OCTOBER 1960

50*

GALAXY

OCTOBER

1960
 .

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 NOTES
OCTOBER, 1960
eauxy VOL. 19, NO. 1

J
UNE
thors
editorial
to
called
offer
on au-
interesting
J. F. Bone in
ago. Veterinarian prof at U. of
town not long

MAGAZINE aliens,not just tentacled ones. Oregon, thinks of self as short,

Also Published
Offered examples like rackabore tubby, absent-minded could —
in

Germany, Finland and Sweden

— animal with two short side legs snatch horns off charging water
Great Britain, France, Italy,

CONTENTS
adapted to hillside living, but too buffalo, forgets nothing not a —
specialized because left- and thing. Got onto subject of aliens
NOVELETS
right-legged can’t turn in opposite and animals; what else with a
WORLD A BOTTLE
IN by Allen Kim Lang 8
direction. Amplifies Robert A. vet? Mentioned above and alliga-
THE STENTORII LUGGAGE by Neal Barrett, Jr. 104
Heinlein: “In southern Missouri tors in N. Y. C. sewage system.
THE IMMORTALS by David Duncan 162
where was born we have two
I Got same damned skeptical laugh
SHORT STORIES when showing an egg can’t be
local varieties, the Hillside Snee as
THE HILLS OF HOME by Alfred Co ppel 43
and the Sidehill Murk, which crushed between hands if held
BEACH SCENE
THE IMITATION OF EARTH
by Marshall King
by James Stamers
53
79 have solved the problem of how lengthwise —
no one has ever done
CRY SNOOKER by Andrew Fetter 89 to turn around. They have very it and principle is being worked

A OF GLASS
FALL by Stanley R. Lee 127 large mouths —
when closely pur- into new building materials.
THE HOURS ARE GOOD by Gordon R. Dickson 151 sued, they open same quickly, Explanation of alligators in
NON-FACT ARTICLE jump through, turning themselves N. Y. C. sewage system: baby
inside out, and thus can reverse alligators cute and tiny, but the
ORIGINS OF THE GALACTIC SHORT-SNORTER by Edward Wellen 147
direction. This works just fine things grow, get flushed away.
SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
with the Snee, which is smooth- Doc Bone thoughtful, realized
FOR YOUR INFORMATION by Willy Ley 67
The Air on the Moon skinned. Unfortunately the Murk food plentiful, temperature great

FEATURES
is fuzzy curly; once the fuzz is — blend of hot and cold water,
inside, it tickles poor beastie and no winter wind; they should pros-
EDITOR'S PAGE by H. L. Gold 5
by Floyd Gale 142 he has a tendency to laugh him- per. They do.
GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF C.
FORECAST 193 self to death, unless he again re- Bone solved lion-versus-tiger
verses quickly. The Murk is thus controversy in return for fascin-
Cover by HUNTER: "Touchdown on Mimas, Moon of Saturn" rapidly becoming extinct.” ating info on alligators. One lion,

ROBERT M. GUINN, Publisher H. L. GOLD, Editor Raise a collection? They’re fun. one tiger, dead lion — tiger bigger,
JOAN J. De MARIO, Asst, to the Publisher WILLY LEY, Science Editor Like Fund for Widow of Un- heavier, smarter. Six lions, six
SAM RUVIDICH, Art Director CARLA CAMP, Asst, to the Editor known Soldier —went
over the tigers, six dead
most or tigers,

GALAXY MAGAZINE is published bi-monthy by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Main offices: top till spoil sported. recentAnd all lions alive —
hunt singly;
tigers
421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y. 50* per copy. Subscription: (6 copies) $2.50 per classified ad saying, “This is your lions gang up, would take each
year in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. Possessions.
Elsewhere $3.50. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, New York, N. Y. Copyright, last chance to send $1 to” and tiger in turn.
New York 1960, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation, Robert M. Guinn, president. All rights, in-
cluding translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed named nothing but a box number; Doc Bone went on to claim
stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibilty for unsolicited material. All stories
printed in this magazine are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actual persons people did send their buck. membership in club of vets who
is coincidental.
Printed in the U.S.A. by The Guinn Co., Inc. N. Y. Title Reg. U.S, Pat. Off.

NOTES 5
have spayed male cats — once. gas — but rigid restrictions on sale. end the minute they outgrow it, eater on Earth? He said his job
was to make the delivery, not do
Put sewage in private hands, with enough visits in between to
Horrible feeling, he says, fishing
have said. There’s a fortune see that this is the best possible detective work, and he had a
around in welter of sweat. Fast I’d
arrangement. supply of food for the koala for
look; owner said spay but didn’t in it.

