, it
VI nal from the small man, the cab
been doing pretty good as it is, wouldn’t be long before his pri- continued its interrupted drop,
hasn’t he?” mary objective of planetary uni- t^HE counterfeit Lund reached letting them out on the sub-
“Much better than I would fication were achieved —
thou- the bank of elevators a half-
dozen running paces ahead of the
surface shopping level.
The corridors of the level were
have thought,” Carter admitted. sands of years ahead of time, if
“The problems of waging a war events had been permitted to fol- just-coming-to-life audience. He full of running figures, most of

completely off from contact with low their natural course. gestured, and the operator closed them heading towards the eleva-
home are great. Lines of supply, Of course, there would be de- the door in their faces. tor banks. No one paid the newly
communication —
these are all lays and setbacks all along the During the long descent to the arrived pair any attention at all,
vital to the successful campaign. way. Subsidiary objectives would street, Lund stripped off his although the powder-blue uni-
I’ve got a few ideas on these sub- always be getting in the way, clothesand did things to his face forms of the monitors predom-
jects, too. After all, there is a must always be considered along while the operator shoved the inated.

78 GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 79

 them the most dangerous force the constant specter of failure,
The two men strode briskly ing for the dissolving of the Con-
loose in the galaxy today.” for we are not perfect. Nor do we
down the corridor until they ference." want to be.
came to a side passage lined with “So soon?” sum it up,” said Reilly, “It is a lonely life for some: it
small shops that featured the “They, uh, you might say had ^ getting up and going to is a short life for others. But for
specialized products of the vari- an inside lead as to what was all it’s something more.”
of us,
the window, “ours is not a life of
ous members of the Conference. going to happen.” He turned and faced the boys
glory and fame.” Another bat-
They stopped in front of one dis- “It’s a little early to tell," again. “It is the chance to be
playing gadgets from Ehrla, then talion marched out onto the field
added the other man, “but ap- something more than just a man,
entered while the counterfeit below and began the familiar
parently the operation was a suc-
maneuvers. “We work hard and for a man is a selfish creature.
Lund purchased a perpetual
razor, having it giftwrapped.
cess. The proper wheels have
been set in motion, at least. We’ll
receive little thanks —
if, indeed, And it is

know.
the most rewarding life

Then they wandered further, act- we receive any thanks at all. The I
have to keep applying grease “Any questions, gentlemen?”
strenuous. The work is de-
ing now like the
average sight-
seer, until they reached a florist’s
from time to time in the next
life is
manding. And over all of us rides — ROBERT HOSKINS
forty-eight hours, but I think we
shop set in an alcove at the end can forget about the Ehrlan
of the passage.
They entered, saw that there
problem —
during this confer-
ence, at least. Ten years from
were no other customers, nodded now, they’ll have an entirely dif-
to the salesmanand continued on ferent set of plans for the refor- In the August issue of Worlds of Tomorrow:
to the back. mation of the galaxy. And we’ll
“Dale!” The waiting pair have to come up with an entirely
leaped to their feet and spoke as ALL WE MARSMEN
different way of crossing them.”
one. “We thought you weren’t new novel of tomorrow's
Beginning a brilliant
going to make it!”
“Do-gooders!” snorted the first
“I didn’t think so myself,” said interplanetary life ... by Philip K. Dick
man.
Dale Vernon, the slim little man. “You must admit, they have
“If Die hadn’t been there right on
the best of intentions,” said
schedule, there’d be nothing left Vernon. THE IMPOSSIBLE STAR
of me but a few bloody shreds.
“But intentions aren’t enough,”
Those people were mad!” His added the other. “Man is an im- by Brian W. Aldiss
voice showed respect for the perfect creature at best, and his
strength of their emotions, best is a rare occurence indeed. — and many more, including Daniel Keyes, J. T. McIntosh,
“What’s the news?” We
“The Park monitors found the
have to deal with practicali-
Fritz Leiber and a highly provocative article. The New
ties. Perfection is beyond us, and
real Lund about twenty minutes the newest
we’d be idiots to try and enforce Science of Space Speech. Worlds of Tomorrow is
ago.” it. That’s the basic difference
be- — don
“Good timing. Any sooner, and
the fun upstairs would have been
tween us and the Ehrlans we — and most exciting science-fiction magazine in years t

know what we can and can’t do.

different.” miss it! August issue on sale today
They know only what they
“And you know who is scream- would like to do. And that makes
80
GALAXY THE PROBLEM MAKERS 81
 people are convinced that these
brand new words, invented
are all
Washington or in Hunts-
either in
Alabama. In reality they are
ville,
standard astronomical terms that
have been around since the early
part of the seventeenth century.
But recently talk about L-
points has started and though
this, too, is a standard astronomi-
cal term, I suspect that not even
all science-fiction readers are
quite sure justwhat an L-point is.
for begin at the beginning, the
To
L stands for Lagrange, full name
your Joseph Louis Lagrange, who lived
from 1736 to 1813. Lagrange was
a mathematician with strong
information astronomical leanings, and as his
name indicates he was a French-
man. Frenchmen have the repu-
tation of being people who stay
BY WILLY LEY home, or at least in France. If this
is truly a national characteristic
was
the French, then Lagrange
of
an atypical Frenchman. To begin
rpHE AVERAGE reader — as with, he was born in Torino, or
-* distinct from the Turin, in Italy and was educated
science-fic-
tion reader — has had a number there; he also had his first posi-
of terminology problems during tion in Italy,being appointed (at
the past few years. His favorite the age of nineteen!) professor of
newspapers and magazines, in- mathematics at the Artillery
stead of talking about things one School at Torino. While engaged
the task of hammering some
could understand like sad-eyed
puppies and clean-cut little boys
in
mathematics into the skulls of fu-
who, unfortunately, are too stupid ture artillery commanders he cor-
responded with the mathemati-
to spell properly, has started talk-
ing of orbits, perigee and apogee, cian Leonhard Euler and laid the
inclination to the equator and foundation for the branch of
similar things. Quite a number of mathematics which later came to
82 GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION
be called calculus of variations.
At the age of 28 he published a
mathematical treatise on the mo-
tion of the moon which was
awarded a prize by the French
Academy of Sciences. Two years
later, he followed up with a the-
ory of the motions of the satel-
lites of Jupiter which made such
an impression in Berlin that Fred-
erick the Great of Prussia ap>-
pointed him director of the Berlin
Academy of Sciences. Lagrange
sp)ent the next twenty years of
his life in Berlin until, finally, in
1787 Louis
vited him to
XVI
of France in-
come to Paris. There
he sp>ent the rest of his life, head-
ing a commission for the reform
of weights and measures, being
professor at the Ecole Polytech-
nique and finally becoming a sen-
ator and elevated to Count by
Nap>oleon I.
During his investigation of the
orbits of our own moon, as well
as the orbits of Jupiter’s satellites,
Lagrange encountered a problem
which he did not solve: the so-
called three-body problem.
rpHE PROBLEM is very sim-
ply this
Assume three bodies in space
— say a planet which has two
very large moons in orbit around
it. You know the mass of
every
one of these three bodies. You
also know their relative p>ositions,
and you know their orbital veloci-
83

Fig. 1. The Lagrongian poinh
ties at this moment. Now find a
set of simple and elegant equa-
tions which permit you to predict
the future motions of these bodies,
accounting for their mutual at-
tractions all the time.
Lagrange tried hard, but failed;
and to this day nobody has been
able to come up with such a set
of equations.
Of course we can and do
late such cases — for example,
when it comes to predicting the
motion of a comet. But it has to
be done by way of endless step-
84
. Lg (40,750 miles
beyond the moon)
earth-moon system. (Fig. 1.)
earth and the moon are two of
the three bodies. The third one
would be a hypothetical satellite;
and the problem would be to find
a position in which it would have
in the earth-moon system. an easily predictable orbit. Two
of these points are the ones
by-step calculations which have known as equilaterals, positions
to be checked against observa- L^ and Lr„ where the satellite
tions all the time. would travel in the orbit of the
But, while Lagrange failed to moon and would, of course, have
find an overall solution of the the same orbital period as the
three-body problem, he did find moon.
a number of special cases where But there are two more such
there was a solution, provided the points which lie on the line con-
bodies were in certain relative po- necting the center of the earth
sitions to each other. In fact, there with the center of the moon. One
calcu- were five such p>ositions which of these two is closer to us than
later
. .
were called the Lagrangian
.
the moon; the other is beyond the
points, or L-points, moon. Now, if our moon did not
For an example of the Lagran- exist, a satellite moving at the dis-
gian points let us look at the tance of the Li point —about
GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION
203,000 miles from the earth’s
center — and another satellite
moving the
at Lo
distance of the
point — about 280,000 miles
from the earth’s center — would
have different orbital periods.
The Li satellite would need less
time than our moon; the Lo satel-
lite would need more time. But
because our moonthere the
is
satellites in these points would
have the same orbital period as
our moon.
One may try to visualize this
by imagining that our moon’s
gravitational force drags the Lj
satellite along a bit faster than
The it would move normally, and
keeps the Lj satellite back so
that it does not move quite as
fast as it would by itself.
We now know that the L^ and
Lr. positions are actually occupied
by dust clouds. The Li point is
not occupied, while an occupant
of the Lo point could never be
seen from earth. (In the future
both the Li and Lo points may be
occupied by radio relay satellites,
if we get more than one human
settlement on the moon. Because
of the fairly strong curvature of
the moon’s surface, two distant
lunar bases could not have direct
radio contact. But they could talk
to each other easily via relay
satellites, located in the Ls point
for bases on the far side of the
moon, and in the Li point for
bases on the lunar hemisphere
85
which is visible from the earth.) eccentricity.The open circles would have to alternate. In the
show the four bodies at their ex- hexagonal system, bodies 1, 3 and
¥>EFORE I go on, one loose end treme distances from the central 5 would have to have the same
and one possible misunder- mass (which needn’t be there) mass and bodies 2, 4 and 6 also
standing have to be taken care of. and they form a square. Some would have to have the same
The possible misunderstanding time later, all four bodies have mass. But bodies 1, 3 and 5 could
concerns the Li point. Everybody moved the same distance along be five times as massive as bodies
knows that, between the earth their orbits, as indicated by the 2,4 and 6.
and the moon, there is a “neutral closed circles, and they still form These interesting arrangements
where the gravita-
point”, a point a square. This system would be would not last if an additional
tional fields of earth and moon stable. So would the five-body body wandered into the system
have the same strength. This neu- system shown in Fig. 3. And a from the outside. For this reason
tral point is not the same as the M-body system, forming a 64- it is not very likely that such
Li point. In fact it is closer to the comered regular polygon, would systems actually exist.
moon, roughly 24,000 miles from be stable too. But it would be careless to pro-
the lunar surface, or about 25,000 I said a short while ago that claim that they do not exist.
miles from the center of the two conditions must be fulfilled: When Lagrange theoretized equi-
moon. eral solution, but he succeeded in the bodies must form a regular laterals back in 1772 no actual
As for the “loose end”, as I extending Lagrange’s special polygon at any moment and they case was known, and because of
called the simple question
it, it is cases, which always dealt with must move in the same plane. Do such lack of confirmation in na-
“where L3?” Well, Ls is also on
is

the line connecting the earth and

three bodies —
though of course they also have to have equal ture his “points” were very nearly
all the L-points around one planet masses, as indicated in the dia- forgotten. But then asteroid 1908-
the moon. But it is on the other
side of the earth, below the bot-
might be occupied —
to special grams? TG was discovered by Max Wolf
cases of many bodies. The answer is that they do not in February, 1908, and when the
tom of our diagram. You can have stable systems have to have equal masses, pro- orbit was computed it was found
Now, these Lagrangian points for three, four, five, six, eight and vided another condition is ful- to move in the orbit of Jupiter.
exist for every planet and its so forth bodies. They have to ful- filled. If we had a six-body sys- Its running number and name be-
moons. They also exist if you con- fill two conditions: they
must or- tem, forming a regular hexagon, came 588-Achilles and it was the
sider the sun and a planet the two bit in the same plane; and they the bodies could be of two differ- first equilateral found.
bodies. In other words, we could must, at any moment, form a ent masses, but then they would Maybe a “Klemperer rosette”
have equilaterals in the earth’s regular polygon. Whether there is need a regular arrangement. The will turn up, tool
orbit and in any other planetary a major mass in the center of larger and the smaller bodies — WILLY LEY
orbit. In the case of Jupiter the that polygon or not does not mat-
equilateral points are known to ter; the orbits would be stable
be occupied, both the advance with or without a central mass.
and the trailing position. One such possible arrangement returns in September issue of If with a
Quite recently Dr. W. B, Klem- is shown in the second diagram. A. E. VAN VOGT fascinating new novelette. The Expendables.
perer has done some more work Here we have four bodies, orbit- —
Out soon watch for it!
on the three-body problem. Like ing in the same plane and in ellip-
Lagrange he failed to find a gen- tical orbits of the same size and

86 GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION 87

The Pain Peddlers

By ROBERT SILVERBERG

Fame and fortune awaited the

tueky people on television's

top show — and so did deathi

Illustrated by MODEL

PAIN IS GAIN “Clinton General. In the

—Greek Proverb
wards.”
Northrop raised a heavy eye.
npHE PHONE bleeped. North- brow and glowered into the
rop nudged the cut-in switch screen.“In the wards?” he bel*
and heard Maurillo say, “We got lowed. “And you couldn’t get
a gangrene, chief. They’re ampu- them to agree?”
tating tonight.” Maurillo seemed to shrink. “It

Northrop’s pulse quickened at was the relatives, chief. Thq^

the thought of action. ‘What’s
the tab?” he asked.
“Five thousand for all rights.”
“Anesthetic?”
“Natch,” Maurillo said. “I tried
it the other way.”
‘What did you offer?”
“Ten. It was no go.”
Northrop sighed. “I’ll have to
handle it myself, I guess. Where’s
the patient?”
were stubborn. The old man, he
didn’t seem to give a damn, but
the relatives —
“Okay. You stay there.
coming over to close the deal,"^
Northrop snapped. He cut the
phone out and pulled a coup^
of blank waiver forms out of his
desk, just in case the relativei|
backed down. Gangrene was gao*
grene, but ten grand was ten
grand. And business was business. He made a mental not^ fiers came in and telecasting ninety.Knocking off ten years for
The networks were yelling. He Maurillo had to go. The organi. Oiedicine became an art. the effects of illness still made
had to supply the goods or get zation couldn’t tolerate ineffi. A mechanical took him to him pretty old, Northrop thought.
out. ciency. Ward Seven, Maurillo was wait- He confronted the relatives.
He thumbed the autosecretary. ing there, a short, bouncy little There were eight of them. Five
“I want my car ready in thirty man who wasn’t bouncing much women, ranging from middle age
^I^HE HOSPITAL was an ol^
seconds. South Street exit.” '* one. It was housed in one now. He knew he had fumbled. down to teens. Three men, the
of
“Yes, Mr. Northrop.” Maurillo grinned up at Northrop, oldest about fifty, the other two
the vulgar green-glass architect
“If anyone calls for me in the tural monstrosities so populaj a hollow grin, and said, “You sure in their forties.Sons and nieces
next half hour, record it, I’m go- sixty years before, a tasteless slab- made it fast, chief!” and granddaughters, Northrop fig-
ing to Clinton General Hospital, sided thing without character or “How long would it take for ured.
but I don’t want to be called grace. the competition to cut in?” North- He said gravely, “I know what
there.” The main door irised and rop countered. “Where’s the pa- a terrible tragedy this must be
“Yes, Mr. Northrop.” Northrop stepped through. The tient?” for all of you. A man in the prime
Rayheld “Down by the end. You see of his — head of a happy
family — Northrop
“If calls from the net- familiar hospital smell hit his
life

work office, tell him I’m getting nostrils. Most people found where the curtain is? I had that ” stared at the
him a dandy. Tell him —
oh, hell, pleasant, but not Northrop. For
it un-
put up. To get in good with the patient. “But I know he’ll pull
tell him I’ll call him back in an him it was the smell of dollars. heirs. The relatives, I mean.” through. I can see the strength in
hour. That’s all.” The hospital was so old that it
“Fill me in,” Northrop said. him,”
“Yes, Mr. Northrop,” still had nurses and orderlies. Oh,
“Who’s in charge?” The oldest relative said, “I’m
Northrop scowled at the ma- plenty of mechanicals skittered “The oldest son, Harry. Watch Harry Gardner. I’m his son.
chine and left his office. The up and down the corridors, but out for him. Greedy.” You’re from the network?”
gravshaft took him down forty here and there a middle-aged ‘Who isn’t?” Northrop sighed. “I’m the producer,” Northrop
stories inalmost literally no time They were at the curtain now. said. “I don’t ordinarily come in
nurse, smugly clinging to her ten-
flat.His car was waiting, as or- pushed a tray of mush along, Maurillo parted it. All through person, but my assistant told me
ure,
dered, a long, sleek ’08 Frontenac or a doddering orderly propelled the long ward, patients were stir- what a great human situation
with bubble top. Bullet-proof, of ring. Potential subjects for taping, there was here, what a brave per-
course. Network producers were
a broom. In his early days on
video Northrop had done a docu- all of them, Northrop thought. son your father was —
vulnerable to crackpot attacks. mentary on these The world was so full of different The man in the bed slept on.
He sat back, nestling into the the hospital
living fossils
corridors. He
of

had
kinds of sickness — and one sick- He looked bad.
plush upholstery. The car asked won an award for the film. He
ness fed on another. Harry Gardner said, “We made
him where he was going, and he remembered it for its crosscuts
an arrangement. Five thousand
answered. from baggy-faced nurses to gleam- TTE STEPPED through the cur- bucks. We wouldn’t do it, except
“Let’s have a pep pill,” he said. ing mechanicals, its vivid presen- There was a man in the
tain. for the hospital bills. They can
A pill rolled out of the dispen- tation of the inhumanity of the bed, drawn and gaunt, his hollow really wreck you,”
ser in front of him. He gulped it new hospitals. It was a long time face greenish, stubbly. A mechani- “I understand perfectly,” Nor-
down. Maurillo, you make me since Northrop had done a docu- calstood next to the bed, witH an throp said in his most unctuous
sick, he thought. Why can’t you mentary of that sort. A different
intravenous tube running across tones. “That’s why we’re pre-
close a deal without me? Just kind of show was the order of the and under the covers. pared to raise our offer. We’re
once? day now, ever since the intensi-j The patient looked at least well aware of the disastrous ef-

90 GALAXY THE PAIN PEDDLERS 91

fects of hospitalization on a ing for this absolute finest in a network-approved surgeon to men. We’ll give your father the
small family, even today, in these medical care?” amputate under our conditions. care he deserves.”
times of protection. And so we “May I see the leg?" Northrop we’ll pay the surgeon’s fee He pocketed the documents.
can offer — answered.
And
besides.” It was done. Maybe it was bar-
“No! There’s got to be anes- The coverlet was peeled back. “Well — baric to operate on an old man
thetic!” It was one of the daugh- Northrop stared. “And we’ll also underwrite the that way, Northrop thought. But-
ters, a round, drab woman with It was a nasty case. Northrop entire cost of post-operative care he didn’t bear the responsibility,
colorless thin lips. “We ain’t go- was no doctor, but he had been for your father,” Northrop added after all. He was just giving the
ing to let you make him suffer!” in this line of work for five years, smoothly. “Even if he stays in public what it wanted. What the
Northrop smiled. “It would and that was long enough to give the hospital for six months, we’ll public wanted was spouting blood
only be a moment of pain for him an amateur acquaintance pay every nickel, over and above and tortured nerves.
him. Believe me. We’d begin the with disease. He knew the old the telecast fee.” And what did it matter to the
anesthesia immediately after the man was bad shape. It looked
in old man, really? Any experienced
amputation. Just
that single instant of
“It ain’t right!
let us capture
—
He’s old, he’s
as though there had been a severe
bum, high up along the calf,
which had probably been treated
He had the
them. He could see
greed shining in their
medic could tell you he was as
good as dead. The operation
eyes. They were faced with bank- wouldn’t save him. Anesthesia
got to be given the best treat- only with first aid. Then, in happy ruptcy. He had come to rescue wouldn’t save him. If the gan-
ment! The pain could kill him!” proletarian ignorance, the family them; and did it matter all that grene didn’t get him, pKJSt-opera-
“On the contrary,” Northrop had let the old man rot until he' much if the old man didn’t have tive shock would do him in. At
said blandly. “Scientific research was gangrenous. Now the leg anesthetic when they sawed his worst, he would suffer only a
has shown that pain is often ben- was blackened, glossy, and swol- leg off? Why, he was hardly con- few minutes under the knife . . .

eficial in amputation cases. It len from mid-calf to the ends of scious even now. He wouldn’t but at least his family would be
creates a nerve block, you see, the toes. Everything looked soft really feel a thing. Not really. free from the fear of financial
that causes a kind of anesthesia and decayed. Northrop had the Northrop produced the docu- ruin.
of its own, without the harmful feeling that he could reach out ments, the waivers, the contracts On the way out, Maurillo said,
side effects of chemotherapy. and break the puffy toes off, one covering residuals and Latin- “Don’t you think it’s a little risky,
And once the danger vectors are at a time. American re-runs, the payment chief? Offering to pay the hospi-
controlled, the normal anesthetic The patient wasn’t going to vouchers, all the paraphernalia. talization expenses, I mean?”
procedures can be invoked, and
— he took a deep
” breath, and
survive.
Amputation or not, he was rot-
He sent Maurillo scuttling off for
a secretary, and a few moments
“You’ve got to gamble a little
sometimes to get what you want,”
went on to the
crusher—“with
rolling glibly ten to the core by this time. If the later a glistening mechanical was Northrop said.
the extra fee we‘Il shock of amputation didn’t do taking it all down. “Yeah, but that could run to
provide, you can give your dear him in, general debilitation would. “If you’ll put your name here, sixty thousand! What’ll that
one the absolute finest in medical It was a good prospect for the Mr. Gardner — fifty,

do to the budget?”
care. There’ll be no reason to show. It was the kind of stomach- Northrop handed the pen to Northrop grinned. “We’ll sur-
stint.” turning vicarious suffering that the eldest son. Signed, sealed, de- vive. Which more than the
is old
millions of viewers gobbled up livered. man will. He can’t make it
Vj^ARY glances were ex- avidly. “We’ll operate tonight,” North- through the night. We haven’t
changed. Harry Gardner Northrop looked up and said, said. send our surgeon over
“I’ll risked a penny, Maurillo. Not a
said, “How much are you offer- “Fifteen thousand if you’ll allow immediately. One of our best stinking cent.”

92 GALAXY THE PAIN PEDDLERS 93

 you! Three years, and you kick “Oh, sure. All this was after the
TJETURNING TO the office, one. Things could go wrong.
Northrop turned the papers Northrop phoned Maurillo, me out just like that!” operation.”

even though Maurillo was even “I told you, Ted, we thought “Did it get taped?”
on the Gardner amputation over
to his assistants, set the wheels two rooms away —
these things this would be a big opportunity “Processing it now.”

in motion for the show and pre- were never done in person and — for you. It’s a step
It’s
—
up the ladder. “Okay,” Northrop said. “Thanks
for calling.”
pared to call it a day. said, “I’ve got some good news
Maurillo’s fleshy face puffed “Sorry about the patient.”
There was only one bit of dirty for you, Ted. We’re shifting you
up with rage. “It’s getting “Don’t worry yourself,” North-
work left to do. He had to fire to a new program.”
Maurillo. “Shifting — ?” junked,” he said bitterly. “Well,
never mind, huh? It so happens
rop said. “It happens to the best
of us.”
It wasn’t called firing, of “That’s right. We had a talk in
here this afternoon, and we de- Tve got another offer. I’m quitting The next morning, Northrop
course. Maurillo had tenure, just
before you can can me. You can had a look at the rushes. The
like
everyone
the orderlies and
hospital
below executive
else
cided you were being wasted on
the blood-and-guts show. You take your tenure and — screening was in the 23rd Floor
Northrop hastily blanked the studio, and a select audience was.
need more scope for your talents.
rank. It would have to be more a
kick upstairs than an 3^hing else. So we’re giving you a fat raise, screen. on hand —Northrop, his new
The idiot, he thought The fat assistant producer Barton, a hand-
Northrop had been increasingly boy, and we’re moving you over
to Kiddie Time. We think you’ll Well, to hell with him!
little idiot. ful of network executives, a cou-
dissatisfied with the little man’s
work for months now. Today had really blossom there. You and Hecleared his desk, and ple of men fromthe cutting room.

been the clincher. Maurillo had Sam Kline and Ed Bragan ought cleared hismind of Ted Maurillo Slick, bosomy girls handed out
and his problems. Life was real, intensifier helmets. No mechani-
no imagination. He didn’t know to make a terrific team,”
was earnest. Maurillo just cals doing the work here!
how to close a deal. Why hadn’t Northrop saw Maurillo’s life

couldn’t take the pace, that was Northrop slipped the helmet on
he thought of underwriting the pudgy face crumble. The arith-
all. over his head. He felt the familiar
hospitalization? // 1 can*t dele- metic was getting home; over
gate responsibility to him, North- was Number Two,
here, Maurillo Northrop prepared to go home. surge of excitement as the elec-
and on the new show, a much It had been a long day. trodes descended and contact was
rop told himself, I can’t use him
at all. There were plenty of other less important one, he’d be Num-
made. He closed his eyes. There
eight was a thrum of power somewhere
assistant producers in the outfit
who’d be glad to step in.
ber Three. The pay meant noth-
ing, of course; didn’t Internal
Atword old
that
that evening
Gardner was
came
in the room as the EEG-amplifler

Northrop spoke to a couple of
them. He made his choice: A
young fellow named Barton,
who’d been working on documen-
Barton had done
taries all year.
the plane-crash deal in London
in the spring. He had a fine touch
for the gruesome. He had been
on hand at the Worlds’ Fair fire
last year at Juneau. Yes, Barton
was the man.
The next part was the sticky
Revenue take it all anyway? It about to undergo the amputation. went into action. The screen
was a thiunping boot, and Mau- At ten, Northrop was phoned by brightened.
rillo knew it the network’s own head surgeon, There was the old man. There
The mores of the situation Dr. Steele, with the news that the was the gangrenous leg. There
called for Maurillo to pretend he operation had failed. was Dr. Steele, crisp and rugged
was receiving a rare honor. He “We lost him,” Steele said in a and dimple-chinned, the network’s
didn’t play the game. He squinted flat, unconcerned voice. “We did star surgeon, $250,000 a year’s
and said, “Just because I didn’t our best, but he was a mess. Fibril- worth of talent. There was the
lation set in, and his heart just scalpel, gleaming in Steele’s hand.
sign up that old man’s amputa-
ran away. Not a damned thing Northrop began to sweat. The
tion?”
“What makes you think — ” we could do.” amplified brain waves were com-
ing through the intensifier, and he
“Three years I’ve been with “Did the leg come off?”