Stitch, alter, But not now. Radioactive Maybe it is at that. a few days.
know sex of cat.
I called Willy Ley, who agreed
wastes? Nope, they’re barred. The What did have in mind here?
I
charge double for ghastly mo-
ment, check carefully ever after. —
wonder drugs antibiotics, tran-
— “Everytime someone says, ‘I that eucalyptus leaves were a
and so forth don’t believe in theories,’ a theory problem, but koalas couldn’t le-
I looked closely; memory of the
quilizers, steroids
take a miracle of extrapola- dies. Do you believe in theories?” gally be shipped out of Australia
ghastly moment still

sweating. Evidently not an ex-

had him it’d

tion to figure effects on topsoil

perience one gets over readily.
Neither is extrapolating sew-
age systems after accumulation of
—“The cat comes on little fog and was I sure this wasn’t from
manufacture, deep-sea farming feet.” Mexico, where they were being
and other such marvels that free Every writer has things like bred? The insurance? Entirely
enterprise might have plumbed. that in his idea file, like lady possible — getting a koala safely

Will situation settle down? author who woke in great excite- Vi around the world is quite a
high-interest data and then find-
ing it all go down the drain. —
Doubtful all breakthroughs like ment, scribbled, went back to
—
the cosmic discovery was
trick. Asked to be kept informed.
I said sure.
ones in drugs create more break- sleep
Reason later. Data:
Detergents, first breakthrough throughs. Still, there might be safe —
and read in the morning: Man phoned, had checked into
some in sanitation engineering; “Hoggimus, higgimus, men are hotel, shaved, eaten. Very tired.
in cleansing agents since discov-
busting the detergent bubble was polygamous; higgimus, hoggimus, Would I take delivery that night
ery of soap, reported on here
one. (Wonder how they did it, but women monogamous.” so he could get home to family
some while ago as coming out of Would pay
mains in mile-long, house-high, no use querying them now. Them? Note on the koala story. Oh, in Calif.? I said sure. I

unbustable bubbles. Hose crews Oh, forgot to mention Dept, of yes! Man with very tired voice for taxi so he could make certain
Sanitation has a publicity section. phoned one evening; he worked train? I said sure, kept Ley in-
needed on 24-hour duty till bub-
Private ownership, though, and for Railway Express and had a formed.
ble problem solved.
there’d have been a seat on the koala for me and what was the Phone again. Right downstairs,
Fine, steady uptrend in sewage
engineering that would let a fel- Exchange, advertising campaigns, best way to my address? I said, big battle with taxi driver —koala
maybe a TV show called, say, “A what?” and he wearily read had messed upholstery, would I
low take a sound
the future.
flying guess into
Now? Pow! How? In “The Man from Flushing.”) offname and address of consign- — I said bring up driver and I’d

a minute. Home again in Oregon, Dr. or, a woman in Australia, my take care of everything. Called
Bone wrote that his daughter, 16, name and address and amount Ley. He said, “Oh, ho! A koala

by
Ancient cities limited in size
sanitation facilities. Rome’s thinks he’s unplugged and I’m of insurance —
$10,000. I poked —
wouldn’t mess hard and dry,
My for a break in the story, but there like a goat’s. You won’t see the
Cloaca Maxima caused first popu- UHF.
way round.
son, 18, thinks other
Wrote back that this was none; all heavily insured
—
man, but if ” I said sure. No
lation explosion. Sewer chases
items were accompanied, he had man, no koala, natch, but beauti-
popular in books, films, TV shows. damage to parental self-esteem is

inexcusable in modem civiliza- done it for 15 years, and he’d de- ful detail work, except that last
Skip all that to short while ago.
Sterilized sludge first-rate topsoil tion, suggested organized Teen liver in the morning. I asked why bit, and fine acting. My
compli-
me some- ments, and my thanks for a fun
— for Park Department. Methane Exchange, to begin the minute
teeners know everything except
would anybody send
thing insurable at $10,000 and evening.
gas by-product hot competitor
against natural or illuminating why their parents are so cubic, to how was I to feed the pickiest — H. L. GOLD

6 GALAXY NOTES 7
 i

OURING sweat and breath-

tlf was hopelessly out of reach for these

By ALLEN KIM LANG
P ing, shallow, I
on U.S. Twenty at ninety
burned east

miles an hour, wishing I could suck

into my lungs some of the wind that
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
howled across the windshield.
I heard the siren in my phones.
I glanced out the left side of my
helmet to find a blue-clad figure on
motorcycle looming up beside me,
waving me toward the shoulder. A
law-abider to the last gasp of as-
phyxia, I braked my little green
beast over to the berm. The state
cop angled his bike across my left
headlamp and stalked back to
where I sat, tugging a fat book of
traffic-tickets out of his hip pocket.
“Unscrew that space-helmet,
Sonny,” he said. “You’ve just been
grounded.”
“Grounded, I’ll grant,” I said,
my voice wheezing from the
speaker on the chest of my suit;
“but I can’t take off the fishbowl,
officer.”
“Then maybe you’d better climb
out of your flying saucer,” the
policeman suggested. “And if
you’re toting pearl-handled ray-
guns, just leave ’em hang.”
out of the car, keeping my
I got
hands in view, feeling like the fu-
gitive from space-opera this cop
evidently took me for. He examined
me the way a zoologist might ex-
fliS
amine the first live specimen of a
new species of carnivore; very in-