94 GALAXY THE PAIN PEDDLERS 95


feltthe throbbing in the old man’s
leg, feltthe dull haze of pain be-
hind the old man’s forehead, felt
the weakness of being eighty
years old and half dead.
Steele was checking out the
electronic scalpel, now, while the
nurses fussed around, preparing
the man for the amputation. In
the finished tape, there would be
music, narration, all the trim-
mings, but now there was just a
soundless series of images, and,
of course, the tapped brain-waves
of the sick man.
The leg was bare.
The scalpel descended.
Northrop winced as vicarious
agony shot through him. He could
feel the blazing pain, the brief
searing hell as the scalpel slashed
through diseased flesh and rotting
bone. His whole body trembled,
and he bit down hard on his lips
and clenched his fists, and then it
was over.
There was a cessation of pain.
A catharsis. The leg no longer
sent its pulsating messages to the
weary Now there was
brain.
shock, the anesthesia of hyp>ed-up
pain, and with the shock came
calmness. Steele went about the
mop-up operation. He tidied the
stump, bound it.
The rushes out
flickered
anticlimax. Later, the production
crew would tie up the program
with interviews of the family, per-
haps a shot of the funeral, a few
96
” ” ”
observations on the problem of “Murderer!” Gardner shrilled. But then they were; and North-
gangrene in the aged. Those “You killed him! He would have rop coiled and twisted in agony
things were the extras. What lived if you’d used anesthetics! that was anything but vicarious
counted, what the viewers wanted, You phony, you murdered him now.
was the sheer nastiness of vicari- so people would have thrills on Footsteps approached.
ous pain, and that they got in television!” “Jeez,” a voice said.
full measure. It was a gladiatorial Northrop glanced up the lobby. Northrop forced an eye open.
contest without the gladiators, Someone was coming, around the Maurillo. Of all people, Maurillo.
masochism concealed as medi- the bend. Northrop felt calm. He “A doctor,” Northrop wheezed.
cine. It worked. It pulled in the could stare this nobody down un- “Fast! Christ, the pain! Help me,
viewers by the million. til he fled in fear. Ted!”
Northrop patted sweat from “Listen,” Northrop said, “we Maurillo looked down, and
his forehead. did the best medical science can smiled. Without a word, he
“Looks like we got ourselves do for your father. We gave him stepped to the telephone booth
theultimate in scientific care. six feet away, dropped in a token,
We —
quite a little show here, boys,” he
said in satisfaction. punched out a call.
“You murdered him!” “Get a van over here, fast. I’ve
^I^HE MOOD of satisfaction was “No,” Northrop said, and then got a subject, chief.”
on him as he he said no more, because he saw
still left the
building that day. All day he the sudden flicker of a slice-gun I^ORTHROP writhed in tor-
in the blank-faced man’s fat hand. ^ ment. Maurillo crouched next
had worked hard, getting the
show into its final shape, cutting He backed
away. But it didn’t to him. “A doctor,” Northrop mur-
and polishing. He enjoyed the help, because Gardner punched mured. “A needle, at least. Gimme
element of craftsmanship. It the trigger and an incandescent a needle! The pain —
helped him to forget some of the bolt flared out, and sliced across “You want me to kill the pain?”
sordidness of the program. Northrop’s belly just as efficiently Maurillo laughed. “Nothing doing.
Night had fallen when he left. as the surgeon’s scalpel had cut You just hang on. You stay alive
He stepped out of the main en- through the gangrenous leg. till we get that hat on your head
trance and a figure strode for- Gardner raced away, feet clat- and tape the whole thing.”
ward, a bulky figure, medium tering on the marble floor. North- “But you don’t work for me —
height, tired face. A hand reached rop dropped, clutching himself. you’re off the program —
out, thrusting him roughly back His suit was seared. There was “Sure,” Maurillo said. “I’m with
into the lobby of the building a slash through his abdomen, a Transcontinental now. They’re
At first Northrop didn’t recog- bum an eighth of an inch wide starting a blood-and-guts show
nize the face of the man. It was and perhaps four inches deep, cut- too. Only they don’t need
ting through intestines, through waivers.”
in a blank face, a nothing face, a
middle-aged empty face. Then he organs, through flesh. The pain Northrop gaped. Transconti-
placed it. hadn’t begun yet. His nerves nental? That bootleg outfit that
weren’t getting the message peddled tapes in Afghanistan and
Harry Gardner. The son of the
dead man. through to his stunned brain. Mexico and Ghana and God knew
GALAXY the pain peddlers 97
where else? Not even a network Northrop closed his eyes. He
show, he thought! No fee! Dying felt the coiling intestines blazing
in agony for the benefit of a within him. He willed himself to He was mankind's only hope for
bunch of lousy tapeleggers. That die, to cheat Maurillo.
was the worst part, Northrop a place among the races of the Illustrated by WOOD
But it was no use. He remained
thought Only Maurillo would alive and suffering. stars — if he was still human!
pull a deal like that. He lived for an hour. That was
“A needle! For God’s sake, plenty of time to tape his dying
Maurillo, a needle!” agonies. The last thought he had
“Nothing doing. The van’ll be was that it was a damned shame CONCLUSION
here any minute. They’ll sew you he couldn’t star on his own show
up, and we’ll tape it nice.” — ROBERT SILVERBERG
THl STARS
By CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

FORECAST
For four years now we've missed the work of one of Galaxy's all-time
favorites, William Tenn, because the fellow has been off writing In other
fields. Now the news is good. Tenn is back! Our next issue leads off with a
long and fast-moving yarn of his called The Men in the Walls. It's a complete
short novel, on area in which we feel we've been pretty lucky, what with
such recent items as Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters and Damon Knight's |

The Visitor at the Zoo. One thing we know for sure: in that class. The Men in
the Walls does nothing to lower our standards!

While the October Galaxy is on the stands, Murray Leinster will be

receiving his long-overdue just deserts by appearing as Science Fiction's!'
Guest of Honor at the annual convention. To help celebrate
the occasion!
we re scheduling his newest Med Service novella
for the issue. Its title is
Med Ship Man .and it's a good one!
. .

98
GALAXY
 WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE the matter was that he had under-
stood enough to make the con-
Enoch Wallace was a strange man living in a strange world. He had
j^TARY HAD said that they cept work, but not enough to
lived in it for mare than a century, since that first day when the alien
creature who appeared to him and offered him the
called himself Ulysses
must face up to the kind of know its consequences.
secret task of maintaining a transfer-point on Earth for the use of the things they were. With creation went responsi-
galactic civilization. And what were they? Not bility.He was not equipped to
The offer had advantages. For one thing, it conferred near-
certain what did he think they were, but assume responsibility for what
immortality. For another, offered a chance to discover truths beyond the
it what were they actually? What he had done.
horizon of Earth. Enoch accepted, and began a life that shut him off from did they think themselves to be? They hated him and resented
all his friends and neighbors — but brought him new ones. him. He did not blame them. He’d
For perhaps they knew much
First were the star travelers themselves, creatures of a thousand races better than did he. led them out and shown them the
who passed through
another. Some were
the Earth station en route from one alien planet to
so strange and inhumon that Enoch could not com-
Where had Mary gone? When promised land of humanity and —
she left this room, into what kind then had led them back. He had
municate with them. Others were very like him ... in every respect except given them everything that a hu-
of limbo did she disappear? Did
appearance. Shrunken or huge, tentacled or shapeless, these visitors become man being had with one excep-
she still exist? And if so, what
friends, almost the only friends he had.
kind of an existence would it be? tion: the ability to exist within
His other friends were stranger still. They were ihe creatures of his mind
Would she be stored away some- the human world.
— the lovely woman named Mary, the dashing Civil War officer who was
where as a little girl would store They all hated him but Mary,
Enoch's imaginary ideal of a friend —
who were summoned out of his own
subconscious to give him companionship, and given form through the arts
away her doll in a box pushed and for Mary it was worse than

of the galactic civilizotion.

back into the closet with all the hate.For she was condemned to
Enoch could no longer think of the place he lived in as "home"; it had other dolls? love the monster who had cre-
been only "The Station" tor so many years, it too changed. Its outward He tried to imagine limbo. It ated her.
appearance was the same as the century-old farmhouse in which He had was a nothingness; and if that Hate me, Mary! he pleaded.
spent his boyhood. But it had been altered inside, to provide the communic- were true, a being pushed into Hate me like the others!
ations equipment and the matter-transmitting tanks that served its function; limbo would be an existence with-
its outside too was changed, though imperceptibly, to make it the most in a non-existence. There would TTE HAD thought of them as
secure fortress Earth had ever seen.
No man
No human thing could pierce those be nothing —
not space nor time, shadow people, but the label
walls. or woman could open its doors except Enoch himself. nor light, nor air. No color and had been wrong. They were nei-
His life of mystery was a challenge to the neighbors on the little farms no vision; just a never-ending ther shadowy or ghost-like. To
nearby, especially to the family of the strange, mute girl named Lucy who nothing, that must lie at some the eyes they were solid and sub-
wos almost his only contact with the outside world. Even more it challenged point outside the universe. stantial, as real as any people. It
the men from the United States government who had come to investigate
He cried inside himself, Mary, was only when you tried to touch
rumors of strange goings-on and found mysteries far beyond the
. . .

rumors. Every move Enoch made was watched. The world was closing in on
what have I done to you! them that they were not real —
him. And at the same time there was trouble in the galactic civilization
And the answer lay there, hard for when you tried to touch them,
itself, a trouble that centered around the queer, symbolic object called and naked. there was nothing there.
The Talisman. Enoch could not understand what was happening; he could He had dabbled in a thing A figment of his mind, he’d
only wonder, and retreat to the company of his own mind-companions . . .
which he had not understood. thought at first, but now he was
But even they seemed to be turning against him. And had, furthermore, committed not sure. At first they’d come only
They knew what they were: figments of his imagination, and nothing
ing
that greater sin of thinking that
- when he'd called them up, using
more. And they would not let him forget It. he did understand. The fact of the knowledge and the techniques

100 GALAX:y I here

H gather the stars 101
that he had acquired in his study
of work done by the thaumatur-
gists of Alphard XXII. But in
recent years he had not called
them up. There had been no oc-
casion to. They anticipated him,
and came.
David Ransome was himself,
as he had dreamed himself to be,
as he had wished himself to be
— but, of course, as he had never
been. He was the dashing Union
officer, ofnot so high a rank as to
be stiff and stodgy, but a fair cut
above the man of ordinary stand-
ing. He was trim and debonair
and definitely dare-devilish, loved
by all the women, admired by
all the men. He was a bom leader
and a good fellow all at once, at
home alike in the field or draw-
ing room.
And Mary? Funny, he thought,
he had never called her anything
but Mary. There had never been
a surname. She had been simply
Mary.
And she was at least two wom-
en, if not more than that. She was
Sally Brown, who once had lived
just down the road —
and how
long had it been, he wondered,
since he’d thought of Sally
Brown? And she was as well a
tall,stately daughter of the South,
the woman he had seen for a few
moments only as he marched a
dusty road in the hot Virginia
sun. There had been a mansion,
one of those great plantation

102
houses, set back from the road, T¥E HEARD the hooting of the ing high against a red and angry that had no identity. Senseless to
and she had been standing on whistle that said a message gky, while great flying things that him, of course, he thought; but
the portico, beside one of the waited and he took his head out looked like flapping dishrags not senseless, certainly, to that
great white pillars, watching the of his hands. But he did not get beat their way up and down the native of Enif V
who had given
enemy march past. Her hair was up off the sofa. and there were others of
cliffs, it to him. It might, for all he
black and her complexion whiter Numbly his hand reached out them roosting, most obscenely, knew, Enoch told himself, be of
than the pillar and she had stood to the coffee table that stood be- upon the scraggly projections that great significance and a treasure
so straight and proud, so dehant fore the sofa, its top covered with must have been some sort of mis- of great value.
and imperious that he had re- some of the more colorful of the shapen trees growing from the That was the way it was with
membered her and thought of geegaws and gimcracks that had very wall of rock. And from far so many of the things he had.
her, dreamed of her —
although been left as gifts by travelers. below, from some distance that Even the ones that had given
he never spoke to her or knew He picked up a cube of some- one could only guess, came the pleasure, he knew, he might be
her name. thing that might have been some lonesome thundering of a rushing using wrongly, or, at least, in a
So Mary had been both of strange sort of glass or translu- way that had not been intended.
these —
Sally Brown and the un- cent stone —
he had never been
river.
He put the cube back upon the
known Virginia belle standing by able to decide which it was, table. TiUT THERE were some —a
the to watch the troops
pillar either — and cupped in
if

He wondered what it was that few, perhaps —

that did have
march by —
the shadow of them hands. Staring into it he saw a
it his
one saw within its depths. It was a value he could understand and
and perhaps of many others as yet tiny picture, three dimensional like turning the pages of a book, appreciate, although in many in-
unrealized by him, a composite and detailed, of a faery world. It with each page a picture of a dif- stances their functions were of
of all he had ever known or seen was a prettily grotesque place, ferent place, but never anything little use to him. There was the
or admired in women. She had set inside what might have been a to tellwhere that place might be. tiny clock that gave the local
been an ideal and perfection. She forest glade, surrounded by what When he first had been given it, times for all the sectors of the
had been his perfect woman, cre- appeared to be flowering toad- he had spent fascinated hours, galaxy. There was the perfume
ated in his mind. And now, like stools. Drifting down through the watching the pictures change as mixer — which was as close as he
Sally Brown, resting in her grave;
like the Virginia belle, lost in
air, as if it might have been a he held it in his hands. There had could come in naming it which—
part of the air itself, came what never been a picture that looked allowed a person to create the spe-
the mists of time; like all the looked for all the world like a even faintly like any other picture cific scent desired. Just get the
others who may have contributed shower of jeweled snow, spar- and there was no end to them. mixture that one wanted and
to his molding of her, she was kling and glinting in the violet One got the feeling that these turn it on, and the room took on
gone from him. light of a great blue sun. were not pictures, actually, but that scent until one should turn
If he only could be sure, he There were things dancing in that one were looking at the scene it off. He’d had some fun with it;
thought, of where she might be the glade. They looked more like itself and that at any moment one bitter winter day when, after
now. If he only could be certain flowers than animals, but they one might lose his perch upon long experimenting, he had
that she was in a semblance of moved with a grace and poetry wherever he was roosting and achieved the scent of apple blos-
death and untortured by her that fired one’s blood to watch. plimge head-first down into the soms, and had lived a day in
thoughts. Then the faery place was wiped place itself. spring while a blizzard howled
To believe that she was sen- out and there was another place But it had finally palled upon outside.
tient was more than one could — a wild and dismal place, with him. Itwas a senseless business, He reached out and picked up
bear. grim, gaunt, beetling cliffs rear- gawking at a long series of places another piece —
a beautiful thing

104 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 105

 that always had intrigued him, table top, and rising, went across
everything was exactly as it ticular, but at the universe itself,
but for which he had never found the room. should be, then went back to the as if they might have enjoyed
a use. If, indeed, it had a use. It message machine and sent off some and very pri-
sort of cosmic
might be no more than a piece of The message said; NO. 406,302 the confirmation. vate joke that wasknown to no
art,a pretty thing that was meant TO STATION 18327. NATIVE And the time his memory
all one They were on a holiday.
else.
to look at only. But it had a cer- OF VEGA XXI ARRIVING AT kept on nagging at him. Had it They were en route to a festival
tain feel (if that were the word) 16532.82. DEPARTURE INDE- been 1914, or perhaps a little (although that may not be the
which had led him to believe that TERMINATE. NO LUGGAGE later? precise word for it) on another
it might have some specific func- CABINET ONLY, LOCAL CON- At the catalogue cabinet, he planet, where other life forms
tion. DITIONS. CONFIRM. pulled out a drawer and found were gathering for a week of car-
It was a pyramid of spheres, Enoch felt a glow of happiness, Vega XXI and the first date nival. Just how or why they had
succeeding smaller spheres set on looking at the message. It would listed was July 12, 1915. He been invited I was unable to de-
larger spheres. Some fourteen be good to have a Hazer once found the record book on the termine. It must surely have been
inches tall, it was a graceful piece, again. It had been a month or shelf and pulled it out and a great honor for them to be
with each of the spheres a differ- more since one had passed brought it to the desk. He leafed going there, but so far as I could
ent color. Not just a color painted through the station. through it rapidly until he found see they did not seem to think
on; each color so deep and true He could remember back to the date. so,but took it as their right. They
that one knew instinctively the that first day he had ever met XII were very happy and without a
color was intrinsic to each sphere, a Hazer, when the five of them care and extremely self-assured
that the entire sphere, from the had come. It must have been, he JULY 12, 1915. Arrived this and poised. But, thinking back on
center of it out to the surface, was thought, back in 1914 or, maybe, J afternoon (3:20 p.m.) five be- it, I would suppose that they are

all of its particular color. 1915. World War I, which every- ings from Vega XXI, the first of always that way. I found myself
There was nothing to indicate one then was calling the Great their kind to pass through this sta- just a little envious at not being
that any glue-like medium had War, was underway, he knew. tion. They are biped and human- able to be as carefree and gay
been used to mount the spheres The Hazer would be arriving oid, and one gains the impression as they were, and trying to imag-
and hold them in their places. It at about the same time as Ulysses that they are not made of flesh — ine how fresh life and the uni-
looked for all the world as if and the three of them could spend that flesh would be too gross for verse must seem to them. And a
someone had simply piled the a pleasant evening. It was not die kind of things they are. But, of little resentful they could be, so
spheres, one atop the other . . . often that two good friends visited course, they are made of flesh the unthinkingly, as happy as they
and they had stayed that way. here at once. same as anyone. They glow. Not were.
Holding it in his hands, he He stood a bit aghast at think- with a visible light; but there is I had, according to instruc-
tried to recall who had given it ing of the Hazer as a friend, for about them an aura that goes with tions, hung hammocks so that
'to him, but he had no memory more than likely the being itself them wherever they may be. they could rest, but they did not
of it. was one he had never met. But They were, I gathered, a sexual use them. They brought with
The whistle of the message ma- that made little difference. A unit, the five of them — although them hampers that were filled
chine still was calling and there Hazer, any Hazer, would turn out I am not so certain I understand, with food and drink and sat down
was work to do. He could not to be a friend. for it is most confusing. They at my table and began to talk
sithere, he told himself, mooning He got the cabinet in position were happy and friendly. They and feast. They asked me to sit
the afternoon away. He put the beneath a materializer unit and carried with them an air of faint with them. They chose two dishes
pyramid of spheres back on the double-checked to be sure that amusement, not at anything in par- and a bottle, which they assured

106 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 107

me would be safe for me to eat
and drink, the rest of their fare
being somewhat doubtful for a
metabolism such as mine. The
food was delicious and of a kind
I had never tasted —
one dish
being rather like the rarest and
most delicate and
of old cheeses,
the other of a sweetness that was
heavenly. The drink was some-
what like the finest of brandies,
yellow in color and no heavier
than water.
^HEY ASKED me about my-
and about my
self planet and
they were courteous and seemed
genuinely interested. They were
quick of understanding in the
things 1 told them. They told me
they were headed for a planet,
the name of which I had not
heard before, and they talked
among themselves, gaily and hap-
pily, but in such a way that I did
not seem to be left out. From
their talk I gained the fact that
some form of art was being pre-
sented at the festival on this
planet. The art form was not
alone of music or painting, but
was composed of sound and color
and emotion and form, and other
qualities for which there seem to
be no words in the language of
the Earth, and which I do not
entirely recognize, only gaining
the very faintest inkling of what
they were talking of in this par-
ticular regard. I gained the im-
108
pression of a three-dimensional
symphony — although this is not
entirely the right expression
which had been composed, not
a single being, but by a team
beings. They talked of the
form enthusiastically. I seemed to
understand that jt would not last
for only several hours, but for
days, and that it was an experi-
ence rather than a listening or
seeing and that the spectators or
audience did not merely sit and
listen, but could, if they wished
and must, to get the most out of
it, be participants. But I could not
understand how they participated
and felt I should not ask.
They talked of the people they
would meet and when they had
met them last and gossiped con-
siderably about them, although in
kindly fashion, leaving the im-
pression that they and many other
people went from planet to plan-
et for some happy purpose. But
whether there was any purpose
other than enjoyment in their go-
ing, I could not determine. I
gathered that there might be.
They spoke of other festivals.
Not all of them were concerned
with the one art form, but with
other more specialized aspects of
the arts, of which I could gain no
adequate idea. They seemed to
find a great and exuberant hap-
piness in the festivals. It seemed
to me that some certain signifi-
cances aside from the art
GALAXY
contributed greatly to that happi- some special world that no one
ness.
did not join in this part of
elsehad found. Sitting at the table
with them, I seemed to be in-
I
dieir conversation, for, frankly, cluded in this golden haze and I
by
there was no opportunity. I would felt strange, quiet, deep currents
of
art
have liked to ask
I
some questions,
had no chance. I suppose
of happiness flowing in
I wondered by what route they
my veins.
jjut
that if I had, my questions must and their world had arrived at this
have sounded stupid to them; but golden state and if my world
given the chance, that would not could, in some distant time, attain
have bothered me too much. And it.
yet in spite of this, they managed But back of this happiness was
somehow to make me feel I was a great vitality, the bubbling, ef-
included in their conversation. fervescent spirit with an inner
There was no obvious attempt to core of strength and a love of
do this, and yet they made me living that seemed to fill every
feel I was one with them and pore of them and every instant
not simply a station keeper they of their time.
would spend a short time with. They had only two hours’ time.
At times they spoke briefly in It passed so swiftly that I had to
the language of their planet, finally warn them it was time to
which is one of the most beauti- go. Before they left, they placed
ful I have ever heard, but for the two packages on the table and
most part they conversed in the said they were for me. They
vernacular used by a number of thanked me for my table (what a
the humanoid races, a sort of pidg- strange way for them to put it).
inianguage made up for conven- Then they said good-by and step-
ience. 'I susp>ect that this was done ped into the cabinet (the extra
out of courtesy to me, and a great large one), and I sent them on
courtesy itwas. I believe that they their way.
were truly the most civilized peo- Even after they were gone, the
ple I have ever met. golden haze seemed to linger in
the room. It was hours before all
r HAVE they glowed. I
said of it was gone. I wished that I
* think by that I mean they might have gone with them to
^owed in spirit. It seemed that that other planet and its festival.
Aey were accompanied, somehow, One of the packages they left
by a sparkling golden haze that contained a dozen bottles of the
made happy everything it touched brandy-like liquor. The bottles
— almost as if they moved in themselves were each a piece of
itself
here gather the stars 109
art,no two of them alike, being
formed of what I am convinced
is diamond; but whether fabri-
cated diamond or carved from
some great stones, I have no idea.
At any rate, I would estimate that
each of them is priceless, and each
carved in a disturbing variety of
symbolisms, each of which, how-
ever, has a special beauty of its
own.
In the other box was a well,—
I suppose that, for lack of other
name, you might call it a music
box. The box itself is ivory, old
yellow ivory that is as smooth as
satin, covered by a mass of dia-
grammatic carving which must
have some significance which I do
not understand.
On the top of it is a circle set
inside a graduated scale. When I
turned the circle to the first gradu-
ation there was music and through
allthe room an interplay of many-
colored light, as if the entire room
was with different kinds of
filled
color, and through it all a far-off
suggestion of that golden haze.
And from the box came, too, per-
fumes that filled the room, and
feeling, emotion —
whatever one
may call it —
but something that
took hold of one and made one
said or happy or whatever might
go with the music and the color
and perfume. Out of that box
came a world in which one lived
out the composition or whatever
it might be —
living it with all
110
that one had in him, all
tion and belief and intellect
which one is capable.
Here, I am quite certain, wag
a recording of that art form of
which they had been talking. And
not one composition alone, but
206 of them, for that is the num-
ber of the graduation marks and
for each mark there is a separate
composition. In the days to come
I shall play them all and make
notes upon each of them and as-
sign them names, perhaps, accord-
ing to their characteristics, and
from them, perhaps, can gain some
knowledge as well as
ment.
XIII
^
I
^HE TWELVE diamond
ties, empty long ago, stood in
a sparkling row upon the fireplace
mantle. The music box, as one of
his most choice possessions, was
stored inside one of the cabinet^
where no harm could come
Enoch thought, rather ruefully,
that in all these years, despite reg-
ular use of it, he had not as yet
played through the entire list of
compositions. There were so many
of the early ones that begged for
a replaying that he was not a great
deal more than halfway through
the graduated markings.
The Hazers had come back, the
five of them, time and time again,
for it seemed that they found in
GALAXY
the enjo.' {his station, perhaps even in the They had been sitting on the
man who operated it, some qual-
of sofa, talking. He even could re-
ity that pleased them. They had member the subject of their talk.
him learn the Vegan lan-
helped The old one had been telling of
guage and had brought him scrolls the perverse code of ethics, at
literature and many
of Vegan once irrational and comic, which
other things. They had been, with- had been built up by that curious
out any doubt, the best friends race of social vegetables he had
among the aliens (other than encountered on one of his visits
!
Ulysses) that he had ever had. to an off-track planet on the other
Then one day they came no more. The
He wondered why, asking after
side of the galactic rim.
Hazer had a drink or two beneath
old
them when other Hazers showed his belt and he was in splendid
up at the station. But he had never form, relating incident after in-
learned what had happened to cident with enthusiastic gusto.
them. Suddenly, in mid-sentence, he
entertain-
That was the way it was with stopped his talking, and slumped
many
things. The galaxy was
so quietly forward. Enoch, startled,
and so diverse and com-
so large reached for him. But before he
you could never hope to
plex that could lay a hand upon him, the
keep in step with it. There was old alien slid slowly to the floor.
bot-
too much to know and too much The golden haze faded from
to understand. And a large part his body and slowly flickered out.
of it was beyond human under- The body lay there, angular and
standing. bony and obscene, a terribly alien
He knew far more now about thing there upon the floor, a thing
Hazers and their art forms,
the that was at once pitiful and mon-
to it their traditions and their customs strous. More monstrous, it seemed
and their history, than he’d known to Enoch, than an 3^hing in alien
that first day he’d written of them, form he had ever seen before.
back in 1915. But he still was far
many TN LIFE it had been a wondrous
from grasping
cepts that were commonplace
of the con-
creature, but now, in death,
withthem. it was an old bag of hideous
There had been many of them bones with a scaly parchment
sincethat day in 1915 and there stretched to hold the bones to-
was one he remembered in par- gether. It was. the golden haze,
ticular — the old, wise one, the Enoch told himself, gulping, in
who had
philosopher,
floor beside the sofa.
died on the something near to horror, that had
made the Hazer seem so won-
HERE GATHER THE STARS 111
drous and so beautiful, so vital,
so alive and quick, so filled with
dignity.The golden haze was the
lifeof them. When the haze was
gone they became mere repulsive
horrors that one gagged to look
upon.
Could it be, he wondered, that
the goldenness was the Hazers’
life force and that they wore it
like a cloak, as a sort of overall
There was no hesitation and WILL THERE BE RELA- terrible,such a travesty on the
there were no questions from the TIVES OR FRIENDS ARRIV- shining creature that had sat there
other end. Just simple direction* ING FOR THE RITES? talking with him.
(as if this was something that hap. NO. Since he met the Hazers he had
pened all the time) on how the YOU WILL NOTIFY THEM? loved them and admired them,
situation should be handled. The THEY ALREADY KNOW. had looked forward to each visit
Vegan must remain upon the HE ONLY DIED A MO- by them —
by any one of them.
planet of its death, its body to be MENT OR TWO AGO. And now he stood, a shivering
disposed of according to the local NEVERTHELESS THEY coward who could not touch one
customs obtaining on that planet. know. dead.
For that was the Vegan law, and, WHAT ABOUT A DEATH It was not the horror only. In

disguise? Did they wear their life likewise, a point of honor. A Ve- CERTIFICATE? his years as keeper of the station,

force outside of them while all gan, when he fell, must stay where NONE IS NEEDED. THEY he had seen much of pure visual
other creatures wore it on the in- he fell, and that place became KNOW OF WHAT HE DIED. horror as portrayed in alien
side? forever, a part of Vega XXI. HIS LUGGAGE? THERE IS bodies.He had learned to sub-
A piteous little wind was la- There were such places, said Ga- A TRUNK. merge that sense of horror, to dis-
menting in the gingerbread high lactic Central, all through the
KEEP IT. IT IS A TOKEN regard the outward appearance
up in the gables. Through the win- galaxy. FOR THE SERVICES YOU of it, to regard all life as brother
dows he could see battalions of THE CUSTOM HERE, typed PERFORM FOR THE HON- life, to meet all things as people.
tattered clouds fleeing in ragged Enoch,IS TO INTER THE ORED DEAD. THAT ALSO IS It was some other unknown fac-
retreat across the moon, which DEAD. THE LAW. tor quite apart from horror that
had climbed halfway up the east- THEN INTER THE VEGAN. BUT THERE MAY BE IM- he felt. And yet this thing, he re-
ern sky. WE READ A VERSE OR PORTANT MATTERS IN IT. minded himself, was a friend of
There was a coldness and a TWO FROM OUR HOLY YOU WILL KEEP THE As a dead friend, it demanded
his.