9
terested, very cautious. After ob- YOU’LL spend the night in spired or ingested bacteria.” Bjomson’s hand and told him that
serving the cut of my wash-and- the big tank at South Bend “That’s the sort of answer that I considered the expense of my

wear plastic sterility-suit — known if you’re snowing me, Sonny,” he makes my job the joy it is,” Bjorn- Gross Income Tax justified by his
to us who wear them as a chastity- said. “Let’s see your driver’s li- son said. “Next thing you know, employment. I went inside then,
suit — the policeman walked cense.” I got my billfold out of the I’ll be chasing drunken drivers climbed the steel steps to the glass-
around me to examine my reserve- glove-compartment — a chastity- from Mars.” walled shower. I cut in my suit-

air tank, which is cunningly curved suit doesn’t have any pockets — “There’s no intelligent native radio and announced my arrival.
and cushioned against my spine so and handed my license to Bjom- life on Mars,” I said. “Bogardus here. I’m nearly out of
that I can lean back without court- son. “John Bogardus, M.D.,” he “You think maybe there are in- wind; my filter’s soaked. I’m cut-
ing lordosis. He inspected the bub- read. “You’re a doctor, eh? This telligent natives on U.S. Twenty?” ting in reserve-air. Anybody around
ble of plastic that over my head
fit says you live at BICUSPID, Cen- he asked, returning my license. to see that I scrub behind my ears?”
like the belljar over a museum tral University, South Bend. “Okay, Doctor Bogardus, I’ve Roy McQueen, Director of
Dr.
specimen, and stared at the little Whafs that BICUSPID, Doc? bought your story. You leadfoot BICUSPID, came out of his office,
valve on the left shoulder of my Means your practice is limited to your bomb along after me, and where he’d monitored my an-
suit, where used air was wheezing certain teeth?” we’ll hit the Central campus like nouncement from the loudspeaker
out asthmatically. “I guess fallout and we’re crossing the payoff line at the set above his desk, and faced the
“I’m a resident in pathology,
has got you bugged,” he said. I’m damned near out of air,” I said, Mille Miglia.” Bjornson cowboyed glass door of the shower room. He

“Not fallout, bacteria,” I ex- annoyed at the prospect of suffo- into the saddle of his bike, spurred waved to me and cut on his micro-
plained. “I’m one of the Lapins cating while acting straight-man to it off and cut siren-screaming phone. “Okay, Johnny,” he said.
“BICUSPID the down the concrete toward South I sealed off my air-filter and cut
from Central University.” a state cop. is

acronym Bend and Central U. I jumped in the reserve-air. That canned

“That’s nice,” the policeman for Bacteriological Insti-
said. “And I’m one of the Bjorn- tute, Central University Special back into my sports-car and tailed wind felt to my lungs like cold
sons, from Indiana State Police Projects in Infectious Disease. I’m him, the wind soaring past my beer to the throat on a July day.
Post 1-A. What were you trying to a Lapin, which is a human guinea- ’phones like rocket exhaust. We I felt the oxygen percolating

do just now, break Mach One on pig. I’m sorry, officer, that I broke cut through the field of Sunday through me to my toes and finger-

wheels? Or do you maybe come the Indiana speed-limit but my drivers in a horizontal power-dive. tips, tingling them back to life.

air-filter is clogged with condensa- I was half-blinded by the sweat Turning on the detergent shower,
from one of these foreign planets
that don’t know the American tion. If I don’t get back to the Big condensed on my air-cooled face- I sloshed around beneath it, wash-

rules of the road?” Tank at the University within the plate. Formaldehyde bath or no, ing the outside dust off my chas-

I breathed deep, trying to find next few minutes, I’ll run out of air. I’d have to cut in my reserve-air tity-suit.

And have to spend the rest pretty soon. “You’re dry by the tank,” Dr.
myself some oxygen. “I was born you’ll
of the evening testifying before St. McQueen said into his hand micro-
right here in Indiana,” I said.
“The reason I’m wearing this suit
and helmet is that I’m bacterio-
logically sterile.”
Joseph’s County Coroner.”
“So what happens if you crack
open your space-helmet and
W
of the
E made it while I was
breathing. I braked in front
BICUSPID entrance and
still phone.
I picked up the long-handled
shower brush and scrubbed back
walked as fast as I dared, dizzy there. I showered the suit’s arm-
“So maybe you could adopt a breathe the air us peons use?” he
and panting with the concentration pits, the folds behind the knees,
kid,” Officer Bjornson suggested. asked.
said. of C0 2 bottled up with me in my the soles of the suit’s boots, scrub-
“Sterile like germ-free,” I said. “Pretty quick, I’d die,” I
chastity-suit. Outside the door to bing hard with the brush. “You’re
“Gnotobiotic. I grew up in the Big “I’ve got no antibodies, no physio-
the contaminated labs, I shook all wet, Johnny,” the Chief said.
Tank at Central University.” logical mechanism to combat in-