loneliness in the station — a far- BOOK. TRUNK. TO REFUSE WOULD honor from him. It demanded
reaching loneliness that stretched READ ONE FOR THE VE- INSULT THE MEMORY OF love and care..
out and out, farther than mere GAN, THEN. YOU CAN DO THE DEAD. Blindly he drove himself to
Earth loneliness could go. ALL THIS? ANYTHING ELSE? asked the task, stooped and lifted it.
Enoch turned from the body YES. BUT WE USUALLY THAT IS ALL?
Enoch. It had almost no weight at all,

and walked stiffly across the room HAVE IT DONE BY A PRAC- THAT IS ALL. PROCEED as if in death it had lost a dimen-
to the message machine. He put TITIONER OF RELIGION. AS IF THE VEGAN WERE sion of itself, had somehow be-
in a call for a connection direct UNDER THE PRESENT CIR- ONE OF YOUR OWN. come a smaller thing and less
with Galactic Central, then stood CUMSTANCES. HOWEVER, significant. Could it be, he won-
waiting, gripping the sides of the THAT MIGHT BE UNWISE. t^NOCH CLEARED the ma- dered, that the golden haze might
machine with both his hands. AGREED, said Galactic Cen- chine and went back across have a weight all of its own?

GO AHEAD, said Galactic tral. YOU CAN DO AS WELL the room. He stood above the He laid the body on the sofa
Central. YOURSELF? Hazer, getting up his nerve to and straightened it as best he
he was
Briefly, as objectively as ICAN. bend and lift the body to place could. Then he went outside and,
able, Enoch reported what had IT IS BEST THEN THAT it on the sofa. He shrank from lighting the lantern in the shed,

happened. YOU DO. touching it. It was so unclean and went down to the barn.

112 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 113


It had been years since he had
been there, but nothing much had
changed. Protected by a tight roof
from the weather, it had stayed
snug and dry. There were cob-
webs hanging from the beams and
dust was everywhere. Straggling
clumps of ancient hay, stored in
the mow above, hung
through the cracks in the
that floored the mow. The
had a dry, sweet, dusty smell
about it, all the odors of animals
and manure long gone.
Enoch hung the lantern on the
peg behind the row of stanchions
and climbed the ladder to the
mow. Working in the dark, for he
dared not bring the lantern into
this dust heap of dried-out hay,
he found the pile of oaken boards
far beneath the eaves.
¥TERE. HE remembered, under-
neath these slanting eaves,
had been a pretended cave in
which, as a boy, he had spent
many happy rainy days when he
could not be outdoors. He had
been Robinson Crusoe in his des-
island cave, or some now
ert
nameless outlaw hiding from a
posse, or a man holed up against
the threat of scalp-hunting Indi-
ans. He had had a wooden gun
that he had sawed out of a board,
working it down later with draw-
shave and knife and a piece of
glass to scrape it smooth. It had
been something he had cherished
114
boyhood days sawed and planed and hammered Finally it was finished, with
through all his
and there was the smell of saw- the grave completed and the cas-
until that day, when he was
dust. The barn was snug and si- ket in the grave and the lantern
twelve, that his father, returning
lent, the depth of hay standing flickering, the kerosene almost
home from a trip to town, had
in the mow drowning out the gone, and the chimney blacked
handed him a rifle for his very
noise of the complaining wind from the angle at which the lan-
own.
outside. tern had been canted.
He explored the stack of boards
in the dark, determining by feel
He finished the coffin. It was Back at the station, Enoch
heavier than he had figured, so hunted up a sheet in which to
down the ones that he would need.
boards These he carried to the ladder he found the old wheelbarrow, wrap the body. He put a Bible
canted against the wall back of in his pocket and picked up the
place and carefully slid them down to
the stalls that once had been used shrouded Vegan and, in the first
the floor below.
for horses, and loaded the coffin faint' light that preceded dawn,
Climbing down the ladder, he
went up the short flight of stairs on it. Laboriously, stopping often marched down to the apple or-
to rest, he wheeled it down to chard. He put the Vegan in the
to the granary, where the tools
the little cemetery inside the coffinand nailed shut the lid,
were stored. He opened the lid
apple orchard. then climbed from the grave.
of the great tool chest and found
And here, beside his father’s Standing on the edge of it, he
that it was filled with long-
grave, he dug another grave, hav- took the Bible from his pocket
deserted mice nests. Pulling out
ing brought a shovel and a pick- and found the place he wanted.
handfuls of the straw and hay and
grass that the rodents had used
axe with him. He read aloud, scarcely needing
to set up their one-time house-
to strain his eyes in the dim light
keeping, he uncovered the tools.
TTE DID not dig it as deep as to follow the text, for it was from
The shine had gone from them, he would have liked to dig a chapter that he had read many
their surface grayed by the soft
not the full six feet that was de- times:
patina that came from long dis-
creed by custom, for he knew “/n my Father’s house are
use. But there was no rust upon
that ifhe dug it that deep he many mansions; if it were not so,
them and the cutting edges still never would be able to get the I would have told you .”
. .
coffin in. So he dug it slightly less Thinking, as he read it, how
were sharp.
than four, laboring in the light appropriate it was; how there
Selecting the tools he needed,
he went back to the lower part
of the canted lantern, set atop must need be many mansions in
of the barn and fell to work. A
the mound of dirt to cast its fee- which to house all the souls in
century ago, he thought, he had
ble glow. An owl came up from the galaxy —
and of all the other
done as he was doing now, work- the woods and sat for a while, galaxies that stretched, perhaps
unseen, somewhere in the or- interminably, through space. Al-
ing by lantern light to construct
And that time
chard, muttering and gurgling in though if there were understand-
a coffin. it had
between his hoots. The moon ing, one might be enough.
been his father lying in the house.
The oaken boards were dry sank toward the west. The ragged He finished reading and recited
and hard, but the tools still were
clouds thinned out to let the stars the burial service, from memory,
shine through. as best he could, not being abso-
in shape to handle them. He
GALAXY, HERE GATHER THE STARS 115
lately sure of all the words.
sure enough, he told himself, to
make sense out of it. Then he
shoveled in the dirt
The and moon were gone
stars
and the wind had died. In the
quietness of the morning, the east-
ern sky was pearly pink.
Enoch stood beside the grave,
with the shovel in his hand.
‘‘Good-by, my friend,”
Then he turned and, in the
flush of the morning, went back
to the station.
XIV
'rNOCH GOT up from
and carried the record book
back to the shelf and slid it into
place.
He turned around and stood
hesitantly.
There were things
should do. He should read his
He should be writing up
papers.
his journal. There were a couple
of pap>ers in the latest issues of
the Journal of Geophysical Re-
search that he should be looking
at.
But he didn’t feel like doing
any of them. There was too much
to think about, toomuch to worry
over, too much to mourn.
The watchers still were out
there. He had lost his shadow
people. And the world was edging
in toward war.
Perhaps he should not be
116
But worrying about what happened
to the world. He could resign from
the human race any time he
wished. If he never went outside,
if he never opened up the door,
then it would make no difference
to him what the world might do
or what might happen to it. For
he had a world. He had a greater
world than anyone outside this
he said. station had ever dreamed about.
first He did not need the Earth.
But, even as he thought it, he
knew he could not make it stick.
In a very strange and funny way,
he still did need the Earth.
He walked over to the door
his desk and spoke the phrase and the door
came open. He walked into the
shed and closed behind him.
it
He went around the corner of
the house and sat down on the
steps that led up to the porch.
that he This, he thought, was where it
all had started. He had been
ting here that summer day of
long ago when the stars had
reached out across vast gulfs of
space and put a finger on him.
The sun was far down the sky
toward the west and soon it would
be evening. Already the heat of
the day was falling off, with a
faint, cool breeze creeping up out
of the hollow that ran down to
the river valley. Down across the
field, at the edge of the woods,
crows were wheeling in the sky
and cawing.
It would be hard to shut the
GALAXY
and keep
door, he knew, it
Hard never to feel the sun or
to never know the
wind again,
smell of the changing seasons as
they came across the Earth. Man,
he told himself, was not ready
for that. He had not as yet
be-
come so totally a creature of his
own created environment that he
could divorce himself entirely
from the physical characteristics
of his native planet. He needed
and wind to remain
sun and soil
man.
a
He should do this oftener,
Enoch thought, come out here and
sit, doing nothing, just looking,
seeing the trees and the river to
the west and the blue of the Iowa
hills across the Mississippi, watch-
ing the crows wheeling in the
and the pigeons strutting
skies
ridgepole of the bam.
It would be worthwhile each
sit-
day to do it. What was another
hour of aging? He did not need
to save his hours —
not now, he
didn’t. There might come a time
when he’d become very jealous
of them. When that day came, he
could hoard the hours and min-
utes,even the seconds, in as miser-
ly a fashion as he could manage.
He heard the sound of the run-
ning feet as they came around
the farthercomer of the house, a
stumbling, exhausted running, as
ifthe one who ran might have
come a far way.
He leaped to his feet and strode
HERE GATHER THE STARS
out into the yard to see who it
shut.
might be and the runner came
stumbling toward him, with her
arms outstretched. He put out an
arm and caught her as she came
close to him, holding her close
against him so she would not fall.
“Lucy!” he cried. “Lucy! What
has happened, child?”
TTIS HANDS against her back
were warm and sticky and
he took one of them away to see
that it was smeared with blood.
The back of her dress was soaked
and dark.
He grabbed her by the shoul-
ders and shoved her away from
him so he could see her face. It
was wet with There was
crying.
terror in the face — and pleading
on with the terror.
She pulled away from him and
turned around. Her hands came
up and slipped her dress off her
shoulders and let it slide halfway
down her back. The flesh of the
shoulders were ribboned by long
slashes that still were oozing
blood.
She pulled the dress up again
and turned to face him. She made
a pleading gesture and pointed
backward down the hill, in the
direction of the field that ran
down to the woods.
There was motion down there,
someone coming through the
woods, almost at the edge of the
old, deserted field.
117
 several years ago, on one of his Hank took a quick step for-
She must have seen it, too, for He squatted down and patted walks. Hank had explained, rather ward, then thought better of it.
she came close against him, shiv- the sofa and shook a hnger at
sheepishly and when no explana- “She got what she had coming
ering, seeking his protection. her, hoping that she might under-
tion had been necessary, that he to her,” he yelled. “And I ain’t
Hebent and lifted her in his stand that he meant she should
was hunting for a cow which had finished with her yet. There ain’t
arms and ran for the shed. He stay there, that she must go no-
no one, not even my own flesh
strayed away. But from his fur-
spoke the phrase and the door where else. He swept an arm in
tive manner, Enoch had deduced and blood, can put a hex on me.”
came open and he stepped into a motion to take in all the re-
that his errand was something Enoch said nothing. Hank
the station. Behind him he heard mainder of the station and shook
shadier than the hunting of a cow stood, undecided.
the door go sliding shut.
Once inside, he stood there,
his head as sternly as he could.
She watched him, fascinated,
— although he could not imagine “She meddled,” he said. “She
what it might have been. had nocall to meddle. It was none
with Lucy Fisher cradled in his then she smiled and nodded, as if
The other man was younger. of her damn business.”
arms, and knew that what he’d she might have understood.
No more, perhaps, than sixteen The young man said: “I was
done had been a great mistake. He reached out and took one or seventeen. More than likely, just trying to train Butcher.
In a sober moment, he never of her hands in his own and hold-
Enoch told himself, he was one of Butcher,” he explained to Enoch,
would have done it; if he’d given ing it, patted it as gently as he
“is a coon-hound pup.”
Lucy’s brothers.
it a second thought, he would not could, trying to reassure her, to
Enoch stood by the porch and “That is right,” said Hank. “He
have done it. make her understand that every-
waited. wasn’t doing nothing wrong. The
But he had acted on an im- thing was all right if she only
Hank was carrying a coiled whip boys caught a young coon the
pulse, with no thought at all. The stayed exactly where she was.
in his hand. Looking at it, Enoch other night. Took a lot of doing.
girl had asked protection and here She was smiling now, no longer
understood those wounds on Roy, here, had staked out the
nothing in the world ever could wondering, apparently, if there
Lucy’s shoulders. He felt a swift coon to a tree, and he had Butcher
get at her. But she was a human were any reason that she should
flash of anger, but tried to fight on a leash. He was letting Butcher
being. And no human being, other not smile.
it down. He could deal better with fight the coon. Not hurting any-
than himself, should have ever She reached out her free hand
Hank Fisher if he kept his temper. thing. He’d pull Butcher off be-
crossed the threshold. and made a little fluttering ges-
The two men stopped three fore any damage could be done
But it was done. Once across ture toward the coffee table, with
and them Then
paces or so away. let rest a while.
the threshold, there was no way its load of alien gadgets.
“Good afternoon,” said Enoch. he’d let Butcher at the coon
to change it He nodded and she picked up
“You seen my gal?” asked again.”
He carried her across the room one of them, turning it admiringly
Hank. “It’s the best way in the world,”
and put her on the sofa, then step- in her hand.
“And if I have?” asked Enoch. said Roy, “to train a dog.”
ped back. She sat there, looking He
got to his feet and went to
“I’ll take the hide off of her,” ‘That is right,” said Hank.
up at him, smiling very faintly, the wall to take down the rifle.
yelled Hank, flourishing the whip. “That is why they caught the
as if she did not know if she were Then he went outside to face coon.”
“In such a case,” said Enoch,
allowed to smile in a place like whatever had been pursuing her.
“I don’t believe I’ll tell you any- “We needed it,” said Roy, “to
this. She lifted a hand and tried
thing.” train this Butcher pup.”
to brush away the tears that were ^1 ^WO MEN were coming up
“You got her hid,” charged
upon her cheeks. *- the field toward the house and
Hank. 44^^HIS all is fine,” said Enoch,
She looked quickly around the Enoch saw that one of them was “You can look around,” said “and I am glad to hear it.
room and her mouth made an O Hank Fisher, Lucy’s father. He Enoch. But what has it got to do with
of wonder. had met the man, rather briefly,

HERE GATHER THE STARS 119

118 GALAXY
Lucy — and, for that matter, Butcher. He thought a lot of him. of mine. I hit her a couple of could do was to wait until Hank's
with me?” He wasn’t going to let no one, not licks, with her making that dumb temper had cooled off. Then there
“She interfered,” said Hank. even his own sister, tie that dog show of hers to try to get me might be an outside chance of
“She tried to stop the training. in knots. So he went after her and stopped. But I had my duty and talking sense to him.
She tried to grab Butcher away she tied him up in knots, just like I kept on hitting. If I did enough The two of them came back.
from Roy, here.” she did to Butcher. I never seen of it, I figured. I’d knock it out “She ain’t nowhere around,”
“For a dummy,” Roy said, “she a thing like it in all my bom days. of her. That was when she put said Hank. “She is in the house.”
is mite too uppity.” Roy just stiffened up and then the hex on me. Just like she did Enoch shook his head. “There
“You hush your mouth," his he fell down to the ground and on Roy and Butcher, but in a can’t anyone get into that house."
father told him sternly, swinging his legs pulled up against his different way. She turned me “Roy,” said Hank, “climb them
around on him. belly and he wrapped his arms blind! She blinded her own fath- there steps and open up that
Roy mumbled to himself, fall- around himself and he laid there er! I couldn’t see a thing. I just door.”
ing back a step. on the ground, pulled into a ball. stumbled around the yard, yell- Roy looked fearfully at Enoch.
Hank turned back to Enoch. Him and Butcher, both. But she ing and clawing at my eyes. And “Go ahead,” said Enoch.
“Roy knocked her down,” he never touched that coon. She then they got all right again, but Roy moved forward slowly and
said. “He shouldn’t have done never tied him in no knots. Her she was gone. I saw her running went up the steps. He crossed the
that. He should have been more own folks is all she touched.” ffirough the woods and up the porch and put his hand upon the
careful.” “It didn’t hurt,” said Roy. “It hill. So Roy and me, we took out front doorknob and turned. He
“I didn’t mean to,” Roy said. didn’t hurt at all.” after her.” tried again. He turned around.
“I just my arm out to keep
swung “I was sitting there,” said Hank, “And you think I have her “Pa,” he said, “I can’t turn it.

her away from Butcher.”
“That is right,” said Hank. “He
swung a bit too hard. But there
wasn’t any call for her doing what
she did. She tied Butcher up in
knots so he couldn’t fight that
coon. Without laying a finger on
him, mind you, she tied him up in
knots. He couldn’t move a muscle.
That made Roy mad.” He ap-
pealed to Enoch
“Wouldn’t that have
mad?”
“braiding this here bull whip. Its here?” I can’t get it open.”
end had frayed and I fixed a new “I know you have,” said Hank. “Hell,” said Hank, disgusted,
one on it. And I seen it all, but “Okay,” said Enoch. “Have a “you can’t do an 3^hing.”
I didn’t do a thing until I saw look around.” Hank took the steps in two
Roy there, tied up on the ground. “You can bet I will,” Hank jumps, paced wrathfully across
And I figured then it had gone told, grimly. “Roy, take the barn. the porch. His'hand reached out
far enough. I am
a broad-minded She might be hiding there.” and grasped the knob and
man; I don’t mind a little wart Roy headed for the bam. Hank wrenched at it powerfully. He
charming and other piddling went into the shed, came out al- tried again and yet again. He
things like that. There have been most immediately, strode down to turned angrily to face Enoch.
earnestly. a lot of people who have been the sagging chicken house. “What is going on here?” he
made you able to do that. It ain’t no dis- Enoch stood and waited, the yelled.
grace at all. But this thing of rifle cradled on his arm. “I told you,” Enoch said, “that

“I don’t think it would,” said tying people into knots . . He had trouble here, he knew you can’t get in.”
Enoch. “But then I’m not a coon- “So you hit her writh the whip," — more trouble than he’d ever “The hell I can’t!” roared Hank.
dog man.” said Enoch. had before. There was no such
Hank stared in wonder at this thing as reasoning with a man of T¥E tossed the whip to Roy and
lack of understanding, but he 66T DID my duty,” Hank told Hank Fisher’s stripe. There was came down off the porch,
went on with his story. “Roy got -*-him, solemnly. “I ain’t about no approach, right now, that he striding over to the woodpile that
real mad at her. He’d raised that to have no witch in any family would understand. All that he stood beside the shed. He

120 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 121

wrenched the heavy, double-bit- “By God, I will!” he yelled. ing around in the woods, meeting He gasped a little in his effort
ted axe out of the chopping block. He squared off again and this one another.” to fight down the rage that boiled
“Careful with that axe,” warned time he swung the axe, not at Enoch waited, watching the inside him, trying to explode. If
Enoch. “I’ve had it for a long the door, but at the window set both of them. they had stayed here any longer
time and I set a store by it.” beside the door. “God help me,” cried Hank. he’d have given in to that tower-
Hank did not answer. He went The blade struck and there “My own daughter is a witch!” ing rage.
up on the p>orch and squared off was a high singing sound as pieces “I think,” said Enoch, “you Even as it stood, it would be
before the door. of sun-bright steel went flying should go back home. If I happen bad. They would say he was a
“Stand off,” he said to Roy. through the air. to find Lucy, I will bring her madman; that he had run them
“Give me elbow room.” Ducking away. Hank dropped there.” off at gunpoint. They might even
Roy backed away. the axe. It fell to the floor of the Neither of them made a move. say that he had kidnaped Lucy
“Wait a minute,” Enoch said. porch and bounced. One blade “You haven’t heard the last of and was holding her against her
“You mean to chop down that was broken, the metal sheared this,” yelled Hank. ‘Y’ou have my will.They would stop at nothing
door?” away in jagged breaks. The win- daughter somewhere and I’ll get to make him all the trouble that
“You’re damned right I do.” dow was intact. There was not a you for it.” they could.
Enoch nodded gravely. scratch upon it. “Any time you want,” said He had no illusions about what
“Well?” asked Hank. Hank stood there for a mo- Enoch, “but not now.” they might do, for he knew the
“It’s all right with me if you ment, staring at the broken axe, He made an imperative ges- breed, vindictive in their small-
want to try.” as if he could not quite believe ture with the rifle barrel.
“Get moving,” he said. “And
ness —little vicious insects of
Hank took his stance, gripping what he saw. the human race.
the handle of the axe. The steel Silently he stretched out his don’t come back. Either one of He stood beside the porch and
flashed swiftly, up over h« hand and Roy put the bull whip you.” watched them down the hill,
shoulder, then down in a driven in it. They hesitated for a moment, wondering how a girl so fine as
blow. The two of them came down looking at him, trying to gauge Lucy could spring from such de-
The edge of the steel struck the stairs. him, trying to guess what he cadent stock. Perhaps her handi-
the surface of the door and They stopped
at the bottom of might do next. cap had kept her from becoming
turned, deflected by the surface, them and looked at Enoch. Slowly they turned and, walk- another one of them. Perhaps if
changed its course, bouncing from Hank’s hand twitched on the ing side by side, moved off down she could have talked with them
The blade came slicing whip. the hill. or listened, she would in time
the door.
down and back. It missed Hank’s “If I were you,” said Enoch, have become as shiftless and as
spraddled leg by no more than an “I wouldi^’t try it. Hank. I can XV vicious as any one of them.
inch and the momentum of it move awfully fast.” It had been a great mistake to
spun him half around. He patted the gun butt. “I’d ¥TE should have killed both of get mixed up in a thing like this.
He stood there, foolishly, arms have the hand off you before you them, he thought. They were A man in his position had too
outstretched, hands still gripping could swing that whip.” not fit to live. much to lose.
the handle of the axe. He stared Hank breathed heavily. He glanced down at the rifle. And yet what could he have
at Enoch. “There’s the devil in you, Wal- His hands had such a grip on the done? Could he have refused to
“Try again,” invited Enoch. lace,” he said. “And there’s the gun that his fingers stood out give Lucy
his protection, with the
Rage flowed over Hank. His devil in her, too. You’re working white and stiff against the satin blood soaking through her dress
face was flushed with anger. together, the two of you. Sneak- brown of the wood. from the lashes that lay across

122 GALAXY here gather the stars 123

 side the station. Bringing her used it through the years, but
have And now was in operation.
her shoulders? Should he
it
here, he had broken that un- sparingly. There was, in fact, little
helpless He had tried it a hundred
ignored the frantic, spoken understanding he had need to use a great deal of it.
times; Lucy had picked it up
pleading in her face? with the aliens who had installed He went across the room to
just once; and she had got it
He turned heavily around and him as a keeper. Although, of all Lucy, showed her what he had
inside the station. figured out. humans, Lucy was the one who and made motions to show her
went back
He noticed the rapture on her could possibly be exempt from what it was for. She slid her dress
ucy was still sitting on the face. Was it possible that she
the restriction. For she could off her shoulders and he bent to
L sofa. She held a flashing
ob- knew its purpose?
He went across the room and
never tell the things that she had look at the slashes.
ject in her hand, staring at it seen. The bleeding had stopped, but
Her face again held that touched her arm. She lifted her She could not remain. She the flesh was red and angry.
raptly.
face to look at him, and in her
same vibrant and alert expression must be taken home. Otherwise Gently he rubbed pintment
eyes he saw the gleam of happi-
he had seen that morning when therewould be a massive hunt into the stripes that the whip had

she’d held the butterfly.

ness and excitement. for her,a lost girl —
a beautiful made.
He laid the rifle on the desk He made a questioning gesture deaf-mute. She had healed the butterfly,
toward the pyramid, trying to ask A story like that would bring
and stood quietly there, but she he thought; but she could not
she knew what it might be. But
must have caught the motion of in newspapermen
if heal herself.
in a day or
she did not understand him. Or
him. She looked quickly up. Then two. The woods would be swarm- On the table in front of her
perhaps she knew, but knew as the pyramid of spheres still was
her eyes went back to the flashing ing with searchers.
well how impossible it would be Hank Fisher would tell how flashing and glinting, throwing a
thing in her hands.
spheres. to explain its purpose. She made shadow of color all
It was the pyramid of he’d tried to break into the house flickering
that happy, fluttery motion with
Now all the spheres were spin- indicating the
and couldn’t. Then others would about the room.
her hand again, was what
ning slowly, in alternating clock- try to break in and there’d be hell It operating, but
table with load of gadgets.
wise and counterclockwise mo-
its
to pay. could it be doing?
There was laughter in her face.
tions. As they spun they shone Enoch sweated, thinking of
each in its own par- Just a kid, Enoch told himself, XVI
and glittered, it.

if there might be,

with a box heaped high with new All the years of keeping out of
ticular color, as
and wondrous toys.
way would be T TLYSSES came
deep inside each one of them, a people’s for noth- as twilight was
source of soft, warm light. Was that all it was to her? Was ing then. This strange house on deepening into night.
Enoch caught his breath at the she happy and excited merely be- a lonely ridge would become an Enoch and Lucy had just fin-
cause she suddenly had become
beauty and the wonder of it international mystery, and a chal- ished with their supper and were
aware of all the beauty and the
the old, hard wonder of what this ;
lenging target for all the crack- sitting at the table when Enoch
novelty of the things stacked
thing might be and what it might pots of the world. heard his footsteps.
there on the table?
be meant to do. He had puzzled He went to the medicine cab- The alien stood in shadow and
at it a hundred times or more. He
He turned wearily and went inet, to get the healing ointment he looked, Enoch thought, more
could find nothing significant. So
back to the desk. He picked up that had been included in the than ever like the cruel clown.
far as he could see, it was only
the rifle and hung it on the pegs. drug packet provided by Galactic His lithe, flowing body had the

meant to look at, although there Central. look of smoked, tanned buckskin.
had been that persistent feeling HE should not be in the sta- He opened the box. More The patchwork color of his hide
of purpose —
that, perhaps, some-
S tion. No human being other than half of it
little
remained. He’d seemed to shine faintly; the hard
how, it was meant to operate. than himself should ever be in-
HERE GATHER THE STARS 125
124
GALAXY
angles of his face, the bald head, “For some years,” said Enoch. then,” suggested Enoch, “and we cations. I came tonight to tell
the flat, pointed ears pasted tight “She came seeking my protection. all will have some coffee.” you, Enoch, that we are in
against the skull, lent him a vi- Her father used a whip to beat “I had forgotten of the coffee. trouble.”
cious fearsomeness. her.” The sight of this other human “Trouble? But there’s not been
If one did not know him for “This father knows she’s here?” drove coffee from my mind.” any trouble.”
the gentle character that he was, “He thinks she is. But he can- He sat down at the place where Ulysses lifted his coffee cup and
Enoch told himself, he would be not know.” the third cup had been set, wait- took a long drink of it.
enough to scare a man out of Ulysses came slowly out of the ing for him. Enoch started around “That is good,” he said. “I carry
seven years of growth. darkness and stood within the the table, but Lucy rose and went back the bean and make it at my
“We had been expecting you,” light. to get the coffee. home. But it does not taste the
said Enoch. “The coffee pot is Lucy was watching him. There “She understands?” Ulysses same.”
boiling.” was no terror on her face. Her asked. “This trouble?”
Ulysses took a slow step for- eyes were level and untroubled Enoch shook his head. “You sat “You remember the Vegan
ward, then paused. and she did not flinch. down by the cup and the cup was that died here several of your
“You have another with you. “She takes me well,” Ulysses empty.” years ago.”
A human, I would say.” said. “She does not run or She poured the coffee, then Enoch nodded. “The Hazer.”
“There is no danger,” Enoch scream.” went over to the sofa. “The being has a proper name
told him. “She could not scream,” said “She will not stay with us?” of his own . .
.”

“Of another gender. A female, Enoch, “even if she wished.” Ulysses asked. Enoch laughed. “You* don’t
is it not? You have found a “She’s intrigued by that table like our nicknames.”
mate?” MUST be most repugnant," full of trinkets. She set one of “It is not our way,” Ulysses

“No,” said Enoch. “She is not Ulysses said, “at first sight them to going.” said.
my mate.” to any human.” “You plan to keep her here?” “My name for them,” said
“You have acted wisely “She does not see the outside “I can’t keep her,” Enoch said. Enoch, “is a mark of my affec-
through the years,” Ulysses told only. She sees inside of you as “There’ll be a hunt for her. I’ll tion.”
him. “In a position such as yours, well.” have to take her home.” “You buried this Vegan.”
a mate is not the best.” ‘Would she be frightened if I “I do not like it,” Ulysses said. “In my family plot,” said
“You need not worry. There is made a human bow to her?” “Nor do
I. Let’s admit at once Enoch. “As if he were my own. I
a malady upon her. She has no “I think,” said Enoch, “she that I should not have brought read a verse above him.”
communication. She can neither might be very pleased.” her But at the time it
here. “That is well and good,” Ulys-
hear nor speak.” Ulysses made his bow, formal seemed the only thing to do. I ses said. “That is as it should be.
“A malady?” and exaggerated, with one hand had no time to think it out.” But the body’s gone.”
“Yes, from the moment she was upon his leathery belly, bowing “You’ve done no wrong,” said
bom. She has never heard or from the waist. Ulysses, softly. 6Ci^ONE! It can’t be gone!”
spoken. She can tell of nothing Lucy smiled and clapped her “She cannot harm us,” said cried Enoch.
here.” hands. Enoch. ‘Without communication “It has been taken from the
“Sign language?” “You see?” Ulysses cried, de- of any kind . .
.”
grave.”
“She knows no sign language. lighted. “I think that she may “It’s not Ulysses told
that,” “But you can’t know,” pro-
She refused to learn it.” like me.” him. “She's just a complication tested Enoch. “How could you
“She is a friend of yours.” ‘Why don’t you sit down, and I do not like further compli- know?”

126 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 127

 but I would have tried to do
. possible. Another thing. The
can tell you that and
“Not I. The Vegans are the said. “I
^mething." clusters seem to be extraordinar-
ones who know.” know it is the truth. You’re held
“Silent not because of you. Be- ily free of dust and gas; so that
“But they’re light years distant accountable.”
cause of something else.” once we got there, we could ex-
from here “By the Vegans?”
. .

And pand more rapidly throughout the

And then he was not too sure. “By the Vegans, yes. the
TTLYSSES finished off his cof- cluster than we can in many parts
For on that night the wise old one galaxy.”
did what I could!” said
^ fee and poured himself an- of the galaxy. But, at best, it’s a
had died and he’d messaged Galac- “I.
other cup. He filled Enoch’s half- speculative business, for we don’t
tic Central he had been told that
Enoch hotly. “I did what was re-
filled cup and set the pot aside. know what we’ll find there. After
the Vegans had known the mo- quired. I filled the letter of the
Enoch waited. we’ve made all the effort and
ment he had died. And there had Vegan law. I paid the dead my
“You may not have been aware spent the time we may find
all
been no need for a death certifi- honor and the honor of planet. my
of it,” said Ulysses, “but at the little or nothing, except, possibly,
cate, for they knew of what he It is not right that the respon-
time this station was established, some more real estate. And we
died. should go on forever. Not
sibility
there was considerable opposition have plenty of that in the galaxy.
seemed impossible, of course. that can believe the body can
I
It to it from a number of races in But the clusters have a vast ap-
But there were too many impos- be really gone.There is no one
There were many
sibilities in the galaxy which — who would take it. No one knew
the galaxy.
leasons cited, as is the case in all
peal for certain types of minds.”
Enoch nodded. “I can see that.
turned out, after to be entirely
all, of it!”
such situations, but the underly- It would be the first venturing out
possible — for a man to ever “By human logic,” Ulysses told
ing reason, when you get down of the galaxy itself. It might be
know when he stood on solid him, “you, of course, are right
to basics, rest squarely on the the first short step on the route
ground. But not by Vegan logic. And in
continual contest for racial or re- that could lead us to other gal-
Was it possible, he wondered, this case Galactic Central would
gional advantage.” axies.”
that each Vegan had some sort of tend to support the Vegans.”
Enoch nodded. “I had a hint of Ulysses peered at him. “You,
mental contact with every other Enoch said testily, “The Ve-
this. I hadn’t paid much attention too,” he said. “I might have
Vegan? Or that some central cen- gans happen to be friends of
to it.” known.”
sus bureau (to give a human des- mine. I have never met one of

didn’t like or couldn’t

“It’s largely a matter of direc- Enoch said, smugly: “I am that
ignation to something that was them that I
Ulysses said. “When Galac-
tion,” type of mind.”
scarcely understandable) might get along with. I can work it out
tic Central began its expansion
have some sort of official linkage
with every living Vegan, knowing
with them.”
“If only the Vegans were con-
into this spiral arm, it meant a Vj^ELL, anyhow,” he said,
there was no time or effort avail- “there was this globular-
cerned,” said Ulysses, “I am quite
where it was and how it was and able for expansions in other di- cluster faction — suppose you’d
I
what it might be doing?
Something of the sort, Enoch
sure you could. But the situation
is complicated. The Vegans have
rections. There is one large call it that — which contended
group of races which has held a bitterly when we began our move
admitted, might indeed be pos- known for some time that the
dream for many centuries of ex- in this direction. You understand
sible. It was not beyond the as- body had been taken. They were
panding into some of the nearby that we’ve barely begun the ex-
tounding capabilities that one disturbed, of course, but out of
globular clusters. It does make a pansion into this neighborhood.
found on every hand throughout certain considerations, they kept
dim sort of sense, of course. With We have less than a dozen sta-
the galaxy. But to maintain a their silence.”
the techniques that we have, the tions;we’ll need a hundred. It
similar contact with the Vegan “They needn’t have. They
longer jump
across space to some will take centuries before the net-
dead was something else again. could have come to me. I don’t
of the closer clusters is entirely work is complete.”
“The body’s gone," Ulysses know what could have been done

GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 129

128
 “So this faction is still contend-
ing,” Enoch said. “There still is
time to stop this spiral-arm proj-
ect.”
“That is right. And
worries me. For the faction is set
to use this incident of the missing
body as an emotion-charged argu-
ment against the extension of this
network. It is being joined by
other groups that are concerned
with certain special interests. And
these special interest groups see
a better chance of getting what
they want if they can wreck this
project.”
“Wreck it?”
“Yes, wreck it. They will start
screaming, as soon as the body in-
cident becomes open knowledge,
that a planet so barbaric as the
Earth is no fit location for a sta-
tion. They will insist that this
station be abandoned.”
“But they can’t do that!”
“They can,” Ulysses said.
“They will say it
degrading and
is
unsafe to maintain a station so
barbaric that even graves are
rifled, on a planet where the
honored dead cannot rest in
peace. It is the kind of highly
emotional argument that will
gain wide acceptance and support
in some sections of the galaxy.
The Vegans tried their best.
tried to hush it up, for the sake
of the project.They have never
done a thing like that before.
They are a proud people and they
130
feel a slight to honor perhaps
more deeply than many other
then we stand discredited. Then lievedcame from that direction.
races. Yet, for the greater good, all our judgments come up for Through the years the story has
they were willing to accept review.” grown, until today they are con-
dis-
that’s what honor. And would have if they vinced a race of intellectual
could have kept it quiet. But the 4i¥>UT even if the project giants will be found in that spiral
story leaked out somehow by — --'should be wrecked,” Enoch
pointed out, “there is no surety
arm. And there is always pres-
sure to probe deeper into the
good espionage, no doubt. And
they cannot stand the loss of face that any group would gain. It galactic core. You must realize
in advertised dishonor. The Ve- would only throw the question of that we have only started. The
gan who will be arriving here this where the time and energy should galaxy still is largely unexplored.
evening is an official representa- be used into an open debate. You The thousands of races who form
tive charged with delivering an say that there are many special- Galactic Central still are pio-
banding togeth-
interest factions neers.”
official protest.”
“To me?” er to carry on the fight against “You sound,” said Enoch, “as
us. Suppose they do win. Then if you have little hope of main-
“To you, and through you to
the Earth.” they must turn around and start taining this station.”
fighting among themselves.’” “Almost no hope at all,” Ulys-
“But the Earth is not con-
“Of course,” Ulysses admitted, ses told him. “But so far as you
cerned. The Earth doesn’t even
“but then each of them has a yourself are concerned, there will
know.”
chance. The way it is they have be an option. You can stay here
“Of course it doesn’t. So far as
no chance at all. There is one and live out an ordinary life on
Galactic Central is concerned,
group on the far side of the gal- Earth or you can be assigned to
you are the Earth. You represent
the Earth.”
axy that wants to move out into another station. Galactic Central
the thinly populated sections of hopes that you would elect to
Enoch shook his head. It was
one particular section of the rim. continue on with us.”
a crazy way of thinking. But, he
They still believe in an ancient Enoch sat numb and stricken.
told himself,he should not be
legend which says that their race Bad news! It was worse than that.
surprised. It was the kind of
arose as the result of immigrants It was the crashing down of not
thinking he should have expected.
from another galaxy who landed only his own personal world, but
He was too hidebound, he With
on the rim and worked their way of all the hopes of Earth.
thought, too narrow.
inward over many galactic years. the station gone. Earth once more
“But even if you have to aban-
They think that if they can get would be left in the backwaters
don Earth,” he said, “you could go
out to the rim they can turn that of the galaxy, with no hope of
out to Mars and build a station
legend into history to their great- help, no chance of recognition,
there.”
er glory Another group wants
. . no realization of what lay wait-
They “You don’t understand,” Ulys-
.
to go into a small spiral arm be- ing in the galaxy. Standing alone
ses told him. “This station is no
cause of an obscure record that and naked, the human race would
more than a toehold. The aim is
many eons ago their ancestors go on in its same old path, fum-
to wreck the project. If they can
picked up some virtually undeci- bling its uncertain way toward
force us to abandon one station.
pherable messages which they be- a blind, mad future.
GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 131
 know there were two of them. I
only knew of one.”
“It’s a friend of Enoch’s,” Ulys-
ses said.
“There has been contact, then;
Contact with the planet.”
“No, there has been no con-
tact.”
“Perhaps an indiscretion.”
“Perhaps,” Ulysses said, “but
under provocation that I doubt
either you or I could have stood
against.”
Lucy had risen to her feet and
now she came across the room,
moving quietly and slowly, as if
she might be floating.
The Hazer spoke to her in the
common tongue. “I am very glad
to meet you.”
“She cannot speak,” Ulysses
said. “She has no communica-
tion.”
“Compensation,” said the Ha-
zer.
“You think so?” asked Ulys-
ses.
“I am sure of it.”

ing, I have been intrigued with He walked slowly forward and

XVII
Hazer was elderly.
golden haze that enveloped
The
him had lost the sparkle of
its yoruthfulness. It was a mellow
glow, deep and rich — not the
blinding haze of a younger be-
ing. He carried himself with a
solid dignity and the flaring
topknot that was neither hair nor
feathers was a saintly white. His
face was soft and tender, the soft-
you. I have wondered what sort Lucy waited.
ness and the tenderness which in
of creature you might turn out “It —
she, the female form, you
a man might have been expressed
in kindly wrinkles.
to be.” called it —
she is not afraid.”
“You need have no apprehen- Ulysses chuckled. “Not even of
“I am he told Enoch,
sorry,”
sion of him,” Ulysses said, a little me,” he said.
“that our meeting must be such
“I will vouch for him. The Hazer reached out his
as this. Although, under any cir-
sharply.
We have been friends for years.” hand to her and she stood quietly
cumstances, I am glad to meet
“Yes, I forgot,” the Hazer said. for a moment, then one hand
you. I have heard of you. It is
came up and took the Hazer’s
‘You are his discoverer.”
not often that a being of an out- fingers, more like tentacles than
He peered around the room.
side planet is the keeper of a
“Another one,” he said. “I did not fingers, in her grasp.
station. Because of this, young be-

GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 133

132
 T seemed to Enoch that the said the Hazer. “I don’t believe I the protest and the charge on the lit the lantern. The Hazer
I cloak of golden haze reached will.” Vegan statement.” watched him closely.

out to wrap the Earth girl in its He turned ponderously to “I am sorry, Enoch,” said Ulys- “Fossil fuel,” Enoch told him.
glow. Enoch blinked and the il- Enoch. ses. “That is what I mean.” “It burns at the tip of a saturated
lusion,if it had been illusion, was
“You know why I am here?” wick.”
swept away; only the Hazer had he asked. “It is a matter I regret, "C’NOCH shook his head. “For The Hazer said, in horror:
the golden cloak. but I must . .
years I’ve tried to under- “But surely you have better.”

And how was Enoch won-

it,
“If you’d rather,” Enoch said, stand and to conform to the “Much better now. I am just
dered, that there was no fear in “we can consider that the protest ethics and ideas of all the people old-fashioned.”
her, either of Ulysses or the Ha- has been made. I would so stipu- who have come through this sta- He led the way outside, the
zer? Was it because she could see late.” tion. I’ve pushed my own human lantern throwing a small pool of
beyond outward guise to
the “Why not?” Ulysses said. instincts and training to one side. light. The Hazer followed.

sense their basic humanity? (God “There is no need, it seems to I’ve tried to understand other “It is a wild planet,” said the

help me, I cannot think, even me, to have the three of us go viewpoints and to evaluate other Hazer.
now, except in human
terms! through a somewhat painful ways of thinking, many of which “Wild here. There are parts of
And if that were true, was it be- scene.” did violence to my
own. I am it are tame.”

cause she, herself, was not en- The Hazer hesitated. glad of all of it, for it has given “My own planet is controlled,”
human?
tirely “If you feel you must,” said me a chance to go beyond the the Hazer said. “Every foot of it
Lucy dropped the Hazer’s hand Enoch. narrowness of Earth. I think I is planned.”

and went back to the sofa. “No,” the Hazer said. “I am gained something from it all. But “I know. I have talked to many
if an unspoken protest Vegans. They described the plan-
The Hazer said: “Enoch Wal- satisfied none of this touched Earth; only
lace.” be generously accepted.” myself was involved. This busi- et to me.”
“Yes.” “Accepted,” Enoch said, “on ness touches Earth and I must They headed for the barn.
“She is of your race?” just one condition. That I satisfy approach it from an Earthman’s “You want to go back?” asked
“Yes, of course.” myself that the charge is not un- viewpoint. In this particular in- Enoch.
“She is most unlike you. Al- founded. I must go out and see.” stance I am not simply the keeper “No,” said the Hazer. “I find
most as if there were two races “You do not believe me?” of a galactic station.” it exhilarating. Those are wild
on your planet.” “It is not a matter of belief. It Neither of them said a word. plants over there?”
“There is only one.” is something that can be checked. Enoch stood waiting and still “We call them trees,” said
“Are there many others like I cannot accept either for myself there was nothing said. Enoch.
her?” or for my planet until I have Finally he turned and headed “The wind blows as it wishes?”
“I would not know,” said done that much.” for the door. “That’s right,” said Enoch. “We
Enoch. “Enoch,” Ulysses said, “the Ve- “I’ll be back,” he told them. do not as yet control the weather.”
“Coffee,” said Ulysses to the gan has been gracious. Not only He spoke the phrase and the The spade stood just inside the
Hazer. “Would you like some now, but before this happened. door started to slide open. barn door and Enoch picked it
coffee?” His race presses the charge most “If you’ll have me,” said Hazer, up. He headed for the orchard.
“Coffee?” reluctantly. They suffered much quietly, “I’d like to go with you.” “You know, of course,” the
“A most delicious brew. Earth’s to protect the Earth and you.” “Fine,” said Enoch. “Come Hazer said, “the body will be
one great accomplishment.” “And the feeling is that I would ahead.” gone.”
“I am not acquainted with it,” be ungracious if I did not accept It was dark outside and Enoch “I’m prepared to find it gone.”

134 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 135

 “Then why?” the Hazer asked.
“Because I must be sure. You
can’t understand that, can you?”
“You said back there in the
the Hazer said, “that you
station,’’
tried to understand the rest of
us. Perhaps, for a change, at least
one of us should try understand-
ing you.”
l^NOCH led the way down
path through the orchard.
They came to the rude fence en-
closing the burial plot. The
Enoch went
ging gate stood open.
through it and the Hazer fol-
lowed.
“This is where you buried
him?”
“This is my family plot.
mother and my father are here
and I put him with them.”
He handed the lantern to the
Vegan and, armed with the spade,
walked up to the grave. He thrust
the spade into the ground.
“Would you hold the lantern
a little closer, please?”
The Hazer moved up a step or
two.
Enoch dropped to his knees
and brushed away the leaves that
had fallen on the ground. Under-
neath them was the soft, fresh
earth that had been newly turned.
There was a depression and a
small hole at the bottom of the
depression. As he brushed at the
earth, he could hear the clods of
displaced dirt falling through the
136
hole and striking on something
that was not the soil.
The Hazer had moved the lan-
tern again and he could not see.
But he did not need to see. He
knew there was no use of digging;
he knew what he would find. He
should have kept a watch. He
should not have put up the stone
But Galactic
to attract attention.
the Central had said “as if he were
your own,” and that was the way
he’d done it.
sag- He felt the damp
soaking through his trousers.
“No one told me,” said the
Hazer softly.
“Told you what?”
“The memorial. And what is
My written on it. I was not aware
that you knew our language.”
“I learned it long ago. There
were scrolls I wished to read.
I’m afraid it’s not too good.”
“Two misspelled words,” the
Hazer told him, “and one little
awkwardness. But those
are
things which do not matter. What
matters, very much, is that when
you wrote you thought as one of
us.”
Enoch rose and reached out
the lantern.
“Let’s go back,” he said sharply.
“I know now who did
to hunt him out.”
^T^HE treetops far above
the rising wind. Ahead,
in
the great clump of canoe birch
GALAXY
showed whitely in the dim glow poles and crawled through it.
of the lantern’s light. The birch Now the ground became more
clump, Enoch knew, grew on the level. Somewhere a dog barked in
lip of a small cliff that dropped the dark and another joined him.
twenty feet or more and here one More joined in, and the pack
turned to the right to get around came sweeping up toward them.
it and continue down the hillside. They arrived in a rush of feet,
Enoch turned slightly and veered around Enoch and the
glanced at Lucy, following close lantern to launch themselves at
behind. She smiled at him. He Lucy —
suddenly transformed,
gestured to indicate that they at the sight of her, into a wel-
must turn to the right, that she coming committee rather than a
must follow closely. Although it company of guards. Enoch led
wasn’t necessary; she knew the the way across a vegetable gar-
of the earth
hillside betterthan he himself. den carefully following a path be-
He turned along the edge of tween the rows. Then they were
the cliff, came to the break and in the yard and the house stood
clambered down to reach the before them, a tumbledown, sag-
slope below. Off to the left he ging structure, its kitchen win-
could hear the swiftly-running dows glowing with lamplight.
creek that tumbled down the ra-
Ma
vine from the spring below the
field. T he door opened.
stood framed against
Fisher
the
The plunged more
hillside light, a great, bony woman
tall,
steeply now and he led a way clothed in something that was
that angled across it. more sack than dress.
Even in the darkness he could She stared at Enoch, half
recognize the white oak that frightened, half belligerent. Then
twisted at a crazy angle above the back of him she saw the girl.
hill; the small grove of massive “Lucy!” she cried.
red oaks that grew out of a dome The girl came forward with a
of tumbled rock, so placed that rush and her mother caught her
for
no axeman had even tried to cut in her arms.
them down; the tiny swamp, filled Enoch set his lantern on the
with cattails, that fitted itself ground, tucked the rifle under-
this. I have
snugly into a little terrace carved neath his arm and stepped across
into the hillside. the threshold.
Far below he caught the gleam The family had been at supper,
moaned
of window light. seated about a great round table
They came to a rude fence of set in the center of the kitchen.
HERE GATHER THE STARS 137
 just watching you. You can Lewis was unmoved. He did
An ornate oil lamp stood in the Hank. “He can’t make you go.
imagine why, I expect.” not try to pull away. “I had a
center of the table. Hank had He can talk to you right here.”
“You know about the ceme- job,” he said.
risen to his feet, but his three “I don’t mind,” said Lewis. “In
sons and the stranger still were fact, I want to talk with him.
tery?” “Yeah, a job. Watching me.
seated. You’re Enoch Wallace, aren’t
Lewis nodded. Not robbing graves.” He let loose
“You took something from a of the shirt.
“So you brung her back,” said you?” 1

Hank. “That’s who he is,” said Hank.

i grave.” me,” said Lewis, “that
“Tell

“I found her,” Enoch said. “Should of died of old age fifty

I
“Yes,” said Lewis. “The one thing in the grave. What was it?”
“We quit hunting for her just years ago. But look at him. He’s {
with the funny headstone.” “That’s none of your damn
“Where is it?” business,” Enoch told him, bitter-
a while ago,” Hank told him. “We got the devil in him. I tell you, ,

him and the devil has a deal.” “You mean the body. It’s in ly. “Getting back that body is.
was going out again.” I

“You remember what you told “Hank,” Lewis said, “shut up.” 1
Washington.” It’smost important thing you’ve
“You shouldn’t have taken it,” ever done. Don’t forget that for
me this afternoon?” asked Enoch. Lewis came around the table
“I told you a lot of things.” and went out the door. i
Enoch said, grimly. “You’ve a minute. It affects everyone on
caused a lot of trouble. You have Earth. You and I and everyone.
“You told me that I had the “Good night,” Enoch said to
to get it back as quickly as you And if you fail, you’ll answer to
devil me. Raise your hand
in the rest of them.
against that girl once more and “Mr. Wallace,” said Ma
Fish-
can.” me for it.”
“It will take a little time,” said “Wallace, is there something
I promise you I’ll show you just er, “thanks for bringing back my
Lewis. “They’ll have to fly it out. you can tell me?”
how much devil there is in me.” girl. Hank won’t hit her again, I