10 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 11

“Got enough air for half an hour Poor Mike Bohrman had gone “Damn it, Johnny! If you don’t “If you or the Chief feel your feet
in the bathtub?” off his rocker and stripped off his stop chasing after that dame in getting wet, just whistle. I’ll be
“Yes, sir,” I said, checking the sterility-suit in the snow. All we Valpo, I’ll toss mothballs in the here.”
underneath a pair of gas-tank of your silly little car.” “Will do.” For all the thousands
gage of my reserve-air tank. Hav- wear is

ing scrubbed off most of the flora shorts. That’s the way Mike had Then he toggled his radio. “Test- of times I’d been through this anti-

I’d picked up in the great wild
world of Indiana, I climbed down
through the manhole into the bath-
tub, a sump of formaldehyde solu-
run around, almost naked in a
northern Indiana February. It was
hours before he’d been missed.
He went to the hospital with
ing,”he said, for the benefit of the
monitoring technician listening out
in the contaminated labs. “This is
McQueen. Someone suited up?”
was happy to know
septic drill, I
that a lifeguard was suited up
above our poisonous bathtub, ready
to fish either of us out should our

tion eight feet deep. I sat on the severe frostbite, but he died two “Safety man is suited and scrub- suits spring a leak. If formalde-
bottom to soak. days later of pneumonia compli- bing, Chief,” the monitor said. “I hyde-methanol started seeping in-
iron bench at the
“How about switching on some cated by streptococcal septicemia. read you loud and clear. Now, let’s to my chastity-suit, I knew I’d have

music, Chief? I didn’t think to
bring anything waterproof to read.”
“You’ll hear music from me,” Dr.
McQueen said. “This is a big day
for BICUSPID, Johnny.
firsttime one of you kids ever
came home from a date with a
police escort. What happened?
Anne’s old man decide he didn’t
want a plastic-wrapped son-in-law?
He call the law to throw you off his
front porch?”
“Stick around down there, Johnny,” hear from you, Brother Bogardus.” an overwhelming desire to undress.
the Chief said. “I’m coming down “This is John Bogardus, the Dr. McQueen cleared his throat,
Voice of Purity,” I said, “broad- a sound which broadcast very like
to join you.”
casting from the bottom of Central a growl. “Okay, Johnny. Let’s have
It’s the HEARD him turning the moni- University’s lovely BICUSPID a synopsis of your Sunday outing.”
1 tor microphone over to one of pool. You want I should dedicate
the technicians out in the contami- my next record to the gang at the 66TT’S springtime, Chief,” I said.
labs. Oh hell, I thought. Here brewery?” “You know what the month
nated
comes a chewing-out that would “Happy to hear you testify, of May does to a young man’s
leave me raw up to the duodenum. canned-goods,” the technician said. fancy, and reticuloendothelial sys-
The worst thing about being told “The I.U. game is on the radio now. tem, and all.”
off when you’ve done something You want me to pipe it to the “I wish you’d stop seeing her,”

“My air-filter got bolixed,” I ex- dumb is the futility of being told phones so you can hear our team the Chief said. “You’ve got fifteen
plained into the microphone, “so I about it. Nobody knew better than smear ’em?” of the most nubile girls in the Mid-

leaned on the gas pedal pretty I that it was stupid to stay outside “I’ll take your word for it that west living in the Big Tank with
they’ll do “My sport you. Sweet, intelligent — available.
heavy on the way home. A friendly the Big Tank for eight solid hours. that,” I said.

gendarme named Bjornson turned
up.”
“You should be more careful,
Johnny. I’d hate to have to post
you.” Like the rest of us, Dr. Mc-
Queen did post-mortems on the
germ-free animals who died of old
age or stir-fever in the Big Tank,
or had to be sacrificed as routine
Hydraulic pressure aside, a chas-
tity-suit isn’t designed to hold a
man more than about four.
It took Dr. McQueen a quarter
hour to get suited up and scrubbed.
Then he came down the ladder to
join me in the pale green soup, his
airhose snaking along behind him
like strayed umbilical cord.
is balk-line billiards.” Eighty years So why did you have to get the
ago, Central University’s gate re- hots for an outsider?”
ceipts from football had made pos- “It’s that ol’ debbil incest-taboo,
sible thefirst BICUSPID program Chief,” I said. “I’ve slept amongst
in gnotobiotics, using mice and those fifteen canned peaches for the
roaches and hamsters. Despite this last twenty-three years. The result
historical tie between me and foot- is that my warmest feeling toward
ball, I felt no special affinity for the any of them is brotherly love. Who
He sat game. itches to shack with a sibling?”

sterility controls. Last winter, for on the bench beside me. Before he “Trouble with you, canned- “Your only alternative seems
cut in his suit radio, he leaned close goods, is you’ve got no school to be a lifetime of cold showers,”
the first time, the Chief had had to
autopsy one of us Lapins. and touched his helmet to mine. spirit,” the monitor complained. McQueen said. “Speaking of