“You can’t bluff me,” Hank can promise you. I’ll see to that.”
Twenty-four hours, maybe.” “Not a thing,” said Enoch. He
Enoch went outside and shut “That’s the fastest you can picked up the lantern, turned,
blustered.
the door. He picked up the lan-
make it?” went across the garden and
But the man was frightened. It
tern. Lewis was out in the yard.
“I might do a little better.” started up the hill.
showed in the limpness of his
Enoch went to him. “Do the very best you can. It’s In the yard, Lewis stood for a
face, the tightness of his body.
important that you get that body long time, watching the lantern
“I mean it,” Enoch said. “Just “Let’s walk off a ways,” he
back.” bobbing out of sight.
try me
out and see.” said.
The two men stood for a mo- “I will, Wallace. I didn’t know
^HEY it would be important.” XVIII
ment, facing one another, then stopped at the edge of
“And, Lewis.”
Hank sat down. the garden and turned to
LYSSES was
“Would you
victuals?” he inquired.
join us in some face one another.
“You been watching me,” said
“Yes.”
“Don’t try to play it smart.
Don’t add any frills. Just do what
U station
alone
when Enoch returned.
in the

Enoch shook his head. Enoch. He had sent the Thuban on his
I tell you. I’m trying to be reason- way and the Hazer back to Vega.
He looked at the stranger. “Are Lewis nodded.
you the ginseng man?” he asked. “Official? Or just snooping?” I
able because that’s the only thing A
fresh pot of coffee was brew-
to be. But you try one smart ing and Ulysses was sprawled out
The man nodded. “That “Official, I’m afraid. My name
i

is
move . .
.”
on the sofa, doing nothing.
what they call me.” is Claude Lewis. There is no rea-

“I want to talk with you. Out- son I shouldn’t tell you. I’m CIA.”
He reached out a hand and Enoch hung up the rifle and
grabbed Lewis’ shirt front, twist- blew out the lantern. Taking off
side.” “I’m not a traitor or a spy,”
ing the fabric tight. “You under- his jacket, he threw it on the
Claude Lewis stood up. Enoch said.
“You don’t have to go,” said “No one thinks you are. We’re
stand me, Lewis?” desk. He sat down in a chair

138 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 139

1
across from the sofa. ^¥^HE COFFEE pot was making
“you could call it that. Although pose. The organization of mystics.
“The body will be back,” he sounds. Enoch went to get it. machine is a little awkward. More And yet, even with no one know-
said, “by this time tomorrow.” Ulysses had pushed some of the
than sheer mechanics went into ing, the galaxy is beginning to
“I sincerely hope,” Ulysses trinkets on the coffee table to one
the making of it. There is just show wear. It’s coming apart at
said, “that it will do some good. side tomake room for two coffee the one.Only one was ever made, the seams. In time to come, it may
But I’m inclined to doubt it.” cups. Enoch filled them and set by a being who lived ten thousand fall apart.As if the Talisman rep-
Said Enoch bitterly, “Maybe the pot upon the floor.
of your years ago. I wish I could resented a force that all unknow-
I should not have bothered.” Ulysses picked up his cup, held tell you what it is or how it is ingly held the races of the galaxy
“It will show good faith,” it for a moment in his hands, together, exerting its influence
constructed, but thereis no one,
Ulysses said. “It might have then put it back on the table top.
I am afraid, who can tell you even when it remained unseen.”
some mitigating effect in the “We’re in bad shape,” he said. that.There have been others who “But even if it’s lost, it’s some-
final weighing.” “Not like in the old days. It has
have attempted to duplicate the where,” Enoch pointed out. “It
“The Hazer could have told Galactic Central worried. All this would be exerting its influ-
.
Talisman, but no one has suc- still
me,” Enoch said, “where the body
:

squabbling and haggling among '

ceeded. The mystic who made it ence. It couldn’t have been de-
was. If he knew it had been taken the races, all the pushing and the left no blueprints, no plans, no stroyed.”
from the grave, then he must have shoving.” “You forget,” Ulysses reminded
specifications, not a single note.
known where it could be found.” He looked at Enoch. “You There is no one who knows any- him, “that without its proper cus-
“I would suspect he did,” Ulys- thought it was all nice and cozy.” thing about it.” todian it is inoperative. The ma-
ses said. “But, you see, he couldn’t “No,” said Enoch, “not that. “There is no reason, I suppose,” chine merely acts as an inter-
tell you. All that he could do was But I’m afraid I thought of the said Enoch, “that another should mediary between the sensitive
to make his protest. The rest was
I

conflicts as being on a fairly lofty not be made. No sacred taboos, and the force. It is an extension
up to you.” plane. Gentlemanly, you know. I mean. To make another one of the sensitive.”
“Sometimes this business is Good mannered.” would not be sacrilegious.”
enough to drive one crazy.” “That was the way it was at j

' ’HEY SAT silence a

“Not in the least,” Ulysses told I
in for
“There may come a day,” one time. There always have been him. “In fact, we need another moment, listening to the soft
Ulysses said, “when it won’t be differing opinions, but they were badly. For now we have no Talis- sound that the wind made as it
like that. I can look ahead and based on principles and ethics, man. It has disappeared.” blew through the gable ginger-
see, in some thousands of years, not on special interests. You know Enoch jerked upright in his bread.
the knitting of the galaxy to- about the spiritual force, of chair. “You really think relations in
gether into one great culture, one course. The universal spiritual “Disappeared?” he asked. the galaxy are deteriorating be-
huge area of understanding. The force.” “Lost,” said Ulysses. “Misplaced. cause of this?”
local and the racial variations Enoch nodded. “I’ve read some Stolen. No one knows.” “Once,” Ulysses said, “the races
still will exist, of course, and that of the literature. I don’t quite un- “But I hadn’t .” . . all were bound together. There
is as should be, but overriding
it derstand, but I’m willing to ac- Ulysses smiled bleakly. “It’s a were differences, naturally, but
all of these will be a tolerance cept it. There is a way, I know, '
strange business,” he said. “The these differences were bridged.
that will make for what one might to get in contact with the force.” Talisman has been missing for Both sides wanted them bridged,
be tempted to call a brother- “The Talisman,” said Ulysses. you see. There was a common
several years or so, and no one
hood.” “That’s it. The Talisman. A ma- knows about it —
except Galac- purpose, the forging of a great

like a
Enoch said,
human.”
“You sound almost chine, of sorts.” tic Central and the —
what would confraternity of all intelligences.
•
“I suppose,” Ulysses agreed. you call it? The hierarchy, I sup- We realized that among us we

140 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 141

 “And worked?” that Earth would fight. An in-
had a staggering fund of knowl- “Stop being bitter,” Ulysses told “Oh, certainly. We’d not even ability to operate the machines
edge and techniques. Working to- him. “There has been a time or consider it if it didn’t work.” that are necessary to fight that
gether, putting together all this two when we came very close, “It could be used on Earth?” kind of war. Turning the people
we but not in recent years. There are
I

knowledge and capability, “You could apply for it.” back to a mental position where
could arrive at something that many races now
the confra- in
“I?” they would not be able to com-
would be far greater and more ternity that formative
in their
“As a representative of the prehend the mechanical and tech-
significant than any race, alone, years had a history of war.” Earth.To gain a hearing, you nological and scientific advances
'

could hope of accomplishing. We “There is hope for us, then. must know about Galactic Cen- they have made. Those who know
had our troubles and our differ- It’s something you outgrow.” and you’re the only man of
tral would forget. Those who didn’t
ences, but we were progressing. “In time, perhaps.” Earth who does. BesideSj your know could newer learn. Back to
We brushed the small animosities “But not a certainty?” record has been good. would We the simplicity of the wheel and
and the petty differences under- “No, I wouldn’t say so.”
listen to you.” lever. That would make your kind
neath the rug and worked only “I’ve been working on a chart,”
“But one man alone! One man of war impossible.”
on the big ones. We felt that if said Enoch. “Based on the Mizar can’t speak for an entire race. If Enoch sat stiff and straight, un-
we could get the big ones settled, system of statistics. The chart I could consult some others — ”
able to speak.
the small ones would become so says there is going to be war.” “Who would believe you?” “I told you it was drastic,”
small they would disappear. But “You don’t need the chart,”
“That’s true,” said Enoch. Ulysses said.
it becoming different now.
is Ulysses said, “to tell you that.” Of course it was. To him there “I couldn’t!” Enoch said. “No
There is a tendency to pull the “But there was something else. was no longer any strangeness in one could.”
pettiness from underneath the rug It was not just knowing if there’d the idea of a galactic confra- “Perhaps you can’t. But con-
and blow it beyond its size.” be a war. I had hoped that the ternity, of a transportation net- .”
sider this If there is a war
chart might show how to keep
: . .

“It sounds like Earth,” said work that spread among the stars “I know. If there is a war, it
Enoch. the peace. There must be a way. — but tell it to any other Earth- could be worse. But it wouldn’t
“In many ways,” Ulysses said. If we could only think of it or man and it would sound like mad- stop war. It’s not the kind of thing
“In principle, although the cir- know where to look or whom to ness. I had in mind. People still could
cumstances would diverge im- ask or . .
.”
“And method?” he asked,
this fight, still could kill.”
mensely.” “There is a way,” Ulysses said almost afraid to ask it.
.” “With clubs,” said Ulysses.
“You’ve been reading the pa- “You mean you know . .
“Stupidity,” Ulysses said. “Maybe bows and arrows. Rifles,
pers I have been saving for you?” “It’s drastic. A last resort.”
so long as they had rifles, and
still
Ulysses nodded. “It doesn’t “And we’ve not reached that
l^NOCH gasped. “Stupidity? I
look too happy.” last resort?” ^ don’t understand. We
are stu-
until they ran out of ammunition.
Then they wouldn’t know how to
“It looks like war,” said Enoch “Perhaps you have. The kind pid enough, in many ways, right make more powder or how to get
bluntly. of war that Earth would fight now.” the metal tomake the bullets or
Ulysses stirred uneasily. could spell an end to everything “You’re thinking of intellectual even how to make the bullets.
“You don’t have wars,” said but the feeble remnants of civili- stupidity. What I am talking
I There might be fighting, but
Enoch. zations. It could, just possibly,
I
about is a mental incapacity. An there’d be no holocaust. Cities
“The galaxy, you mean. No, as eliminate life upon the planet.”
we are set up now we don’t have “This method of yours it has
lence
—
inability to understand the sci-
and the technique that
j
would not be wiped out by nu-
clear warheads, for no one could
wars.” been used?” [makes possible the kind of war fire a rocket or arm the warhead
“Too civilized?” “A few times.”

HERE GATHER THE STARS

142 GALAXY 143
— perhaps wouldn’t even know
what a rocket or a warhead was.”
“It would be terrible,” Enoch
said.
“So is war,” Ulysses said.
“But how long?” asked Enoch.
“How long would it last? We
wouldn’t have to go back to stu-
pidity forever?”
“Several generations,” said
Ulysses. “By that time the effect
would gradually begin wearing
off. The people slowly would
shake off their moronic state and
and begin their intellectual climb
again. They’d be given a second
chance.”
“They could,” said Enoch,
a few generations after that ar-
rive at pxactly the same situation
that we have today.”
“Possibly.”
too much for one man
“It’s
. .
“Something hopeful,” Ulysses
said, “that you might consider.
The method is offered only to
those races which seem to us to
be worth the saving.”
“You have to give me time,”
said Enoch.
But he knew there was no time.
XIX
A LONG time later he roused
himself, shook his head and
reached for the rifle on the peg.
He needed something to take
his mind off what Ulysses had
said. And he needed the targ^
144
practice. It had been too long
on the rifle range.
the travelers. From floor to ceiling were padded with a thick gray
since he’d been
the shelves werejammed with a substance that would entrap a
He spoke the word, and watched
junkyard accumulation from all bullet and prevent a ricochet.
the wall slide back, and clumped And
the corners of the galaxy. Enoch walked over to a panel
down the stairs to the basement.
yet, thought Enoch, perhaps not set inside a deep recess, sunk into
The basement was huge. It the wall. He reached in and
actually a junkyard, for very little
stretched out into a dim haze
of this stuff was actual junk. All thumbed up a tumbler, then step-
beyond the lights which he had
of it was serviceable and had ped quickly out into the center
turned on, a place of tunnels and
some purpose, either practical or of the room.
rooms, carved deep into the rock purpose
aesthetic, if only that Slowly the room began to dark-
that folded up to underlie the
could be learned. Although per- en. Then suddenly it seemed to
ridge.
Here were the massive tanks
haps not in every instance a pur- flare— and he was in the room
pose that would be applicable to no longer, but in another place,
filledwith the various solutions
humans. a place he had never seen before.
for the tank travelers; here the
Down at the end of the shelves
pumps and the generators, which
was one section of shelving into TTE STOOD on a little hillock.
operated on a principle alien to
which the articles were packed In front of him the land
“m the human manner of generating
more systematically and with sloped down to a sluggish river
electric power, and far beneath
greater care, each one tagged and bordered by marsh. Between the
the floor of the basement itself
numbered, with cross-filing to a .beginning of the marsh and the
those great storage tanks which
card catalogue and certain jour- foot of the hillock stretched a sea
held the acids and the soupy mat-
nal dates. These were the articles of rough, tall grass. There was no
ter which once had been the crea-
of which he knew the purpose
wind, but the grass was rippling.
tures which came traveling to the
and, in certain instances, some- He knew that the rippling mo-
station, leavingbehind them, as
thing of the principles involved. tion was caused by many moving
they went on to some other place,
There were some that were inno- bodies, foraging in the grass. Out
the useless bodies which then
cent enough and others that held of it came a savage grunting, as
must be disposed of.
great potential value and still if a thousand angry hogs were
Enoch moved across the floor, others that had, at the moment, fighting for choice swill. And from
past the tanks and generators,
no connection whatsoever with the somewhere farther off, perhaps
imtil he came to a gallery that
stretched out into the darkness.
human way of life —
and there from the river, came a deep, mo-
were a few, tagged in red, that notonous bellowing that sounded
He found the panel and pressed made one shudder to even think hoarse and tired.
it to bring on the lights, then
upon. Enoch felt the hair crawling on
walked down the gallery. On ei- He went down the gallery, his his scalp "and he thrust the rifle
ther side were metal shelves
footsteps echoing loudly as he out and ready. It was puzzling.
which had been installed to ac-
trod through this place of alien He felt and knew the danger,
commodate the overflow of gadg-
ghosts. though as yet there was no danger.
ets, of artifacts, of all sorts of
which had been brought him by
gifts
Finally the gallery widened Still, the very air of this place —
into an oval room. Here the walls wherever it might be —
seemed
GALAXY iHERE GATHER THE STARS 145
i
to crawl with danger like a dank,
miasmic fog.
He spun around. Close behind
him the thick, dark woods
climbed down the range of river
stopping at the sea of grass
hills,
which flowed around the hillock
on which he found himself. Off
beyond the hills loomed a range
of mighty mountains that seemed
to fade into the sky, purple to
their peaks, with no sign of snow
upon them.
Two things came trotting
the woods and stopped at
edge of it. They sat down and
grinned at him, with their
wrapped neatly round their feet.
They might have been wolves or
dogs, but they were neither one.
They were nothing he had ever
seen or heard of. Their pelts glis-
tened in the weak sunshine, as if
they had been greased, but the
pelts stopped at their necks, with
their skulls and faces bare. Like
evil old men, off on a masquerade,
with their bodies draped in the
hides of wolves. But the disguise
was spoiled by the lolling tongues
which spilled out of their mouths,
glistening scarlet against the bone-
white of their faces.
The wood was still. There were
only the two gaunt beasts sitting
on their haunches. They sat and
grinned at him, a strangely tooth-
less grin.
The wood was dark and
gled, the foliage so dark green
146
that it was almost black. All the
leaves shone as if they had been
polished.
Enoch spun around again, to
look back toward the river.
Crouched at the edge of the grass
was a line of toad-like monstrosi-
ties, six feet long and standing
three feet high, their bodies the
color of a dead fish belly, and
each with a single eye, or what
seemed to be an eye, which cov-
ered a great part of the area just
from above the snout. The eyes were
the faceted and glowed in the dim
sunlight, as the eyes of a hunting
tails cat will glow when caught in a
beam of light.
The hoarse bellowing still came
from the river and in between
the bellowing there was a faint,
thin buzzing, angry and malicious,
as if a giant mosquito might be
hovering for attack.
Enoch jerked up his head to
look into the sky and far in the
depths of it he saw a string of
dots, so high that there was no
way of knowing what kind of
things they were. From the corner
of his eye he caught the sense of
flowing motion and swung back
toward the woods.
rpHE WOLF-LIKE bodies with
the skull-like heads were com-
ing up the hill in a silent rush.
They did not seem to run.
tan- There was no motion of their run-
ning. Rather they were moving
GALAXY
as if they had been squirted from seemed to be coming from the
a tube. forest, but there was nothing
Enoch jerked up his rifle and it moving.
came into his shoulder, fitting as In between the honking, he still
if it were a part of him. The bead could hear the buzzing and it
settled in the rear-sight notch and seemed louder now. He glanced
blotted out the skull-like face of into the sky and the dots were
the leading beast. The gun bucked larger and no longer in a line.
as he squeezed the trigger and, They had formed into a circle
without waiting to see if the shot and seemed to be spiraling down-
had downed the beast, the rifle ward, but they were still so high
barrel was swinging toward the that he could not make out what
second as his right fist worked kinds of things they were.
the bolt. The rifle bucked again He glanced back toward the
and the second wolf-like being toad-like monsters and they were
somersaulted and slidforward for closer than they had been before.
an instant, then began rolling They had crept up again.
down the hill, flopping limply as Enoch lifted the rifle and, be-
it rolled. fore it reached his shoulder,
Enoch worked the bolt again pressed the trigger, shooting from
and the spent brass case glittered the hip. The eye of one of the
in the sun as he turned swiftly foremost of them exploded, like
to face the other slope. the splash a stone would make if
The toad-like things were thrown into water. The creature
closer now. They had been creep- did not jump or flop. It simply
ing in, but as he turned they stop- settled down, flat upon the
ped and squatted, staring mind- ground, as if someone had put his
lessly at him. foot upon it and had exerted
He reached a hand into his exactly force enough to squash it
pocket and took out two car- flat. It lay there, flat, a big round
tridges, cramming them into the hole where the eye had been. The
magazine to replace the shells hole was filling with a thick and
he’d fired. ropy yellow fluid that might have
The bellowing down by the been the creature’s blood.
river had stopped, but now there The others backed watchfully
was a honking sound that he could away, all the way off the hillock,
not place. Turning cautiously, he and only stopped when they
tried to locate what might be reached the grass edge.
making it, but there was nothing The honking was closer and
to be seen. The honking sound the buzzing louder. There could
HERE GATHER THE STARS 147

be no doubt that the honking was
coming from the hills.
Tj^NOCH SWUNG about and
saw it, striding through the
sky, coming down the ridge, step-
ping through the trees and honk-
ing dolefully. It was a round and
black balloon that swelled and de-
flated with its honking. It jerked
and swayed as it walked along,
hung from the center of four
stiff and spindly legs that arched
above it to the joint that con-
nected this upper portion of the
leg arrangement with the down-
ward-spraddling legs that raised it
high above the forest. It was walk-
ing jerkily, lifting its legs high
to clear the massive treetops be-
fore putting them down again.
Each time it put down a foot,
Enoch could hear the crunching
of the branches and the crashing
of the trees that it broke or
brushed aside.
Enoch felt the skin along his
spine trying to roll up his back
like a window shade, and the
bristling of the hair along the base
of his skull, obeying some pri-
mordial instinct in its striving to
raise itself erect into a fighting
ruff.
But even as he stood there,
almost stiff with fright, some part
of his brain remembered that one
shot he had fired. His fingers dug
into his pocket for another car-
tridge to fill the magazine.
148
The buzzing was much louder
and the pitch had changed; now
it was approaching at tremendous
speed.
Enoch jerked up his head.
dots no longer were circling in the
sky, but were plunging down
toward him, one behind the other.
He flicked a glance toward the
balloon, honking and jerking on
its stilt-like legs. It still was com-
ing on, but the plunging dots were
faster and would reach the hillock
first.
He shifted the forward,
rifle
outstretched and ready to slap
against his shoulder, and watched
the falling creatures. They were
dots no longer, but hideous
streamlined bodies, each carrying
a rapier that projected from its
head. A bill of sorts, thought
Enoch, for these things might be
birds; but longer, thinner, larger,
more deadly than any Earthly
bird.
The buzzing changed
scream and the scream
mounting up the scale until it set
the teeth on edge. Through it,
like a metronome measuring a
beat, came the hooting of the
black balloon that strode across
the hills.
Without knowing that he had
moved his arms, Enoch had the
rifle at his shoulder, waiting for
that instant when the first
plunging monsters was
enough to fire.
GALAXY
They dropp>ed like stones out
of the sky. They were bigger than
he had thought they were big —
and coming like arrows aimed
directly at him.
The The thudded against his
rifle
shoulder. The first one crumpled,
lost its arrow shape, folding up
and falling, no longer on its
course. He worked the bolt and
fired again; and the second one
in line lost its balance and began
to tumble —
and the bolt was
worked once more and the trigger
pressed. The
third skidded in the
air and went off at a slant, limp
and ragged, fluttering in the wind,
falling toward the river.
The rest broke off their dive.
They made a shallow turn and
beat their way up into the sky,
great wings like windmill vanes
threshing desperately,
A SHADOW fell across
hillock and a mighty
came down from somewhere over-
into a
head, drivingdown to strike to
kept one side of the hillock. The
ground trembled at the tread, and
the water that lay hidden by the
grass squirted high into the air.
The honking blotted out
else and the great balloon was
zooming down on him, cradled on
the enormous legs.
Enoch saw the face, if an3dhing
so grotesque and so obscene could
of the
be called a face. There was a
close
beak and beneath it a sucking
HERE GATHER THE STARS
mouth and a dozen or so other
organs that might have been the
eyes.
' The legs were like inverted Vs,
with the inner stroke somewhat
shorter than the outer. And in the
center of these inner joints hung
the great balloon that was the
body of the creature, with its face
on the underside so that it could
see all the hunting territory that
might lie beneath it.
But now auxiliary joints in the
outer span of legs were bending
to let the body of the creature
down so it could seize its prey.
Enoch was not conscious of
putting up the rifle or of oper-
ating it, but it was hammering
at his shoulder. It seemed to him
that a second part of him stood
off, apart, and watched the firing
of the rifle —
as if the figure that
held and fired the weapon might
the be a second man.
pillar Great gouts of flesh flew out of
the black balloon. Jagged rents
suddenly tore across it, and from
these rents poured out a cloud of
liquid that turned into a mist,
with black droplets raining from
it.
all The firing pin clicked on an
empty breech and the gun was
emprty, but there was no need of
another shot.
The great legs were folding,
trembling as they folded. The
shrunken body shivered convul-
sively in the heavy mist that was
149
pouring out of it. There was no They had asked him, he re- well aware of how unattainable but of many other equally won-
hooting now. Enoch could hear membered, when the station had was.
the patter of the black drops fall- been built, if he had a hobby — it

But day he’d hunted

since that
derful things.
He had
recrea- often wondered what
ing from that cloud, as they if there was any sort of (and been hunted by) beasts far
the aliens might think about
they could build his
struck the short grass on the hill. tional facility stranger than anything that Afri-
fascination
And he with the rifle range,
There was a sickening odor. into the station for him. ca could boast.
with that primal force that drove
The drops where they fell on him had said that he would like a rifle From what these beasts might a man to kill, not for the
range, expecting no more than a have been patterned, if indeed joy of
were sticky, running like cold oil; killing so much as to
shooting gallery with ducks mov- they came from anywhere other negate a
and above him the great structure danger, to meet force with
ing on a chain or clay pipes ro- than the imagination of those a
that had been the stilt-like crea- greater and more skillful force,
ture was toppling to the ground. tating on a wheel. But that, of aliens who had set up the tapes
cunning with more cunning. Had
Then the world faded swiftly course, would have been too sim- which produced the target scene,
he,he wondered, given his alien
and was no longer there. ple for the screwball architects he had no idea. There had so
friendsconcern in their assess-
Enoch stood in the oval room who had designed, and the slap- far, inthe thousands of times that
rnent of the human character by
in the faint glow of the bulbs. happy crew of tentacled work- he had used the range, not been
his preoccupation with the
rifle?
There was the heavy smell of men who had built, the galactic a duplication either in the scene
For the understanding of an alien,
powder and all about his feet, way station. nor in the beasts which rampaged
how could one draw a line be-
glinting in the light, lay the spent At first they had not been cer- about the scene. Although, per-
tween the killing of other forms
and shining cases that had been tain what he meant by a rifle haps, he thought, there might, of life and the killing
kicked out of the gun. range. He had to tell them how somewhere, be an end of them, of one’s
own? Was there actually a differ-
He was back in the basement a rifle operated and for what it and then the whole sequence
ence that would stand up
might be used. He had told them might start over and run its under
once again. The target shoot was logical examination between the
over. about hunting squirrels on sunny course once more. But it would
sport of hunting and the sport
autumn mornings and shaking make little difference now, for if of
war? To an alien, perhaps, such
lowered rabbits out of brushpiles with the
E noch the rifle the tapes should start rerunning
3 tlifferentiation would be rather
and drew and slow
in a care- first coming of the snow (al- there’d be but little chance of
his
though one did not use a rifle, but recalling in any considerable de-
difficult, for in many cases the
ful breath. It always was like this, hunted animal would be more
he thought. As if it were neces- a shotgun, on the rabbits), about tail those adventures he had lived
closely allied to the
human hunter
sary for him to ease himself, by hunting coons of an autumn night, so many years ago. in its form and characteristics
slow degrees, back to this world and waiting for the deer along than would many of the aliens.
after the season of unreality. the run that went down to the tFE DID not understand the Was war an instinctive thing,
He knew that it would be illu- river. But he was dishonest. He techniques or the principle for which each ordinary
did not tell them about that other which made possible this fantastic man was
sion when he kicked on the switch as much responsible as the policy
that set into motion whatever was use to which he’d put a rifle dur- rifle range. Like many other
makers and the so-called states-
to happen, and he knew it had ing four long years. things, he accepted it without
the men? It seemed impossible.
Yet
been illusion when it all had He’d told them (since they need of understanding. Although,
deep in every man was the com-
ended. But during the time that were easy folks to talk with) some day, he thought, he might
bative instinct, the aggressive
it was happening it was not illu- about his youthful dream of some find the clue which in time
would urge, the strange sense of
and as sub- day going on a hunt in Africa, turn blind acceptance into compe-
sion. It was as real under- tition all of which spelled con-
stantial as if it all were true. although even as he told them he standing not only of the range. flict of one kind or
another if

150 GALAXY here gather the stars

151
carried to logical, inevitable shots, he had missed that first interest in what it Enoch wondered? But that
its absorbing
conclusion. one back there on the hillock. It might contain. seemed only barely possible, for
He put the rifle underneath his was not often that he missed. And He lifted the lid carefully and one ball was entirely like another;
arm and walked over to the panel. his training had been for that very tiltedit back against the
shelves. there was no way in which they
Sticking from a slot in the bottom type of shooting —
the you-never- Crouching above the open could be identified. Or, at
no way to identify them so far
least,

of it was a piece of tape.
He pulled it out and puzzled
out the symbols. They were not
know-what-will-happen-next, the trunk, and without touching any-
as concerned the human eye. Was
totally unexpected, the kill-or-be- thing to start with, he tried to
possible that identification
killed kind of shooting that thou- catalogue the upper layer of its it

reassuring. He had not done so sands of expeditions into the tar- contents. might be possible to a Hazer’s
well. get area had taught him. Perhaps eye? And if a calculator, what
He had missed that first shot was kind of a calculator? Mathema-
There
he had not been as faithful in a shimmering
Or ethical? Or philosophi-
he had fired at the charging wor-
thing with the old man’s face, and
his practice lately as he should
have been. it
cloak, neatly folded.
was some sort of ceremonial
Perhaps tical?
cal? Perhaps a sort of game — a

back there somewhere, in that Near the end of the gallery he garment. Atop it lay a tiny bottle
game of solitaire?
dimension of unreality, it and its Given time a man might finally
saw the black bulk of a trunk that was a blaze of reflected light,
get it figured out. But
there was
companion were snarling over the projecting from beneath the low- as if someone had taken d large
tangled, torn mass of ribboned er shelf, too big to fit comfortably diamond and hollowed it out to no time and no incentive at the
moment to spend upon one par-
flesh and broken bone that had beneath it, jammed against the make a bottle of it. Beside the
ticular item any great amount of
been Enoch Wallace. wall, but with a foot or two of it cloak lay a nest of balls, deep
and dull, with no shine at time when theire were hundreds
still projecting out beyond the violet
XX world like of other items equally fantastic
shelf. all, looking for all the
that and incomprehensible. For while
He went on walking past it, a bunch of table tennis balls
TTE WENT back through the then suddenly turned around. someone had cemented together one puzzled over a single item, the
gallery, with its gifts stacked That trunk, he thought. That was make a But that was
globe. edges of his mind would always
to
it was, Enoch remem-
wonder if he might not be spend-
there as other gifts, in regular the trunk which had belonged to not the way
ing time on the most insignificant
human establishments, might be the Hazer who had died upstairs. bered; for that other time he had
of the entire
been entranced by them and had
lot.
stacked away dry and dusty
in It was his legacy from that being
He was a victim of museum
attics. It was,
he thought, the whose stolen body would be picked them up, to find that they
Enoch told himself, over-
packrat instinct that he had which brought back to its grave this were not cemented, but could be fatigue,

had never let him bring himself evening.
to throw them away. Although, He walked over to the shelving
even if he could, it would have and leaned his rifle against the
been impossible to throw any of wall. Stooping, he
pulled
this collection of stuff away. It trunk clear of its resting place.
would never do to put in the Once before, prior to carrying
freely moved about, although
never outside the context of their
shape. One ball could not be bro-
ken from the mass, no matter
the
how hard one might try, but
would move about,
whelmed by the many pieces of
the unknown scattered all about
him.
He reached out a hand, not for
the globe of balls, but for the
buoyed shining bottle that lay atop the
as if

reach of other humans any single among all the other cloak. As he picked it up and
it down the stairs and storing it in a fluid,
item which rested on the shelves. One could move any, or all, brought it closer, he saw that
here beneath the shelves, he had balls.
The tape nagged at him, the but the mass re- there was a line of writing en-
gone through its contents, but at of the balls,
graved upon the glass (or dia-
little piece of tape which said that the time he’d not been too inter- mained the same.
while he had made all his other A calculator of some sort. mond?) of the bottle. Slowly he
ested. Now, suddenly, he felt an

153
152 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS
studied out the meaning of the
writing.
^^HERE HAD been a time,
long ago, when he had been
able to read the Hazer language,
if not fluently, at least well
enough to get along. But he had
not read it for some years now
and he had lost a good deal of
it and he stumbled haltingly from
one symbol to another. Trans-
lated very freely, the inscription
tallicsheen of the material the that part of it was. My
approach- the lack of such a one the galaxy
Hazers used as paper. ing death, he had written, and has lost its close identification
Carefully he lifted out the first there was no room for mistransla- with the ruling principle of life.
sheet,and saw that it was a long tion. The words were clear. We here at the (temple? sanctu-
strip of the material folded in He urged that his good ary?) all are greatly concerned
accordion fashion. Underneath it (friend?) do likewise. He said it that without a proper linkage be-
were more strips, apparently, of was a comfort and made clear tween the people and (several
the same material. the road. words that were not decipherable )
There was writing on it, faint There was no further explana- the galaxy will go down in chaos
and faded, and Enoch held it tion''no further reference. Just (and another line that he could
close to read it. the calm declaration that he had not puzzle out.)
To my —— friend: (although done something which he felt The next sentence introduced
it
,

was not friend. Blood brother, must be arranged about his death. a new subject — the plans that
on the bottle read: To be taken perhaps, or colleague. And the As if he knew that death was were going forward for some cul-
when the first symptoms occur. adjectives which preceded it were near and was not only unafraid, tural festival which concerned
A bottle of medicine! To be such as to escape his sense en- but almost unconcerned. a concept that, to Enoch, was hazy
taken when the first symptoms tirely.) The next passage (for there at the best.
occur. The symptoms, perhaps, The writing was hard to read. were no paragraphs) told about Enoch slowly folded up the let-
that had come so quickly and It bore some resemblance to the someone he had met and how ter and put it back into the box.
built up so rapidly that the owner formalized version of the lan- they’d talked about a certain mat- He felt a faint uneasiness in read-
of this bottle could make no move guage, but apparently bore the ter which made no sense at all to ing what he had, as if he’d pried
to reach it and so had died, falling imprint of the writer’s personality, Enoch, lost in a terminology he into a friendship that he had no
from the sofa. expressed in curlicues and flour- did not recognize. right to know. We
here at the
Almost reverently, he put the ishes which obscured the form. And then I am most con-
: temple, the letter had said. Per-
bottle back in its place atop the Enoch worked his way slowly cerned about the mediocrity (in- haps the writer had been one of
cloak, fitting it back into the faint down the paper, missing much of competence? inability? weak- the Hazer mystics, writing to his
impression it had made from what was there, but picking up ness?) of the recent custodian of old friend, the philosopher. And
lying there. the sense of much that had been (and then that cryptic symbol the other letters, quite possibly,
So different from us in so many written. which could be translated, rough- were from that same mystic —
ways, thought Enoch, and then The
writer had been on a visit ly, as the Talisman.) For (a word, letters that the dead old Hazer
in other little ways so like us that to some other planet. While there which from context, seemed to had valued so highly that he took
it is frightening. For that bottle he had performed some sort of mean a great length of time), them along with him when he
and the inscription on its face function (although exactly what ever since the death of the last went traveling.
was an exact parallel of the pre- was not entirely clear) which had custodian, the Talisman has been A slight breeze seemed to be
scription bottle from any corner to do with his approaching death. but poorly served. It has been, blowing across Enoch’s shoulders;
drugstore. in all reality, (another long time not actually a breeze, but a
Beside the globe of balls was P^NOCH, STARTLED, went term), since a true (sensitive?) strange motion and a coldness to
a box, wood, with a simple clasp back over the phrase again. I
has been found to carry out' its the air.

to hold it shut.; He flipped back And while much of the rest of purpose. Many have been tested He glanced back into the gal-
the lid and inside he saw the me- what was written was not clear, and none has qualified, and for lery and there was nothing stir-

154 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 155

ring to account for nothing to
be seen.
it,
The wind had quit its blowing,
if had ever blown. Here one
it
moment, gone the next. Like a
passing ghost, thought Enoch.
Did the Hazer have a ghost?
he people back on Vega
T XXI had known the moment
he had died and all the circum-
stances of his death. They had
known again about the body dis-
appearing. And the letter had
spoken calmly, much more calmly
than would have been in the ca-
pacity of most humans, about the
writer’s near approach to death.
Was it possible that the Hazers
knew more of life and death than
most? Had it been spelled out in
black and white in some deposi-
tory in the galaxy?
Was the answer there? he won-
dered.
he thought
Squatting there,
that perhaps it might be, that
someone already knew what life
was for and what its destiny.
There was a comfort in the
thought, a strange sort of personal
comfort in being able to believe
that some intelligence might have
solved the riddle of that mysteri-
ous equation of the universe.
Ulysses, he thought, had not
told him all the truth about the
Talisman. He had told him that
ithad disappeared and that the
galaxy was without it, but he had
156
not told him that for many years
its power and glory had been
dimmed by the failure of its cus-
todian to provide a proper link-
age between the people and the
force. And all that time the cor-
rosion occasioned by that failure
had eaten away at the bonds of
the galactic confraternity. What-
ever might be happening no\^had
not happened in the last few
years; it had been building up for
a longer time than most aliens
would admit. Although, come to
thing of it, most aliens probably
did not know.
Enoch closed the box lid and
put it back into the trunk. Some
day, he thought, when he was in
the proper frame of mind, when
the pressure of events- made him
lessemotional, when he could dull
the guilt of prying, he would
achieve a scholarly and conscien-
tious translation of those letters.
For in them, he felt certain, he
might find further understanding
of that intriguing race. He might,
he thought, then be better able
to gauge their humanity —
not
humanity in the sense of being
a member of the human race of
Earth, but in the sense that cer-
tain rules of conduct must under-
lie all racial concepts even as the
thing called humanity in its nar-
row sense underlay the human
concept.
He reached up to close the lid
of the trunk and then he hesitated.
GALAXY
^OME DAY, he had said. And
^ there might not be a some
day. It was a state of mind to be
always thinking some day, a state
of mind made possible by the
conditions inside this station. For
1
here there were endless days to
come, forever and forever there
I
were days to come. A man’s con-
cept of time was twisted out of
shape and reason and he could
look ahead complacently down a
I
long, almost never-ending, avenue
]
of time. But that might be all
over now. Time might suddenly
I
snap back into its rightful focus.
Should he leave this station, the
long procession of days to come
would end.
He pushed back the lid again
until it rested against the shelves.
Reaching in, he lifted out the box
. and set it on the floor beside him.
He’d take it upstairs, he told him-
self, and put it with the other
stuff that he must be prepared
immediately to take along with
him if he should leave the station.
If? he asked himself. Was there
a question any longer? Had he,
somehow, made that hard deci-
sion? Had it crept upon him una-
ware, so that he now was com-
mitted to it?
And if he had actually arrived
at that decision, then he must,
also, have arrived at the other
one. If he left the station, then he
could no longer be in a position
to appear before Galactic Central
|hERE GATHER THE STARS
to plead that Earth be cured of
war.
You are the representative of
the Earth, Ulysses had told him.
You are the only one who can
represent the Earth.
But could he, in reality, repre-
sent the Earth? Was he any
longer a true representative of the
human race? He was a nineteenth
century man; how could he repre-
sent the twentieth? How much,
he wondered, does the human
character change with each gen-
eration? And not only was he of
the nineteenth century, but he
had, as well, lived for almost a
hundred years under a separate
and a special circumstance, un-
like any other human.
Heknelt there, regarding him--
selfwith awe, and a little pky too,
wondering what he was. Some
strange sort of hybrid? A galactic
halfbreed?
Slowly he pulled the lid down
and pushed it tight. Then he
shoved the trunk back under-
neath the shelves.
He tucked the box of letters
underneath his arm and rose,
picking up his rifle, and headed
for the stairs.
XXI
^
XTE FOUND some empty car-
tons stacked in the kitchen
corner, boxes thatWinslowe had
used to bring out from town the
157
 supplies that he had ordered, and
began to pack.
The stacked neatly
journals,
in order, filled one large box and
a part of another. He took a stack
of old newspapers and carefully
wrapped the twelve diamond bot-
tles off the mantle and packed
them in another box, thickly pad-
ded, to guard against their break-
age. Out of the cabinet he got the
Vegan music box and wrapped it
as carefully. He
pulled out of
another cabinet the alien litera-
ture that he had and piled it in
the fourth box. He went through
his desk, but there wasn’t too
much there, only odds and ends
tucked here and there throughout
the drawers. He found his chart
and, crumpling it, threw it in the
wastebasket that stood beside his
desk.
The already filled boxes he car-
ried across the room and stacked
beside the door for easy reaching.
When Lewis came with the body
he would have a truck. If he had
the important stuff all packed he
could have it waiting.
The important stuff, he thought.
Who could judge importance? It
was all important; every item
should be taken. And that might
be possible. Given time and with
no extra complications, it might
be possible to haul it all away,
all that was in this room and
stored down in the basement. It
all was his. He had a right to it,
158
L
for it had been given him. But
that did not mean that Galactic
Central might not object most
strenuously to his taking any of
it.
And if that should happen,
was vital that he should be able to
get away with those most im-
portant items.
He stood undecided, looking all
about the room. There were all
the items on the coffee table and
those should be taken, too, in-
cluding the little flashing pyramid
of globes that Lucy had set to
working.
He saw that the Pet once again
had crawled off the table and
fallen on the floor. He stooped
and picked it up and held it in
his hands. It had grown an extra
knob or two since the last time he
had looked at it. It was now a
faint and delicate pink, whereas
the last time he had noticed
it had
been a cobalt blue.
TTE PROBABLY was wrong, he
told himself, in calling it
Pet. It might not be alive. If
were, it was a sort of life he could
not even guess at. It was not me-
tallic and it was not stone, but
very close to both. A file made no
impression on it and he’d been
tempted a time or two to whack
it with a hammer to see what that
might do, although he was willing
to bet it would have no effect at
all. It grew slowly, and it moved,
GALAXY
but there was no way of knowing
how it moved. But leave it and
come back and it would have
moved —
a little. It knew when
it was being watched and it would
not move while watched. It did
it
not eat so far as he could see and
it seemed to have no wastes. It
changed colors, but entirely with-
out season and with no visible
reason for the change.
A being from somewhere in the
I direction of Sagittarius had given
it to him just a year or two ago.
The creature had been something
for the books. He probably wasn’t
actually a walking plant, but that
was what he’d looked like — a
rather spindly plant that had
been shorted on good water and
cheated on good soil, but which
had sprouted a crop of dime store
bangles that rang like a thousand
silver bells when he made any
sort of motion.
Enoch remembered that he had
tried to ask the being what the
gift might be, but the walking
the
plant had simply clashed its ban-
gles and filled the place with ring-
it
ing sound and didn’t try to an-
swer.
So he had put the gift on one
end of the desk and hours later,
after the being was long gone, he
found that it had moved to the
other end of the desk. But it had
seemed too crazy to think that a
thing like that could move, so he
finally convinced himself that he
HERE GATHER THE STARS
was mistaken as to where he’d
put it. It was not until days later
that he was able to convince him-
self it moved.
He’d have to take it when he
left and Lucy’s pyramid and the
cube that showed you pictures of
other worlds when you looked in-
side of it and a great deal of
other stuff.
He stood with the Pet held in
his hand and now, for the first
time, he wondered at why he
might be packing.
¥TE WAS acting as if he’d de-
cided he would leave the
station, as if he’d chosen Earth
as against the galaxy. But when
and how, he wondered, had he de-
cided it? Decision should be
based on weighing and on measur-
ing and he had weighed and meas-
ured nothing. He had not posed
the advantages and the disadvan-
tages and tried to strike a balance.
He had not thought it out. Some-
how, somewhere, it had sneaked
up on him —
this decision which
had seemed impossible, but now
had been reached so easily.
Was it, he wondered, that he
had absorbed, unconsciously, such
an odd mixture of alien thought
and ethics that he had evolved,
unknown to himself, a new way
in which to think? Perhaps some
subconscious way of thought that
had lain inoperative until now,
when it had been needed.
159
 There was a box or two out in even as spoke he realized it was desk top and there wasn’t any and even as he closed with it,
the shed. He’d go and get them not Ulysses. time. his nostrils were assailed by its
and finish up the packing of what For an instant he had the im- But the rat-like creature was body stench — a sickening wave
he’d pick out here. Then he’d go pression of a top hat, of white tie not turning toward the room. It of nastiness.
down into the basement and start and tails, of a jauntiness, and was facing toward the corner
still He wrapped his arms about it
lugging up the stuff that he had then he saw that the creature was and hand was coming up, with
its and heaved. It was not heavy. He
tagged. He glanced toward the a rat that walked erect, with sleek, the weapon glinting in it. jerked it from the corner and
window and realized, with some dark fur covering its body and a An alarm twanged within swung around and sent
it it skid-
surprise, that he would have to sharp, axe-like rodent face. For Enoch’s brain. He swung his arm ding out across the floor.
hurry, for the sun was close to an instant, as it turned its head and yelled, hurling the Pet toward It crashed against a chair and
setting. It would be evening soon. toward him, he caught the red the creature in the corner, the came to a stop and then like a
He remembered that he’d for- glitter of its eyes. Then it turned yell jerked out of him, involun- steel coil it rose off the floor and
gotten lunch, but he had no time back toward the corner and he tarily, from the bottom of his pounced for the gun.
to eat. He could get something saw that its hand was lifted, was lungs. Enoch took two great strides
later. pulling out of a harnessed holster For the creature, he realized, and had it by the neck, lifting it
He turned to put the Pet back hung about its middle something had not been intent on the killing and shaking it so savagely that
on the table and as he did a faint that glinted with a metallic shim- of the keeper, but the disruption the recovered gun flew from its
sound caught his ear and froze mer even in the shadow. of the station. The only thing hand again. The bag it carried
him where he stood. there was to aim at in the corner on a thong across its shoulder
It was the slight chuckle of a ^^HERE WAS something very was the control complex, the pounded like a vibrating trip-
materializer operating. Hecould wrong about it. The creature nerve center of the station’s oper- hammer against its hairy ribs.
not mistake it. He had heard the should have greeted him. It ation. If that should be knocked The stench was so thick that
sound too often to be wrong should have said hello and come out, the station would be dead. one could almost see it; Enoch
about it now. out to meet him. But instead it To set it in operation once again gagged on it as he shook the crea-
And it he knew, the
must be, had thrown him that one red-eyed it would be necessary to send a ture. And suddenly it was worse,
official for no one
materializer, glance and then turned back to crew of technicians out in a space- much worse, like a fire raging in
could have traveled on the other the corner.
came out
ship from the nearest station a— one’s throat and a hammer in
without the sending of a message. The metallic object trip that would require many one’s head. It was like a physical
Ulysses, he thought. Ulysses of the holster. It could only be a years to make. blow that hit one in the belly
coming back again. Or, perhaps weapon. At Enoch’s yell, the creature and shoved against the chest.
some other member of Galactic And was this the way, thought jerked around, dropping toward Enoch let go his hold upon the
Central. For if Ulysses had been Enoch, that they would close the a crouch. The flying Pet, tumbling creature and staggered back, dou-
coming, he would have sent a station? One quick shot, without end for end, caught it in the bled up and retching. He lifted
message. a word, and the station keeper belly and drove it back against his hands to his face and tried to
He took a quick step forward dead upon the floor. With some- the wall. push the stench away, to clear
so he could see the corner where one other than Ulysses, because Enoch charged, arms outspread his nostrils and his mouth, to rub
the materializer stood and a dark Ulysses could not be trusted to to grapple with the creature. The it from his eyes.
and slender figure was stepping kill a long-time friend, even for gun flew from the creature’s hand Through a haze he saw the
out from the target circle. the galactic confraternity. and pinwheeled across the floor. creature rise and, snatching up
“Ulysses!” Enoch cried, but The rifle was lying across the Then Enoch was upon the alien the gun, rush toward the door. He
160 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 161
 did not hear the phrase that the He must get that alien back. He some hundred yards below the by the dreadful stench. But it had
creature spoke, but the door came must get it off the Earth. boulders. Here the cover was not not killed him; it had fled instead.
open and the creature spurted He strode toward the door and so dense, spotty underbrush and Was the creature so badly fright-
^

forward and was gone. And the out around the corner of the I
a scattering of trees. The soft ened that all that it could think
door slammed shut again. house. loam of the forest floor gave way of had been to get away? Or had
The alien was running across , to a footing of shattered rock it been as reluctant to kill a sta-
XXII the field. It had almost reached which through the years had been tion keeper as he was to kill an
j

the line of woods. '

chipped off the boulders by the alien?
Ip'NOCH WOBBLED across the Enoch ran desperately, but be- , winter’s frost, rolling down the He searched the rocks above
room and caught
to the desk fore he was halfway down the slope. They
lay there now, cov- him. There was no motion and
at it for support. The stench was field, the rat-like quarry had
'

ered with thick moss, a treacher- not a thing to see. He must move
diminishing and his head was plunged into the woods and dis- I
ous place to walk. up that slope, and quick. Time
clearing. He scarcely could be- appeared.
f

would work to the advantage of

lieve that it all had happened.
It was incredible. The creature
had traveled on the official ma-
terializer, and no one but a mem-
ber of Galactic Central could tra-
vel by that route. And no member
The woods were beginning to I
f
I
'HERE WAS no sign of the the alien. Darkness could not be
darken. The slanting rays of light Then, out of the corner
alien. more than thirty minutes off and
from the setting sun still lighted of his vision, he saw motion and before dark had fallen this issue
the upper canopy of the foliage, t
threw himself forward to the must be settled. If the alien got
but on the forest floor the sha- ground. Behind a patch of hazel away, there’d be little chance to
dows had begun to gather. brush he saw the alien outlined find it.

of Galactic Central, he was con-
vinced, would have acted as the
rat-like creature had. Likewise,
the creature had known the
phrase that would operate the
door. No one but himself and
Galactic Central would have
known that phrase.
He reached out and picked up
his rifle and hefted it in his fist.
It was all right, he thought.
There was nothing harmed. Ex-
As he ran into the, fringe of the against the sky, its head pivoting An alien could not be allowed
woods, Enoch caught a glimpse back and forth to sweep the slop)e upon the Earth. He shuddered
weapon and as he imagined some of the com-
of the creature angling down a below, the half lifted
small ravine and plunging up the set for instant use. plications which could arise from
other slope, racing through Enoch lay frozen, with his out- such a situation.
a
heavy cover of ferns that reached stretched hand gripping the rifle. And why, asked a second self,
almost to its middle. There was a slash of pain across standing to one side, should you
If it kept on in that direction, • one set of knuckles and he knew worry about alien complications?
Enoch told himself, might work
it ,
that he had skinned them on the For are you not prepared, your-
out all right. The slope beyond rock as he had dived for cover. self, to hand Earth as much alien
the ravine ended in a clump of I The alien dropped from sight lore and learning as may be with-
rocks under a cliff. It might be a behind the boulders and Enoch in your F>ower?
I

cept that there was an alien loose
upon the Earth and that was
something that could not be al-
lowed. The Earth was barred to
aliens. As a planet which had not
been recognized by the galactic
confraternity, it was off limits.
He stood with the rifle in
hand and knew what he must
little rough to dig the alien from slowly pulled the rifle back to A rustle in the bushes to his
the rocks if it took refuge there, where he would be able to handle left brought him around with the
but it could not get away. Al- itshould a shot present itself. up and ready.
rifle
though he could waste no time. Although, he wondered, would And there was Lucy Fisher, not
The sun was setting; it would he dare to fire? Would he dare to more than twenty feet away.
soon be dark. kill an alien?
Running hard, Enoch crossed II The alien could have killed ii^ET OUT of here!” he
his the area covered by the ferns and B him back there at the station, shouted, forgetting that
came out on the sharper
do. slope H when he had been knocked silly she could not hear him.