12
GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 13
canned peaches, have you seen
Mary deWitte today?”
“No.”
“Mary has extramural interests,
too,” he said. “Her intended
basketball player in pre-Law.
fellow roughly fifteen feet tall.
Mary has been gone all day. I pre-
sume that been visiting this
she’s
legal obelisk; and I’m beginning to
feel the twinges of fatherly anxiety.
But tell me about Anne, Johnny.”
“I met her at a concert last fall,”
I said,not giving a damn about the
safety man and the monitor kibitz-
ing.“Anne didn’t bug at my chas-
the way most of the hens
tity-suit
on campus do. This impressed me.
She liked the way I talked, even
though she could hear my voice
only from the speaker on the chest
of my suit. I liked fine the
listened. So we had a date. Lots
dates. Said goodnight by shaking
hands — Please
Excuse My Glove.
“One evening we drove down to
the beach at Hudson Lake. As we
lay there on the sand, I pointed out
for Anne the red disk of Mars. I
told her about the men up there,
at New Caanan and Bing City and
Bitterwater, working to uncover
one world while they built a new
one. I told her about the mystery
of the Immermann skull, and what
it might mean. I pointed to the stars
and named them for her. All the
time, Chief, I kftew that I could
touch Betelgeuse or Phobos
easily as I could touch Anne.
14
“Anyway, we went swimming
we were in Tech-
together, just like
nicolorand VistaVision. I screwed
the cap on my air-filter and
is a breathed from the reserve tank.
A Anne wore a bikini. I might as well
have been aboard a midget sub-
marine. After that evening, we de-
cided not to go swimming any
more; and Anne started wearing
strict and conservative clothes.”
“What happened today,
Johnny?” McQueen asked me.
“What could happen?” I de-
manded. “We broke up. She’s con-
taminated, poor girl. She’s been
aswarm with bacteria and yeasts
and molds and miscellaneous pro-
tista ever since the obstetrician
slapped her on the rump, while
I’m Boy Galahad, fifty-six one-
way she hundredths percent purer than
of Ivory Soap. My
strength is as the
strength of ten, so I told
noon today that she’ll have to find
herself a new boy friend. She needs
a guy who can eat the other half
of the pizza with her, someone who
can lend her his comb and breathe
the air she breathes. It took me
weeks to steelmy soul to the pros-
pect of kissing Anne off — there’s
an ironic metaphor for you, Chief
- but I did it.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny,” McQueen
said.
“I’m afraid I’ve diluted the anti-
septic with my tears,” I said. “Just
as singing those old formaldehyde
blues.”
GALAXY
I’d soaked for the regulation I replaced the trap and filter
half-hour now, and the gage of my with a fresh unit and fit a charged
reserve tank was on red, so I got up bottle of air onto the back of the
Then
to go. “I can see myself at ninety- suit. gave every inch of
I
five,” I said. “I’ll be patriarch of the my an inspection for
chastity-suit
Big Tank. The oldest male virgin worn bubbles forming on
spots, for
on campus. See you inside, Chief.” its moist surface — an inspection as
I climbed up the ladder through painstaking and as sure as a win-
dow
the second manhole over the for- washer’s check of his working
maldehyde sump and stepped out harness, or an exhibition jumper’s
into the sterile precincts of the Big folding of his parachute. Satisfied
Tank. Home. was all set for my next
that the suit
adventure into the world of normal,
T STEPPED into a shower-booth, septic human beings, I racked it
A let the water blast the formal- and the helmet in my locker and
dehyde off my chastity-suit, popped walked out into the garden.
off my helmet and stripped. Air There I stretched out on the
against sweat-steamed skin felt grass under the ultra-violets, re-
good. I showered again, naked. I freshing my tan while I waited for
blotted myself dry and dressed in Dr. McQueen to come up from
fresh shorts, all the clothing a man the sump.
needed in the air-conditioned The garden was my favorite
Elysium of the Big Tank. I carried room in the Big Tank. It was in
Anne at
my suit into the locker room to establishing the garden that I’d
refit it for my next trip outside. discovered that my Machiavellian
Snapping mind
its collar to the bushing is articulated to a pair of
of the compressed-air supply and green thumbs. The crafty bit came
turning on the pressure, I inflated over coffee in the cafeteria. I, of
my suit so that it stood on its head- course, just sat there to listen and
less shoulders, ready for inspection. talk; not even C.U. Cafeteria coffee
The wet air-filter thathad al- is aseptic enough for a Lapin to
most asphyxiated me drink, even if there were some way
had been
caused, I discovered, by a break in to get a cup of the stuff inside the
the moisture-trap of the unit. Care- helmet of a sterility-suit. Anyway,
ful checking assured me that the I chided these two graduate stu-
dents from the botany department
filter had failed-safe bacteriologi-
cally. No outside bugs were in my about the research possibilities
suit. I might have suffocated, but they were missing by not growing