162 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 163

 But she did not seem to notice.
She motioned to the left and
made a sweeping motion with
her hand, toward the boulders.
Go away, he said underneath
his breath, and motioned her to
go back.
She shook her head and sprang
away, in a running crouch,
moving further to the left
up the slope.
Enoch scrambled to his
after her. And as he did the air
behind him made a frying sound,
and there was the sharp bite of
ozone in the air.
He hit the ground instinctively.
Farther down the slope a square
yard of ground boiled and
steamed.
A Enoch thought. The al-
laser,
ien’s weapon was a laser, packing
a terrific punch in a narrow beam
of light.
He gathered himself together
and made a short rush up the hill-
side, throwing himself prone be-
hind a twisted birch clump.
The air made the frying sound
again and there was an instant’s
blast of heat. Over on the reverse
slope a patch of ground was
steaming. Ash floated down and
settled on Enoch’s arms. He
flashed a quick glance upward
and saw that the top half of the
birch clump was gone, sheared
off by the laser and reduced to
ash. Tiny coils of smoke rose
lazily from the severed stumps.
164
No matter what it might have make it He examined the
easier. know where they might be in
done or failed to do at the station, clump from one edge
of boulders hiding.
the alien now meant business. It to the otherand there was nothing From the ridge above a loose
knew that it was cornered. that might help him to locate the stone rattled as it was dislodged
Enoch huddled against the alien. and began to roll, bouncing down
ground, worried about Lucy. He Slowly he began to snake the slope. Enoch hunkered closer
hoped she was safe. The little fool around, getting ready for the next to the ground behind the fallen
should have stayed out of it. This rush up the slope, moving care- log.
was no place for her. She’d have fully so that no sound would be- “Down!” he shouted to Ulysses.
and Old Hank out looking for her tray him. “Down! He has a gun.”
again, thinking she was kidnaped. Out of the tail of his eye he But Ulysses’ hand gripped him
feet The dusk was deepening. Only caught the moving shadow that by the shoulder.
came flowing up the slope. Swiftly “Enoch!” he cried. “Enoch,
the far peak of the treetops caught
the last rays of the sun. A coolness he sat up, swinging the rifle. But look!”
came before he could bring the muzzle Enoch jerked himself erect and
up the ravine from
stealing
the valley far below and there • round, the shadow was upon him, atop the pile of rock, dark against
was a damp, lush smell from the bearing him back, flat upon the the skyline, were two grappling
ground. From some hidden hol- ground, with one great splay- figures.
low a whippoorwill called mourn- fingered hand clamjjed upon his “Lucy!” he shouted.
mouth. For oneof them was Lucy and
fully.
Enoch darted out from behind the otherwas the alien.
the birch clump and rushed up i6¥ TLYSSES!” ENOCH gur- She sneaked up on him, he
the slope. He reached the fallen ^ gled, but the fearsome thought. The damn little fool,
sneaked up on him! While the
she
log he’d picked as a barricade and shape only hissed at him in a
warning sound. alien had been distracted with
threw himself behind it. There
Slowly the weight shifted off watching the slope, she had slip-
was no sign of the alien and there
was not another shot from the him and the hand slid from his ped up close and then had tackled
mouth. him. She had a club of some sort
laser-gun.
Ulysses gestured toward the in her hand, an old dead branch,
Enoch studied the ground
boulder pile and Enoch nodded. perhaps, and it was raised above
ahead. Two more rushes, one to
Ulysses crept closer and low- her head, ready for a stroke, but
that small pile of rock and the
ered his head toward Enoch’s. He the alien had a grip upon her
next to the edge of the boulder
whispered, with his mouth inches arm and she could not strike.
area itself, and he’d be on top of
from the Earthman’s ear: “The “Shoot,” said Ulysses, in a flat,
the hiding alien. And once he got
Talisman! He has the Talisman!” dead voice.
there, he wondered, what was he
“The Talisman!” Enoch cried Enoch raised the rifle and had
to do.
aloud, trying to strangle off the trouble with the sights because of
Perhaps, here in the open air,
cry even as he made it, remem- the deepening darkness. And they
it could not use its stench defense
bering that he should make no were so close together! They were
as effectively as it had in the con-
sound to let the watcher up above too close together.
fines of the station. That might
GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 165
 if she were walking
the light, as lose it and never would be able to
“Shoot!” yelled Ulysses. shape our destiny. For the rifle
toward them with a lantern in hunt it out again. But that was
“I can’t,” sobbed Enoch. “It’s range had been a senseless. As
too dark to shoot.”
her hand. not the way it was, for this as-
senseless as a billiard table or a
“You have to shoot,” Ulysses game of cards —
designed for
Ulysses’ hand reached out
the darkness and closed hard on
of cendant instant kept going on and
on.
said, voice tense and hard.
his one thing only, to please the
Enoch’s arm. Lucy walked between them.
“You have to take the chance.” keeper of the station. And yet the
“Do you see?” he asked. She held the bag that contained
Enoch raised the rifle once hours he’d spent there had shaped
“Yes, I see. What is . the Talisman close against her
again and the sights seemed toward this hour and end, to this
“It is the Talisman,” Ulysses breast, with her two arms clasped
clearer now and he knew the trou- single instant on this restricted
said, enraptured, his breath rasp- about it, and Enoch, looking at
ble was not so much the darkness slope of ground.
ing in his throat. “And she is our her, in the soft glow of its light,
as that shot which he had missed The sickness drained away into
new custodian. The one we’ve could not help but think of a little
back there in the world of the the earth beneath him. Peace
honking thing that had strode its came stealing in upon him the — hunted through the years.” girl carrying her beloved pussy
cat.
world on stilts. If he had missed peace of trees and woodland soil
XXIII “Never for a century,” said
then, he could as well miss now. and the first faint hush of night-
Ulysses, “perhaps for many cen-
The bead came to rest upon the fall. As if the sky and stars and
VT^OU DID not become accus- turies, perhaps never, has it
head of the rat-like creature, and very space itself had leaned close -* tomed to it, Enoch told him- glowed so well. I, myself, cannot
then the head bobbed away, but above him and was whispering
was bobbing back again. self as they tramped up through remember when it was like this.
his essential oneness with them.
the woods. There was not a mo- It iswonderful, is it not?”
“Shoot!” Ulysses yelled. And it seemed for a moment that
Enoch squeezed the trigger ment you were not aware of it. “Yes,” said Enoch. “It is won-
he had grasped the edge of some
and the rifle coughed. Up atop the It was something that you wanted derful.”
great truth and with this truth
rocks the creature stood for a
to hug close against yourself and “Now we shall be one again,”
had come a comfort and a great-
second with only half a head and
hold there forever. Even when it Ulysses said. “Now we shall feel
ness he’d never known before.
with tattered gouts of flesh flying “Enoch,” Ulysses whispered.
was gone from you, you’d not for- again. Now we shall be a people
get it, ever. instead of many people.”
briefly like dark insects, zooming “Enoch, my brother .”
. .
.”
It was something that was past “But the creature that had it. .
against the half-light of the west- There was something like a
all description. A mother’s love, “A clever one,” Ulysses said.
ern sky. hidden sob in the alien’s voice and
a father’s pride, the adoration of “He was holding it for ransom.”
he had never, until this moment,
rNOCH DROPPED the gun called the Earthman brother.
a sweetheart, the closeness of a
—
“It had been stolen, then.”

and sprawled upon the earth, Enoch pulled himself to his

comrade it was all of these, “We do not know all the cir-

clawing his fingers into the thin

and mossy soil, sick with the
thought of what could have hap-
pened, weak with the thankful-
ness that it had not happened,
that the years on that fantastic
rifle range had at last paid off.
How
strange it is, he thought,
how so many senseless
and more. It made the farthest cumstances,” Ulysses told him.
knees and up on the pile of tum-
distance near and turned the com- “We will find out, of course.”
bled boulders was a soft and won-
plex simple. It swept away all They tramped on in silence
drous light, as if a giant firefly had
fear and sorrow, for all of there through the woods and far in the
turned on its lamp and had not
being a certain feeling of deep east one could see, through the
turned it off, but had left it burn-
sorrow in it, as if one might feel treetops, the first flush in the sky
ing.
that never in his lifetime would that foretold the rising moon.
The light was moving down
he know an instant like this, and “There is something,” Enoch
across the rocks toward them and
that in another instant he would said.
things he could see Lucy moving with

HERE GATHER THE STARS 167

166 GALAXY
 “Ask me anything you
said Ulysses.
“How
could that creature back
there carry it and not feel —
feel
no part of it? For if he could have,
he would not have stolen it.”
'HERE IS only one in many
billions,” Ulyssts said, “who
can — how do you say — tune
it?
in on it, perhaps. To you and me
it would be nothing. It would
not respond to us. We could hold
it in our hands forever and noth-
ing would happen. But let that
one in many billions lay a finger
on it and it becomes alive. There
is a certain rapport, a sensitivity
— I don’t know how to say it
that forms a bridge between this
strange machine and the cosmic
spiritual force. It is not the ma-
chine itself, you understand, that
reaches out and taps the spiritual
force. It is the living creature’s
mind, aided by the mechanism,
that brings the force to us.”
A machine, a mechanism, no
more than a tool —
technological
brother to the hoe, the wrench,
the hammer —
and yet as far a
cry from these as the human
brain was from that first amino
acid which had come into being
on this planet when the Earth
was very young. One was tempt-
ed, Enoch thought, to say that
this was as far as a tool could
go, that it was the ultimate in the
ingenuity possessed by any brain.
168
like,” But that would be a dangerous them for a while. But not for “Say,” the mailman yelled.
way of thinking. Perhaps there long, Enoch!” “What is going on here? What is
was no limit. There might quite “Roofing nails?” Ulysses asked. that thing Lucy has and who’s
likely be no such condition as the “It’s a mob,” Enoch told him.
.”
this fellow with you?”
ultimate; there might be no time “They are after me. The nails . . “Later,” Enoch told him. “I’ll
when any creature or any group “Oh, I see,” Ulysses said. “The tell you later. There’s no time to
of creatures could stop at any deflation of the tires.” tell you now.”
certain point and say this is as Winslowe took a slow step “But, Enoch, there’s the mob.”
far as we can go, there is no use closer, his gaze riveted on the “I’ll deal with them,” said
trying to go further. For each new glow of the shielded Talisman. Enoch, grimly, “when I have to
development produced, as side ef- “That’s Lucy Fisher, ain’t it?” deal with them. Right now, there’s
fects, so many other possibilities, it is,” said Enoch.
“Of course something more important.”
.
so many other roads to travel, “Her old man came roaring They ran up the slope, the
that with each step one took down into town just a while ago and four of them, dodging through the
any given road there were more said she was gone again. Up until waist-high clumps of weeds.
paths to follow. There’d never be then everything had quieted Ahead of them the station reared
an end, he thought —
no end to down and it was all right. But dark and angular against the eve-
anything. old Hank, he got them stirred up ning sky.
— They reached the edge of the again. So I went down to the “Tljey’re down there at the
field and headed up across it hardware store and got them roof- turn-off,” Winslowe gasped,
toward the station. From its up- ing nails and I beat them here.” wheezing with his running. “That
per edge came the sound of run- “This mob?” Ulysses asked. “I flash of light down
the ridge. That
ning feet. don’t . .
.” was the headlights of a car.”
“Enoch!” a voice shouted out They reached the edge of the
of the darkness. “Enoch, is that V|^IN SLO WE interrupted him, yard and ran toward the house.
you?” gasping in his eagerness to The black bulk of the panel truck
Enoch recognized the voice. to tell all his information. glimmered in the glow cast by
“Yes, Winslowe. What is “That ginseng man is up there, the Talisman. A figure detached
wrong?” waiting at the house for you. He itself from the shadow of the
The mailman burst out of the has a panel truck.” truck and hurried out toward
darkness and stopped, panting “That,” said Enoch, “would be them.
with his running, at the edge of Lewis with the Hazer’s body.” “Is that you, Wallace?”
light. “He is some upset,” said Wins- “Yes,” said Enoch. “I’m sorry
“Enoch, they are coming! A lowe. “He said you were expecting that I wasn’t here.”
couple of carloads of them. But him.” “I was a bit upset,” said Lewis,
I put a crimp in them. Where the “Perhaps,” suggested Ulysses, “when I didn’t find you waiting.”
road turns off into your lane — “we shouldn’t just be standing “Something unforeseen,” said
that narrow place,
you know. I here. It seems to my poor intellect Enoch. “Something that must be
dumped two pounds of roofing that many things may be coming taken care of.”
nails along the ruts. That’ll hold to a crisis.” “The body of the honored one?”
GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 169
Ulysses asked. “It is in the truck?”
Lewis nodded. “I am happy
that we can restore it. I’m sorry
we caused a fuss.”
“We’ll have to carry him down
to the orchard,” Enoch
can’t get a car in there.”
“The other time,” Ulysses said,
“you were the one who carried
him.”
Enoch nodded.
“My friend,” the alien said, “I
wonder if on this occasion I
be allowed the honor.”
“Why, yes, of course,”
Enoch. “He would like it that
way.”
And the words came to his
tongue, but he choked them back,
for it would not have done to
say them —
the words of thanks
from him the necessity
for lifting
of complete recompense, for the
gesture which released him from
the utter letter of the law.
At his elbow, Winslowe said:
“They are coming. I can hear
them down the road.”
He was right.
From down the road came the
soft sound of footsteps padding
in the dust, not hurrying, with no
need to hurry, the insulting and
deliberate treading of a monster
so certain of its prey that it need
not hurry.
Enoch swung around and
lifted his rifle, training
the padding that came out
dark.
170
OEHIND HIM, Ulysses spoke a springtime dawn. You felt it him. And the thing he was afraid
softly: “Perhaps it would be inside ofyou and all about you of had always been himself.
most proper to bear him to the and there was the feeling that it
grave in the full glory and un- was not only here, but that the XXIV
shielded light of our restored i
peace extended on and out in all
said. “You Talisman.” directions, to the farthest reaches nPHE GRAVE was filled and
“She can’t hear you,” Enoch and that it had a depth
of infinity mounded. The five of them
said. “You must remember she is which would enable it to endure stood for a moment more, listen-
deaf. You will have to show her.” 1
until the final gasp of all eternity. ing to the restless wind that
But even as he said it, a blaze Slowly, remembering, Enoch stirred in the moon-drenched ap-
leaped out that was blinding in its turned back to face the field. ple orchard, while from far away,
brightness. The men were there, at the down in the hollows above the
could With a strangled cry, Enoch edge of the light cast by the Talis- river valley, the whippoorwills
half turned back to face the little man, a gray, huddled group, like talked back and forth through the
said group that stood beside the truck. a pack of chastened wolves that silver night.
The bag that had enclosed the slunk at the faint periphery of a In the moonlight Enoch tried
Talisman lay at Lucy’s feet. She campfire’s light. to read the graven line upon the
held the glowing brightness high And as he watched, they rough-hewn tombstone, but there
and proudly so that it spread its I
melted back —
back into the was not light enough. Although
light across the yard and the an- deeper dark from which they had there was no need to read it; it
cient house, and some of it as
padded in the dust track of the was in his mind:
well spilled out into the field.
road. Here lies one from a distant
There was a quietness. As if
Except for one who turned and star, but the soil is not alien to
the entire world had caught its bolted, plungingdown the hill in him, for in death he belongs to
breath and stood attentive and in the darkness toward the woods, the universe.
awe, waiting for a sound that did howling in maddened terror like When you wrote that, the
not come, that would never come, a frightened dog. Hazer diplomat had told him, just
but would always be expected. “There goes Hank,” said Wins- the night before, you wrote as one
And with the quietness came ! lowe. “That is Hank running of us. And he had not said so, but
an abiding sense of peace that I
down the hill.” the Vegan had been wrong. For it
seemed to seep into the very fiber j
“I am sorry that we frightened was not a Vegan sentiment alone;
of one’s being. It was no synthetic I him,” said Enoch soberly. “No itwas human, too.
thing — not as if someone had ;
man should be afraid of this.” The words were chiseled awk-
invoked a peace and peace then “It is himself that he is fright- wardly and there was a mistake
was allowed to exist by suffrance. ened of,” the mailman said. “He or two in spelling, for the Hazer
It was a present and an actual lives with a terror in him.” language was not an easy one to
half peace, peace of mind that
the And that was true, thought master. The stone was softer than
it toward came with the calmness of a sun- Enoch. That was the way with the marble or granite most com-
of the set after a long, hot day, or the Man; it had always been that monly used for gravestones. The
sparkling, ghost-like shimmer of way. He had carried terror with lettering would not last In a few
GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 171
more years the weathering
sun and rain and frost would blur
the characters. In some years af-
ter that they would be entirely
gone, with no more than the
roughness of the stone remaining
to show that words had once been
written there. But it did not mat-
ter,Enoch thought. The words
were graven on more than stone
alone.
He looked across the grave at
Lucy. The Talisman was in its
bag once more and the glow was
softer. She still held it clasped
tight against herself and her face
was still exalted and unnoticing
— as if she no longer lived in the
present world, but had entered
into some other place, some other
far dimension where she dwelled
alone and was forgetful
past.
“Do you think,” Ulysses asked,
“that she will go with us? Do you
think that we can have her? Will
the Earth . .
.”
“The Earth,” said Enoch, “has
not a thing to say. We Earth peo-
ple are free agents. It
is
her.”
“You think that she will go?”
“I think so,” Enoch said. “I
think this has been the moment
she had sought for all her life.”
For she always had been in
touch with something outside of
human ken. You sensed it, but
you could not name it; and she
had fumbled with it, trying to use
172
and not knowing how, charm- dream of great power, cynically
of it
the secretary undoubtedly would
ing off warts and healing poor conceived, so grandiose that it
want to talk with you before he
hurt butterflies and only God canceled moral considerations.
arrived at his decision.”
knew what other acts that she He tried momentarily to imag-
Enoch half turned toward
performed unseen. ine what the scheme might be, but
Ulysses, but he did not need to
“Her parent?” Ulysses asked. phrase his question. knew how foolish it was to try.
“The howling one that ran away ironic that the key of
was
“By all means,” Ulysses said to It
from us?” Lewis. “Let me know and I’ll sit failure lay in the fact that the
“I’ll handle him,” said Lewis. in on the meeting. And you might creature, in its fleeing, had carried
“You want her to go back with tell the good secretary, too, that the Talisman into the backyard
you to Galactic Central?” Enoch it would not be a bad idea to of a sensitive, and on a planet,
asked. begin the formation of a world too, where no one would have
“If she will,” Ulysses said. “Cen- committee.” thought to look for a sensitive.
tral must be told at once.” “A world committee?” For there could be little doubt
.“And from there throughout that Lucy had sensed the Talis-
“To arrange,” Ulysses said, “for
the galaxy?” the Earth becoming one of us. We man, drawn to it as truly as a
“Yes,” Ulysses said. “We need cannot accept a custodian, can magnet would attract a piece of
her very badly.”
I
(j
we, from an outside planet?” steel. She had known nothing else,
“Could we, I wonder, borrow perhaps, than that the Talisman
her for a day or two.” N THE moonlight the tumbled had been there and was some-
“Borrow her?” I boulder pile gleamed whitely, thing she must have, that it was
of all “Yes,” said Enoch. “For we like the skeleton of some prehis- something she had waited for in
need her, too. We need her worst toric beast. For here, near the all her loneliness, without know-
of all.” edge of the cliff that towered ing what it was or without hope
“Of course,” Ulysses said. “But above the river, the heavy trees of finding it. Like a child who
I don’t . .
.”
thinned out and the rocky point sees, quite suddenly, a shiny,
“Lewis,” Enoch
asked, “do you stood open to the sky. glorious bauble on a Christmas
think our government the sec- — Enoch stood beside one of the tree and knows that it’s the
retary of state, perhaps might — massive boulders and gazed down grandest thing on Earth and that
up to be persuaded to appoint one Lucy must be hers.
at the huddled figure that lay it
Fisher as a member of our peace This creature lying here,
among the rocks. Poor, tattered
conference delegation?” bungler, he thought, dead so far thought Enoch, must have been
—
I
Lewis stammered, made a full from home and to so little pur- able and resourceful. For it would
;
stop, then began again: “I think pose. have taken great ability and re-
it could possibly be managed.” 1 In that brain, now broken be- sourcefulness to have stolen the
“Can you imagine,” Enoch yond recovery, must have lain a Talisman to start with, to keep it
asked, “the impact of this girl and
I
f
scheme of greatness —the kind hidden for years, to have pene-
the Talisman at the conference '
of scheme that the brain of an trated into the secrets and the
table?” earthly Alexander or Xerxes or files of Galactic Central. Would
“I think I can,” said Lewis. “But Napoleon may have held, a it have been possible, he won-
GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 173
dered, if the Talisman had been
in With an
effective operation?
energetic Talisman would the
moral laxity and the driving
greed have been possible to moti-
vate the deed?
But that was ended now. The
Talisman had been restored and
a new custodian had been found
— a deaf-mute girl of Earth, the
humblest of humans. And there
would be peace on Earth and in
time the Earth would join the
confraternity of the galaxy.
^T^HERE WERE no problems
•*-
now, he thought. No decisions
to be made. Lucy had taken the
decisions from the hands of every-
one.
made as it struck the water. And
far below, he heard the smug,
contented gurgling of the water
as it flowed past this cliff and
went on to the ends of Earth.
There would be peace on
Earth, but it was a long trail yet,
a long and lonesome way.
Until no man ran howling, wild
with fear (any kind of fear),
would there be actual peace. Un-
til the last man threw away his
weapon (any sort of weapon),
the tribe of Man
could not be at
peace. A rifle was the least of
the weapons of the Earth, the
least of man’s inhumanity to man
— and to others.
He
stood on the rim of the
cliff and looked out across the

The station would remain. He river and the dark shadow of the
could unpack the boxes he had wooded valley. His hands felt
packed and put the journals back strangely empty with the rifle
on the shelves again. He could gone, but it seemed that some-

go back to the station once again where, back there just a way, he
and settle down and carry on his had stepped into another field of
work. time, asif an age or day had drop-

I am sorry, he told the huddled
shape that lay among the boul-
ders. I am sorry that mine was
the hand that had to do it to you.
He turned away and walked
out to where the cliff dropped
straight down to the river flowing
at its foot. He raised the rifle
and held it for a moment motion-
less and then he threw it out and
watched it fall, spinning end for
end, the moonlight glinting off
the barrel, saw the tiny splash it
ped away and he had come into a
place thatwas shining and brand
new and unsullied by any past
mistakes.
The river rolled below him and
the river did not care. Nothing
mattered to the river. It would
take the tusk of mastodon, the
skull of saber-tooth, the ribcage
of a man, the dead and sunken
tree, the thrown rock or rifle and
would swallow each of them and
cover them in mud or sand and
roll gurgling over them, hiding
them from sight.
A million years ago there had
been no river here and in a mil-
lion years to come there might
be no river — but in a million
years from now there would be,
if not Man, at least a caring thing.
And that was the secret of the
universe, Enoch told himself — woods lay the peace and comfort
a thing that went on caring.
He turned slowly from the cliff
edge and clambered through the
boulders, to go walking up the
hill. He heard the tiny scurrying
of small life rustling through the
fallen leaves. Once there was the
sleepy peeping of an awakened
bird, and through the entire
of that glowing light. Not so in-
tense, not so deep and bright and
so wonderful as when it actually

174 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 175

had been there, but a breath of put the stuff away. He’d have to back to help him, and perhaps right, he was thinking wildly, for
it still left. get the journals written and catch there would be others, too. his lost fairyland was back.
He came to the edge of the up with his reading. There was a In just a little while he’d rustle “I had to come,” she said. “You
woods and climbed the field. lot to do. up some food. and then he’d get were lonely, Enoch, and I could
Ahead of him the station stood Ulysses and Lucy had left an to work. If he worked far into not stay away.”
foursquare upon its ridgetop. And hour or two before, bound for the night, he could get a good She could hot stay away. That
it seemed that it was no longer a Galactic Central, but the feeling deal done. might be true, he thought. For
|

station only, but his home as well. of the Talisman still seemed to Lonely nights were good for within the conditioning he’d set
Many years ago it had been a linger in the room. Perhaps not work. And it was lonely now. up there might have been the in-
home and nothing more and then in the room at all, but inside him- escapable compulsion to come
it had become a way station to self. Perhaps it was a feeling that "IJE ROSE and walked to the whenever she was needed.
the galaxy. he’d carry with him no matter desk and picked up the sta- It was a trap, he thought, from
But now, although way station where he went. uette Winslowe had carved of which neither could escape. There
still, it was home again. He walked slowly across the him. He held it beneath the desk was no free will here, but instead
room and sat down on the sofa. lamp and turned it slowly in his the deadly precision of this blind
XXV In front of him the pyramid of hands. There was loneliness in mechanism he had shaped him-
spheres was splashing out its crys-
^ that figure, too —
the essential self.
STATION
was quiet and tal shower of colors. He reached f loneliness of a man who walked She should not come to see him
just a little ghostly. A lamp out a hand to pick it up, then alone. and perhaps knew this as well
burned on his desk and over on drew it slowly back. What was But he’d had to walk alone. as he, but could not help herself.
the coffee table the little pyramid the use, he asked himself, of ex- There’d been no other way. Would this be the way that it
of spheres was flashing, throwing amining it again? If he had not !
He back on
set the statuette would be, forever and forever?
its many colored lights, like the learned its secret the many times the desk and remembered that he He
stood there, frozen, torn by
crystal balls they’d used in the before, why should he expect to had not given Winslowe the piece the need of her and the emptiness
Roaring Twenties to turn a dance now? of wood the Thuban traveler had of her unreality, and she was
hall into a place of magic. The A pretty thing, he thought, but brought. Now he could tell Wins- moving toward him.
tiny flickering colors went flitting useless. lowe where all the wood had She was close to him. In a
allabout the room, like the dance He wondered how Lucy might come from. They could go moment she would stop, for she
of a zany band of Technicolor be getting on and knew she was through the journals and find the knew the rules as well as he; she,
fireflies. all right. She’d get along, he told dates and the origin of every stick no more than he, could admit il-
He stood for a moment, inde- himself,anywhere she went. of it. That would please Old lusion.
cisive, not knowing what was Instead of sitting here, he Winslowe. But she did not stop. She came
missing. All at once he realized should be getting back to work. He heard the silken rustle and so close that he could smell the
what it was. During all the years From now on Earth would be swung swiftly round. apple blossom fragrance of her.
there’d been a rifle to hang upon pounding at the door. There “Mary!” he cried. She put out a hand and laid it
its pegs or to lay across the desk. would be conferences and meet- She stood just at the edge of on his arm.
And now there was no rifle. ings and a lot of other things and shadow. The flitting colors from It was no shadow touch and it
He’d have to settle down, he in a few hours more the news- the flashing pyramid made her was no shadow hand. He could
told himself, and get back to papers might be here. But before seem like someone who had step- feel the pressure of her fingers
work. He’d have to unpack and it happened, Ulysses would be ped from fairyland. And that was and the coolness of them.

176 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STAR 177

 He stood rigid, with her hand “I am sorry,” Mary said. “It you need me, I shall not come He turned heavily in the room
upon his arm. isn’t any good. We can’t fool our- back. There is no other way.” and moved forward, groping for
The flashing light! he thought. selves.” “But you can’t go away! You the table. He found it and
The pyramid of spheres! He stood mute and shamed. are trapped the same as I.” switched on the light.
“I waited for it,” she said. “I .
She shook her head, moved He stood beside the table and
rOR NOW he remembered thought and dreamed about it.” swiftly and the pyramid of looked about the room. In this
who had given it to him. It “So did I,” said Enoch. “I never spheres was in her hand and lifted. corner where he stood there once
was one of those aberrant races of thought it would happen.” “No, not that!” he shouted. had been a kitchen, and there,
the Alphard system. And it had And that was it, of course. So “No, Mary!” where the fireplace stood, the liv-
been from the literature of that long as it could not happen, it The pyramid flashed, spinning ing room, and it all had changed
system that he had learned the was a thing to dream about, ro- in the air, and crashed against — it had been changed for a long

art of fairyland. They had tried mantic and impossible. Perhaps the fireplace. time now. But he still could see it
to help him by giving him the it had. been romantic only be- The flashing lights went out. as if it were only yesterday.

— tinkled —on the

pyramid and he had not under cause it had been so far-off and
There had been a failure of com- impossible.
munication, an easy thing to hap- “As if a doll had
pen in the Babel of the galaxy. she said, beloved teddy
“or a forward in the dark.
For the pyramid of spheres was bear. I am Enoch, but you
sorry,
a wonderful and simple mecha- could not love a doll or a teddy
nism. It was the fixation agent bear that had come to life. You
that banished illusion. It made a always would remember them
fairyland real. You made some- the way they were before. The
thing as you wanted and then
it doll with the silly, painted smile;
turned on the pyramid and — the teddy bear with the stuffing
you had what you had made, as coming out of it.”
real as if it had never been illu- “No!” cried Enoch. “No!”
sion. “Poor Enoch,” she said. “It will
Except, he thought, in some be so bad for you. I wish that I
Something glass? metal? stone? All the days were gone and all
floor. the people in them.
come to life,” “Mary!” Enoch cried, striding Only he was left.
He had lost his world. He had
But there was no one there. left it behind him.
“Mary!” he whimpered. But so, on this day, had all the
She was gone and she would other humans alive. They might
not be back. Even when he not know it. But they, too, had
needed her, she would not be left their world behind them.
back. “Good-by, Mary,” he said.
He
stood quietly in the dark “Forgive me. God keep you.”
and silence. The voice of a cen- He sat down at the table and
tury of living seemed to speak pulled the journal that lay upon
to him. All things are hard, it its top in front of him. He flipped
said.Nothing is easy. it open, searching for the pages

things you couldn’t fool yourself. could help. You’ll have so long There had been the farm girl he must fill.

You knew it was illusion, even if to live with it.” living down the road, and the He had work to do, and now
itshould turn real. “But you!” he cried. “But you? southern beauty who had watched he was ready for it.

He reached out toward her ten- What can you do now?” him pass her gate, and now there He had said his last good-by.
tatively, but her hand dropped It had been she, he thought, was Mary, gone forever from him. — CLIFFORD D. SIMAK
from his arm and she took a slow who had the courage that it took

step backward. to face things as they were.

Jack Williamson & Frederik Pohl
In the terrible, lonely silence How, he wondered, had she
of the room they stood facing one sensed it? How could she have THE REEFS OF SPACE
another, while the colored lights known? begins in the July IF, along with stories by
ran like playing mice as the pyra- “I shall go away,” she said. “I Keith Laumer, Brian W. Aldiss, Robert Silverberg,
mid twirled its rainbow. shall not come back. Even when etc. July issue still on sale —
get your copy today!

178 GALAXY HERE GATHER THE STARS 179


Harry Martinson is one of the
Immortals of the Swedish Acad-
emy. In 1953 he published a
short volume of “songs”
Cicada, a version of which formed
the libretto for an opera per-
formed at the Edinburgh Festival
in ’59 and at Covent Garden,
London, in 1960. Aniara (Knopf,
133 pp., $4.00) contains the 29
“songs” of Cicada and a great
many more, to total 103.
Aniara is the story of a space-
ship loaded with four thousand
immigrants from Earth to Mars.
It encounters asteroids, is flung
off course and damaged so that
it can’t be turned. The whole
book, then, is an examination of
bottled-up humanity in an abso-
lutely inescapable predicament
which can end only in death.
see them in the sixth, the ninth
and the twentieth years, in epi-
sodes of fad and fashion, of re-
THE IMMENSE AND THE OUTRAGEOUS
ligion, of love and fear.
T^EXT to the unresolved ques- man’s attitude has come down to I have read somewhere that
’ “What is science fic-
tion, this: good sf out of the main Swedish is not a language that
the most fascinating ar-
tion?”, stream, like On the Beach or Fail lends itself to literary excellence.
gument in the field is that Safe, ought to be acknowledged Either this is not so, or the trans-
concerning sf as literature, or, as as such. Likewise, good literature lators (Hugh Macdiarmid and
some people prefer to call it, as within our field ought to be recog- Elspeth Harley Schubert) are
Art. A great many of those who nized as such. people of unusual literary skill;
hold that the best of sf stands up What for the language is simply beau-
brings out these cogita-
with the best of any literature, tions just now is the appearance tiful. I nominate for anyone’s
seem to lose sight of the fact of two remarkable books, wildly high shelf of immortal lines-out-
that it is perforce different from different one from the other, and of-context (like, “Forever shalt
other fields. If it weren’t there’d from most of anything you have thou love, and she be fair,” and
be no fen, no Cons, no Hugo. ever read, yet both works of real
“. .a rose-red city, half as old
. one which I shall surely always
My own objections to the lay- stature. as Time,”) this from Aniara:
180 GALAXY SHELF
L
:
She wounds, but as a rose may
wound, not always, as expected,
with its thorn. A rose will always
wound you with its rose . . .
called
Martinson’s achievement here
is an inexpressible, immeasurable
sadness. It is something that tran-
scends panic and terror and even
despair, which is after all a roiling
and acidulous condition. He
leaves you in the quiet immen-
sities, with the feeling that you
have spent time, and have been
permanently tinted, by and with
an impersonal, larger-than-God
force which is inimical exactly to
the extent that you are alive and
have being.
I cannot and will not accept
Martinson’s profound disgust with
humanity
We
. . . describe the men who there
in beauty stitched the white
shrouds of their race until God
and Satan hand in hand from a
defiled and poisoned land past
plains and mountains fled the
face of man; the King of Ashes.
— preferring to regard this and
other documents, (like 1984, or
Jean Genet’s The Balcony) as
terrifying and accurate projec-
tions of what might be, and there-
fore informative of how to change
course actively and with purpose.
Nevertheless I feel personally en-
riched and enlarged by this book,
keep and read and ponder.
181
I^NE-TIME sf-ist Philip Wylie,
who went on to hate middle-
aged ladies for a living, called
his greatest book, Finnley Wren,
“a novel in a new manner.” It’s
a nice concept, and a challenging
one —to write a novel in a new
manner.
I know a guy who has done it
twice. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., whose
Sirens of Titan is a perfect exam-
ple of the piece of fine literature
denied the general public by its
Buck Rogers syndrome, has done
it again with Cat’s Cradle (Holt,
231 pp., $3.95). The 231 pages of
this outrageous novel (on the dust
jacket the word “novel” bears an
asterisk for a footnote; the foot-
note reads “a harmless untruth”)
contain no less than 127 chapters.
Some have such titles as Commu-
nists, Nazis, Royalists, Parachut-
ists and Draft Dodgers and run
all of nine short paragraphs; yet
the author never deceives (not
in this manner, anyhow) and
you’ll find the chapter does in-
deed deal Communists,
with
Nazis, etc., etc. Throughout the
book are quotations from a
skewed gospel called The Books
of Bokonon, which may just pos-
sibly be Vonnegut’s impertinent
way of demanding who’s to say
whose gospels are skewed? “Live
by the foma,” says Bokonon,
“that make you brave and kind
and healthy and happy.” Foma
are harmless untruths.
182
The narrative on which the
book’s appalling, hilarious, shock-
ing and infuriating events and
characters are strung deals with
a great scientist, now dead, the KINDLY COME TO A
search for biographic material by
a free-lance writer, his encounter
with the scientist’s past employ-
Let us take over
ers, acquaintances and fellow-
townspeople, and his children: an
while you
angry midget, an ugly daughter
who plays fabulous clarinet, and take it easy
a moral degenerate who has be-
come the weak power behind the
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Along with these highest of CONGRES!; INN
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GALAXY
 ¥NGOMAR Bjorgson knew he
*• was going to die.
He back on his use-
turned his
less shipand went inside the bub-
ble house that had been his home
Jfiey: oi
‘‘ ’ * • '* for ninety-nine days. Methodical-
,
,

y donned all-weather
DOEDt ly he his
iMustmted by'^uiiNS
clothes, his environment suit. He
did not want to die in this place.
Here was food and refrigeration
iriniE iDiiREjf M for the days, warmth and com-
c)r fort for the nights. He could not
bring himself to put a gun to his
IL0ICJDANIE head, or end it by any other di-
rect, willful act. But out there in
the desert, away from man-made
helps for survival ... there a man
* could get himself into circum-
stances where nature took care
L of it.

That was his reason for being

here on this lonely planet, in the
first place —
the promise of find-
JJ ing intelligent life. For intelli-
L '

4 '-

,
gence was rare in the universe,
after all. A lone adventurer, a
year before, forced down on this
planet by a cosmic storm, had
waited a week here for the storm
to subside, then had landed on
Earth with the feverish news of
intelligent life. Ingomar Bjorgson
had come to investigate.
Birds, yet.

were only two. Two

They birds with minds like the
edge of a razor, living alone on
this planet that was one hundred
per cent desert.

185
OF LORRANE
 He took one last look around out of respect for his feet. Then feathers lay smooth and straight, names that I might be able to
the bubble, then walked out, he trudged on, wondering vague-
immaculately cared for. Ingomar use?”
leaving the door open. From ten ly how a half dressed man, dying
feet away he watched the sand
cast around in his mind for some- “Oh, yes. We beg your pardon.
on his feet, could make the same How
thing to say, or some sign to uncivil of us. Our name,
already blowing in through the marks in the sand as a fully
doorway, and he felt very lonely
make that indicated friendship. translated into your tongue, is
clothed, comfortable one.
Then one of the birds looked Pisces.”
and small. He knew that his He stumbled on an outcrop- “This one “The
at the other and said, is fish?”
death, like his would never
life, ping of rock. He fell. He picked
larger.” “Well,” they said, “from our
be marked anywhere with any himself up again. It would be
“Much,” the other replied. home planet the constellation
degree of permanence. quick, after all. The sun was in
Ingomar was astonished. “You does not look like a fish.”
He walked. There was no hur- league with the rest of the uni-
can talk?” he asked, “In Eng- “Oh. Well, are both of you
ry, so he walked slowly, stopping verse. He would die soon. lish?” named Pisces? Oh, I see. That is
occasionally to turn and stare at He fell again. “Certainly. Didn’t the first man your species. I am called Man;
the tracks his feet had scuffed in He had found the planet of tell how he instructed us?” you are called Pisces.”
the sand, watching sand drift in- Lorrane easily. The adventurer’s
“Yes, yes, of course,” Ingomar “Of course not,” they said,
to them. He
smiled wryly. The charts were accurate. It was a
“You were
said, confused. “But I didn’t re- right the first time.
universe was so eager to be rid dry, barren place, an old, worn-
of him —
as if he were a disease.
mem .that is
. . Well, I didn’t
. . . Pisces is our name. You can say,
out world where only wind and get me that ship.’ And
believe it.” ‘Pisces,
He looked up again, studying sand moved, where mountains
The birds eyed each other we would do so.”
the whole sky. But there was no shoved their eroded peaks into
again. “I like him,” one said. “If “Howcan both of you have
movement of wings, no silver the impotent sky. But Ingomar
there’s anything I hate, it’s a the same name? Are you actually
streak of a ship coming to pick found, upon emerging from his
completely honest person.” one intelligence? And see that
him up. Only one spot marred ship, that there was another
the desert’s domain the tiny— movement. Two black dots ap-
The other gave him a vicious
peck on his back. “Shut up!” it
you keep your hands ... I mean,
see that you leave my ship
bright reflection of the burning peared far away in the sky and
said,“Do you want him to think alone.”
sun on the now distant bubble. rapidly grew larger. He had been
we condone dishonesty?” One said, “We wouldn’t think
The birds had promised him. told that the planet was popu-
“Of course not,” the other re- of touching your ship.” The
They had been so sure of them- lated by an intelligent form of
torted hotly, “I just meant that, other said, “No, we are two sep-
selves. bird life. Two were approaching
considering social protocol, it is arate entities.”
When he knew that the fierce now. Ingomar passed a hand over
sometimes kind to tell a very
sun and wind would kill him be- He smiled to himself. “Imagine
small lie.” his face, thinking.The two very
fore he could get back to the that,” he said to “A himself, Earth-looking birds stood quietly
bubble, he started removing his smart bird. How should you meet TNGOMAR was speechless. He before him, their feet buried in
all-weather clothes. He flung a smart bird? Should you shake
the sand so that it looked like
looked back at his ship,
them aside like a dancer. Coat hands?”
standing tall and straight, ready their legs were two stilts shoved
to the left, trousers to the right. The birds alighted in the sand
to blast itself into the sky again. into the ground. At last he said,
The hot wind threw the trousers before him. They eyed him with
He glanced around at the lonely “Well, I know what we’ll do. I
back against his face. He tore bright, intelligent eyes. They will call you Pisces I,” he pointed
landscape. Finally he said, “It is
them off with a curse. Shirt to were quite large, standing at
difficult to see a difference be- to the bird on his left, “and your
the left. He kept the shoes on. least two feet tall. Their gray
tween you two. Do you have companion Pisces II.”
186 GALAXY THE BIRDS OF LORRANE 187
 The identical birds glanced at claws, like a mating fight in an “How?” airlock. The birds stayed outside.
each other, then leapt into the aviary. “You need help,” Pisces II They were arguing between
air. They circled high above his “I amPisces I,” one screamed, “A storm is coming.”
said. themselves. He could tell by the
head. They swooped low. They administering a resounding peck “A cosmic §torm?” Ingomar gesticulations they made with
engaged in marvelous aerial gym- on the other’s back. asked. “I’m not worried about their heads. Once Pisces I at-

nastics wonderful to see. Ingomar “No, you’re hot. I am.” This that. I’llstay here until it moves tacked Pisces II viciously, raking
made notes in his book concern- one leapt into the air and landed on.” him mercilessly with sharp ta-
ing their agility. Finally they on the other’s back. He raked Pisces I shook his head. “A lons. Pisces II fought back fero-

came to rest before him again, so vicious, long talons across the planetary storm.” ciously. They rolled over and

suddenly that he stepped back- well-groomed feathers. “I am “When?” over in the sand. Ingomar threw
ward quickly, frightened. more intelligent than you. / “Sometime tonight.” a switch that gave him communi-
“Now,” they said, “which one should be Pisces I.” “Okay,” Ingomar said. cation outside, the ship, and
of us Pisces I
is and which is From a safe ten feet away, In- “Thanks. I’ll stay inside.” yelled at them.
gomar threw the ribbon at them. “It’s not so easy as that. You They stopped fighting at once.
Pisces II?”
Puzzled, Ingomar studied “Stop it!” he yelled. must blast off and put your ship He said, “Have you two lost your
them The one with the
carefully. They obeyed instantly, and in orbit for the night.” minds?”
quick temper might show this stood quietly side by side facing “Why? Do you know how Pisces II laughed. “Now how
characteristic in some way. He him. Ingomar drew his hand gun much fuel it takes to get into could one lose his mind? It goes
pointed to the bird on his right. and pointed it at them. “Now orbit? Ihave none to spare.” with him everywhere.”
“You,” he said, “are Pisces I”. stop your fighting, or I’ll blow Pisces II scratched in the sand “All right,” Ingomar said. “I

They laughed. It was a verbal you to kingdom come.” with his claws, thinking.Then he meant, have you become in-

sound only. No expression “Fine,” they said. “Anything to said,“Only one alternative exists. sane?”
How If you remain, the storm will “Of course not,” Pisces I said.
showed in their eyes. get off this miserable planet.
far is it?”
wreck your ship. Take us aboard “We are peaceful entities. We in-

44 A LL right,” Ingomar said, Ingomar smiled, in spite of his now, and blast off for your home tentionally developed this argu-

after some thought. “I can anger. “It’s an expression. It

planet. To stay here means ment to break the monotony of
means death.” life here.”
fix that.” He entered his ship and destroy you.”
I will
rummaged around in his clothes One the birds quickly
of Ingomar snorted and turned “Is it so bad as that?”
emerged with a picked up the plastic ribbon and back toward his ship. He thought, “It is terrible. Will you take
locker, then bril-
liant red ribbon of plastic. “I’ll carried it to the other, and “Take them aboard my ship? us aboard?”
tie this to your leg. That way I’ll dropped it near the leg. Then Not in a million years.” He saw Ingomar did not answer, but
their plan, now. They wanted to switched the communicator off
know that you are Pisces I. If both took it in their beaks and
get into his ship. Then, by some and busied himself with record-
you promise not to move it from together they tied it around the
one to the other.” leg. Itwas done so quickly that means he could not now forsee, ing his observations. He took ad-
^ they would take the ship away
“We promise.” Ingomar stood there aghast, sur- vantage of their continued pres-
prised into immobility. He had
from him. ence and took photographs.
He stooped over to tie the
plasticon the leg of the one he never before seen birds tie knots. Finally, after several hours,

thought was Pisces I, and was al- “It would not be wise to de-
TTE WAS so shaken by this they leapt into the air and flew
most caught in the sudden flurry stroy us,” Pisces I said. ‘We can conclusion that he quickly away toward the distant moun-
of slashing beaks and raking help you.” retreated to safety, closing the tains. Ingomar was sorry to see

188 GALAXY THE BIRDS OF LORRANE 189

them leave, and more than once
checked his instruments for signs
of a coming storm in case they
were right. But nothing outside
had changed.
After they had left he opened
the ship and stepped outside, tak-
ing readings with instruments to
record the character of the planet.
He trudged through the eternally
drifting sand, looking for some
sign of life. No plants, insects,
animals anywhere. Only the fine,
mobile sand, occasionally an out-
cropping of rock not yet eroded
away. And the heat! Ingomar
was forced to turn the controls
environment suit almost all
of his
the way up
to keep comfortable.
Then, when the sun receded be-
hind the ghostly barren moun-
tains, the cold came creeping in.
Ingomar turned his controls in
the other direction, while walking
back to his ship. He was afraid he
would not keep the cold outside.
The landscape, with the sun’s
absence, was dark and. fearful.
Shadows moved in the wind,
shadows of drifting sand that
took on the shapes of monsters
lurking in the darkness. Ingomar
was not one to frighten easily,
but the night took on such omi-
nous sighs and moans and move-
ments that his imagination be-
gan to magnify them beyond rec-
ognition. When he finally saw
the ship loom up before him he
ran, stumbling toward it. He
190
fumbled in the darkness for the
control knob to open the lock
and found it at last. He leapt in-
side, accompanied by a cold blast
of wind and sand, and stood there
panting, hearing his heart pound
in his ears.
Thenight was long and lonely.
He was too far from civilization
for his radio equipment to bring
the comfort of familiar sounds.
He tried to read, but found con-
He thought
centration impossible.
of the wondering where
birds,
they were now, how they kept
from freezing to death at night.
He rewrote his notes, adding re-
membered facts and impressions.
Finally he decided sleep was the
most painless way of spending
the night, and swallowed a small
capsule designed to induce total
sleep for at least six hours.
TTE awoke the next morning
standing on his head.
The bed, horizontal the night
before, was now vertical. The
whole room was vertical. Panic
swept over him like a wave of
burning fire. He scrambled to the
airlock. It opened grotesquely.
The ship, which last night
had stood so proudly, now lay on
its side. And in his drugged sleep
he had not known when it fell.
For Ingomar, the bottom dropped
out of everything, and his heart
dropped with it. There was no
resetting of a ship once it had
GALAXY
fallen. This took special equip-
ment. Ingomar Bjornson was a
doomed man, and he knew it.
While he stood outside in the
morning sun, staring at the hor-
rible spectacle before
two birds alighted, one on each
side.
“Why didn’t you listen to us?”
Pisces I said in an accusing tone.
“Yes,” Pisces II echoed angrily.
“You make me sick, thinking
you’re so smart, coming down
here in your big ship and strut-
ting around like you think you’re
a God, or something. Now, how
big do you feel? Do you
that this is our first
to leave this planet? I’ve a good
notion to peck your stupid eyes
out right here and now.”
“Leave him be,” Pisces I said.
“He may not be so bright, but I
think he would have taken us
with him, after he got used to us
and saw how harmless we are.”
Pisces II leapt at him, almost
knocking Ingomar off his feet.
“Shut up! I’ve a good notion to
peck your eyes out, too.”
“Oh, stop it!” Ingomar said
wearily. “We’re all doomed to
spend the rest of our lives here.
How was I to know that the
storm would be so bad? My in-
struments gave no
whatever.”
“Actually, it was our fault,”
Pisces II said, more calmly. “We
failed to mention the nature of
THE BIRDS OF LORRANE
the storm. We
thought you knew.
It was a magnetic storm. A shift-
ing of magnetic currents sur-
rounding the planet. We
had no
idea that you would think of the
him, the weather.”
They walked with him around
the fallen ship. It was not in-
jured, that much Ingomar could
see. The soft bed of sand had
cushioned its fall. If it could only
be righted! Ingomar knew it was
impossible.
“It is pointed toward that knoll
out there. See? Suppose we all
got inside and blasted off. We
realize would slide along and maybe
opportunity when we reached the knoll we’d
have enough speed to keep on
going in a straight line until we
could point her nose upward.”
Ingomar shook his head, but
he appreciated the suggestion. It
indicated that they were willing
to try anything. He knew their
motives were not entirely philan-
thropic, but he liked them more
for anyway.
it,
He said, “There is only one
way and that is for some-
out,
one to come in and get us.”
“Well,” Pisces II said, “What
are you waiting for? Call them.”
“I can’t. We are too far out for
communication.”
indication The two gray birds eyed one
another in disbelief. Pisces I
scratched his breast impolitely.
Then he said, “Are you telling us
that you have come this far from
191
 Ingomar did not think it over. help, but we do not know how
“Yes,” he said. long it will take. We may need
“Then we will do it. But first as many as seventy-five days.”

we must make you comfortable. Ingomar settled down to wait.

Do you have equipment for
shelter, besides the ship?”
“Yes, there is the bubble. It
The fierce, burning sun had
turned Ingomar’s face and
can be expanded to become a naked arms into fried areas of
house.” intense pain, but he regained con-
“Get it,” Pisces II said. sciousness when he felt the cool-
Ingomar did. He dragged it ness of the ointment. It pene-
outside and began to unfold it, trated deep down, under the
in preparation for inflation. But burned skin, into flesh and mus-
Pisces II stopped him. “Not here,” cle, soothing injured cells.

he said. “It will be a long time. He opened his eyes. He moved

Our calculation is that it will take his head. The eyes were burned
at least forty-five days to get and bloodshot, but he could see
help. The trip from your planet a ship standing a hundred feet
alone is at least forty days. You away. It was not sleek and long,
will not wish to stare at your pointing its needle nose at the
your own solar system, knowing of your kind. You
are desperate toppled ship for so long. I suggest sky, though. It was round, dull
that you could not call for help, because you are lonely in an al- we go beyond the first knoll.” white, like a giant egg laid by a
if necessary?” most empty universe.” Pisces I laughed and said to giant bird.
Ingomar nodded. “We must help him,” said Ingomar, “For once he is using Bird? Ingomar chuckled,
Pisces II. his brain. We will carry it.” senses returning, thinking through
¥)ISCES II snorted through his “Of course. But first let’s make Hegrasped the bubble in his his pain of Pisces I or Pisces II
beak, and scratched in the him comfortable. It will be a claws, flapped his enormous laying an egg. Then he laughed
sand. “Stupidity,” he said. “There long wait.” wings and sailed off. Soon he re- aloud.
is no other word for it.” “Thank you,” Ingomar said, turned, and among the three of He stopped, quite abruptly,
“Yes, there is,” Pisces I an- moved by their sympathy. “But them all his food and books and and looked again. The egg was
swered, somewhat sharply. “In you cannot help. Or do you have any equipment he might need stillthere, but it was not an egg.
fact, there are several possible a way to send messages?” was carried over the knoll out of It was actually a ship and the
words. Bravery. Desperation. Ac- “Yes, in a way,” Pisces II said, sight of the wrecked ship. airlock was open and Pisces II
tually I think it is a combination “You see .”
. . “We will not return,” they said, was backing out, dragging a sort
of both. I am sure that you are Pisces I lifted a huge wing and “until the rescue ship arrives. So of stretcher on wheels.
aware how rare intelligent life is knocked Pisces II in the sand. He make comfortable. Do
yourself “It’s a . . a . . ship!” he ex-
. .

in the universe. When you heard turned to Ingomar. “Do you not stray too far from the ship. claimed, tears running down his
of us, you rushed out here at promise to take us with you, if This is the most miserable planet cheeks, over the ointment.
once. I would call it bravery to we should succeed in getting in the universe. Give us plenty of “Whose ship is it?”
go beyond the sound of the voices help?” time. We know we can summon “Ours,” said Pisces I.

192 GALAXY THE BIRDS OF LORRANE 193

 “Yours?” Ingomar said, after a
long pause while the pain raged
over his skin. He tried to sit up,
and Pisces I got behind him and
pushed, nudging him upright.
“Where did you get it?”
“Oh,” Pisces II interrupted.
“We had it all the time.”
“Shut up!” Pisces I yelled. “He
asked me.”
“Hold your tongue,” Pisces II
retorted hotly, “or I’ll take off
and leave you here. I’ve had
enough of you in the past century
to last a lifetime.”
Pisces I said to Ingomar, “Pay
no attention to that p>easant.” He
helped Pisces II push the stretch-
er next to Ingomar. Then he
pushed a lever and the stretcher
reduced itself to ground height.
was too short for Ingomar’s
It
body, having been designed for
the body of a bird. “He’s right,
though,” Pisces I continued, giv-
ing the stretcher a kick because
it wasn’t long enough. “We had
the ship all along. It was despic-
wouldn’t see you steal the parts?”
They hung their heads. “De-
spicable,” they said. “A rotten
thing to do.”
Ingomar was too ill for anger.
“Let me understand this,” he
YOURS!
THE NEXT
said. “You ruined my ship to get
parts for yours. Why? Why not
17
just take my ship?”
“Too slow,” Pisces II said. He BIG ISSUES OF
took the container of ointment
in his beak and set it beside In-
FOR ONLY $4.95 - SAVING YOU $1.85 -
gomar’s hand. “Here, you can rub
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Pisces II nodded his head. “Oh, “What do you suppose?” said
yes, there was a storm. But not Pisces I irritably. “We were look-
Name
a natural phenomenon, I’m sorry ing for intelligent life. Get a
to say. Too bad. The natural move on, now. If we don’t waste Address -

storms are much more beautiful.” too much time on this Earth, we City Zone State

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194 GALAXY
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