my corpse would have remained any gnotobiotic green stuff. I gave
uncorrupted. Such a comfort. them the Boom-Food pitch. Would
WORLD IN A BOTTLE 15
cabbages, grown in an environment
grow large as king
free of bacteria,
farouks? I hit them with the Ad-
vance the Frontiers of the Biologi-
cal Science line: could soil-nitrates
be utilized by legumes in the abso-
lute absence of Nitrobacteriaceae?
TP HE two botanists leaped to my
vegetable bait like a brace of
starving aphids. A couple days
after I’d commenced my con, three
tons of quartz sand were shipped
through the Big Tank’s main auto-
clave. The lifeless stuff was poured
over a grill of perforated pipes. The
pipes were connected to a brew-
tank of hydroponic juices, and the
wet sand was planted with germ-
free seeds of grass, tomatoes, car-
rots, and other useful herbs. We
Lapins had a ball, planting the
aseptic seeds in the dirtless dirt
eagerly as a band of ribbon-hungry
4-H’ers. What had been our sun-
room blossomed, after a decent
period of germination, into our
lawn and garden.
For some reason, the garden of
our Eden never got an apple-tree.
But we did have lettuce on our
sterile sandwiches now, and fresh
tomatoes, infinitely superior in tex-
ture and taste to the “radared” fruit
— almost pureed by the high-
energy beams that made it germ-
free — that we’d grown up on.
The lesser mammals with whom
we twenty-nine Lapins shared the
Big Tank, the rabbits and guinea-
16
pigs and hamsters and like small
much for fresh vege-
fowl, didn’t go
tables,having developed a palate
for an autoclaved diet. The mon-
keys, though, proved to be real
competitors for carrots and raw
sweet corn. They had to be locked
out of the garden, rather as cer-
tain of their disobedient relatives
had been.
I reached out from my supine,
sun-drenched position to pull a
turnip. Ishook off the moist sand
and wiped the hydroponic wetness
off my shorts, to munch grittily
while I waited for the Chief to join
me.
As soon as he’d soaked in the
formaldehyde mixture for half an
hour, Dr. McQueen came up
through the manhole. Under the
shower he squirted the chemical
B.O. off his modified sterility-unit,
then came out into the garden to
join me, dragging his air-hose. We
sat side by side on the park bench
I’d built beside the onion-patch. (I
was fond of my onions. They were
the only living things in the Big
Tank with the honest stink of life
to them). “Where did you plant
the marijuana, Johnny?” the Chief
asked me. His voice was muffled
by the wetness of his suit-speaker.
“Now, there’s a pregnant idea,” I
said. “We won’t plant muggles,
Chief. We’ll plant tobacco. All we
Lapins need to keep us happy is a
good solid vice like smoking.” I
looked at the Chief. “Why’d you
GALAXY
follow me here, Dr. McQueen? I their tardy antibody response. I spared that indignity. Know how “Thank you, John,” he said. “I
know I’ve been naughty.” suppose, though, that the immi- I’ve got it figured, Chief? We’ve
often wonder, though, whether the
“Self-pity doesn’t became a man, nence of death is as helpless before got to make provision for exoga- Nuremberg Principles really gave
Johnny,” he said. love as the locksmith.” Dr. Mc- mous matings, right? Novelty, in us the right to build and populate
“And why the hell not?” I de- Queen sighed. “If it’s what you other words, is essential to ro- this germless microcosm. We
told
manded, my blood-pressure ready want, Johnny, I’ll ignore every- mance. Here’s the way we’ll work your mothers when they volun-
to challenge any manometer in thing we both know about the it. We’ll set half the
babies, boys teered that the results of raising
sight. “If I can feel compassion for probable consequences and help and girls together, on one side of humans gnotobiotically would be
some poor joker on TV, why you break out of here Think important. They have indeed.
can’t . . .
a wall, half on the other side. We’ll
Ihurt a little for myself — for John how embarrassed you’d feel, have established two tribes of kids, Thousands of lives have been
Bogardus, swaddled from his dar- though, if you died of a B. subtilis each growing up in ignorance of the saved by what we’ve learned here.
ling by a damned plastic diving- septicemia or a fulminant chicken- other; and we’ll keep them strictly We saw to it, as we’d also prom-
suit? I was — I am — in love with pox the day before the wedding.” apart till they’re in their middle ised your mothers, that your health
Anne, Doctor.” “I could have married Anne, teens. Then, maybe the night of hasn’t sufferedby reason of experi-
“Your marriage-night would kill and made her either an unkissed the Junior Prom, we’ll cut a door- ments, that you’ve been given the
you, John,” he said. bride or an early widow,” I said. way in that wall and introduce education you need to earn a good
“Neither of these alternatives them to each other.” living, and especially that your
T JUMPED up with ready-made struck me as an attractive career dignity as human beings has al-
fists, then flopped down onto for the woman I love, so I left her. ways been respected. The core
the grass, laughing at the picture
I saw. Battle of the Century. In
It’s so logical it’s practically simple

arithmetic. Anne put up a fight to

D R. McQueen
will
And
smiled. “That
be a splendid evening,
a situation to make an
question is, did we have the right
to involve fellow humans, not yet
John.
this corner, wearing helmet, chas- keep me, Chief; it was most warm- anthropologist’s mouth water. You bom, in a process the end of which
tity-suit, and thirty-five feet of air- ing to my amour-propre. Women may have found the answer to one we couldn’t entirely predict?
hose, Roy McQueen, Ph. D. In the aren’t logical like us men of science. of your children’smajor problems. Enough of this, though. My
con-
far corner, clad only in brown What a stinking situation!” I only wish we had as simple a science is my own problem. For
trunks (grass-stained on the seat, “It is,” Dr. McQueen said. “But solution to the current troubles of your immediate relief I can offer
folks), John Bogardus, M.D. “It remember, John, lovers outside the John Bogardus.” only: keep busy.”
makes a grand old dirty joke, Big Tank often get just as star- “Don’t blame yourself for what’s “Work is dandy, but liquor’s
doesn’t it?” crossed as you and Anne.” happened to me,” I said. “I’ve car- quicker,” I said. “A wound of the
“It makes a painful reality,” Dr. “And they have dental caries to ried on pretty bad today, but that heart calls for a therapeutic
McQueen said. “I know how you contend with, which we don’t,” I doesn’t mean that I or any of the drunk.”
must lie awake nights, thinking said. “Somehow, Chief, we’ll get other Lapins blame you for caus- “I’ll honor your prescription,
about gradually acclimatizing this experiment into its second gen- ing us to be birthed into the Big Doctor,” the Chief said. “The mo-
yourself to the contaminated world eration, past the miseries of the Tank. It had to be done. Once Dr. ment I get outside, I’ll Seitz you
in which Anne lives. You know, gnotobiotic first-born, we Adams Reyniers had made gnotobiotics some of my own Scotch.” He stood
though, that the death-rate with the and Eves who were delivered into possible, a colony of germ-free up and caught hold of his air-hose.
lower animals who’ve tried this ac- purity by aseptic Caesarian sec- humans became available. Y ou did “Forgive me for behaving so like

climatization is steep. Even the tion. Maybe we’ll have to toss coins a good and honest job of bringing Pollyanna, John,” he said. “I wish
survivors don’t survive very long, or draw cards to pair up for parent- us colonists up, Chief. As good a I could offer you relief more potent
because of their low gut-tone and hood. But any kids we raise will be job as anyone could do.” than Scotch and sympathy.”

18 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 19

 “Such spiritual Band-aids are all as a double-barreled ballista the closeness of other humans. evening, you’d be most welcome.”
the help there is, Chief. Thank you cocked to fire twin rounds; I turned We’re not erotic about this, “I’ll be proud and happy,” the
for them.” my attention to the girlscape be- Johnny. Not necessarily erotic, I Firebird said. She scooted even
He
slapped me on the shoulder side me, quite innocent of covet- mean. We have our moments, too, closer.
with his gloved right hand, then ousness, my
interest purely aes- or the Shrinkers would long since I found her propinquity not at
walked through the shower-room, thetic. Nohamburger, this. Fire- have taken over the world in spite allunpleasant. Was I perhaps of
trailing his black air-hose, and bird Damien was filet mignon. of their dreadful handicap. We’re the Flesh-Presser clan myself?
dropped down the manhole into But she wasn’t Anne. the people who make brilliant bar- The girT smelled good, the faint
the formaldehyde sump on his way Suddenly I was contrite toward bers. The kind who say hello to wholesome feminine odor of my
back out into the world. my fellow captive. “You’re looking you with a Roman handshake and Lapin foster-sisters — a perfume
I sat on my bench in my arti- splendid, Miss Damien,” I said. a clasp on the shoulder. We’re the an outside wench, host to a uni-
ficial garden in the middle of the “And you got a face peeled off doctors with the healing touch, the verse of bacteria, could approxi-
great steel womb I’d been deliv- the iodine bottle. Tell mamma most tender nurses. We’re the mate only with Pepsodent and
ered into, and I thought about my where it hurts.” Flesh-Pressers.” She gently the most meticulous attention to
Anne. “Don’t delve, doll.” squeezed my shoulder-muscle her underarms, I gather from TV.
“Woman-trouble?” she asked. again to demonstrate. “Tell me “How am I to entertain you,
66 TF I had a chisel and about “The term is tautological,” I said. whafs the matter, Johnny. Maybe sir?” the Firebird asked me. “I have
four tons of Carrara marble,” “Woman and trouble are syno- I can help.” current gossip, vintage scandal,
the girl standing behind me said, nyms. If the language had any clever anecdotes lifted from the
“I’dhack me out a statue on your logic the words would rhyme.” 66TVTO magic touch will cure my steaming pages of my autoclaved
model, and call it The Thinker.” The Firebird put a freckled arm trouble,” I said. “Anne and Reader’s Digest, imitations of bird-
Dorothy — the Firebird — Damien across my shoulder and squeezed I are through. It was hopeless. I songs — heavy on the mating-
plumped her little backside onto my deltoid with her resting hand. was like the goldfish in love with calls, these — and sheer adoration.”
the bench beside me and scintil- I shrugged. “Don’t try to shake me the cat. So I called our romance to She paused. “Scratch that last of-
lated eagerness to converse. loose, Johnny,” she said. “I’m try- a halt today and drove home in fering, Johnny,” she said. “It’s un-
want to talk to anyone
I didn’t ing to find out what sort of people my littlegreen sports-car, feeling hygienic for a wear her heart
girl to
at the moment, certainly not to the you are. Whether you’re a Shrinker a green and hardly sporty at
little on her even here.”
sleeve,
Firebird. To employ a metaphor or a Flesh-Presser.” all. Please don’t mention this again, “I’ve lost touch with the Big
from an appetite less exalted than “Obviously, you’re of the Firebird; not till I’m old and bald Tank social whirl these last few
love, seeing the Firebird after los- Shrinker persuasion,” I said. and my wound has healed to a thin weeks,” I said. “I’ve been spending
ing Anne was too much like being “Hoo-hah! Shrinkers are the white scar.” all my alive-time in the greater
offered hamburger after having had other race from me,” the Firebird “Can I say one thing?” world of Valparaiso, Indiana. Bring
a filet mignon snatched from under said. “They’re the people who “You will, so do.” me abreast of the local gossip, Fire-
nose. quail at shaking hands, who never “I’m really sorry, Johnny.” bird, if you please.”
Still, as my peripheral vision slap a back nor playfully pinch. “Thank you, Firebird,” I said. “Gladly. First there’s the case
took in the Firebird’s brilliantly They hate to be crowded, don’t “The Chief promised to send some of Mary
deWitte. She’s still on the
distributed five-foot-three, I real- like to be touched. My
sort of therapeutic juices through the trail of her basketball star — a
ized thatmy metaphor was false. people, though, tend to cuddle Seitz filter. If you’ve a mind to fellow named Lofting — confident
That flame-colored hair and im- like puppies, or like cattle in a sample a little sterile White Horse, that somehow they’ll manage to
pish, freckled face; that halter taut thunderstorm; we take comfort in perhaps tie one on with me this compromise her hateful purity . . .

20 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 21

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned filtered through by now. Let’s go Karl was talking with Gloria Moss, culinary proteins might go so far
Mary,” she said, seeing that I was wet our Scotch aperitif, and have whose academic specialty was as to say denatured.) The nearest
frowning. dinner.” group dynamics. She demonstrated any Lapin came to ingesting a bac-
“I was just thinking,” I said. “I’m not hungry,” I said. “I just muscular dynamics so attractively terium was here at the table, where
“Miss deWitte and might get to-
I ate a turnip.” that when she walked about the we ate billions of bacterial corpses.
gether to establish an Amour “Will turnips make you big and campus in her chastity-suit she The bugs achieved a post-mortem
Anonymous group in the Big strong? You need solider food, like drew whistles, a truly remarkable revenge by triggering the produc-
Tank.” Scotch. That’s my professional accolade when you consider that tion of faint bacterial antibodies in
“If you do, Johnny,” the Firebird opinion, Doctor.” She got up and the c-suit is somewhat less faithful our blood.
said softly, “write me up a card as .tugged at my
hand. “Come on, to the wearer’s form than a poncho. Besides the steaks and the myr-
a charter member.” Johnny. I’m not about to let you Keto Hannamuri sat the four-place iads of murdered microbes, we
“The Chief was talking about sit here all evening and brood.” table with Bud and Karl and had an aseptic salad prepared from
Mary deWitte only a few minutes “Is this your prescription, sweet Gloria. He was my fellow-medic Tank-grown hydroponic vegeta-
ago,” I said. “Hasn’t she accepted Firebird?” I asked. “That I’m to go among McQueen’s Beasts, a pedia- tion, dressed with Roquefort, the
the fact that we Lapins can’t hope back to the madding crowd, mingle trician. Kids loved him. Wearing cheese that vies with penicillin in
to breed with those jungle weeds with my twenty-eight fellows in his sterility-suit as he made his my private hall of fame as the
outdoors?” aseptic togetherness? Well, you’re Ped Ward rounds, that Oriental noblest product ever a mold gave
“Have you accepted that fact, probably right.” I got up from my smile showing through the face- man. The Scotch that Dr. Mc-
Johnny?” the Firebird asked. park-bench to walk with her, plate of his mask, Keto seemed to Queen had promised to send was
“Apt question,” I admitted. hand-in-hand, to the dining room, the television-nurtured youngsters on hand, Seitz-filtered into a ster-
“Sure. I’ve decided that Anne is as stopping en route at my room for the very model the friendly
of ile White Horse bottle. Not really
unavailable to me as Mars is. I a shirt. Dinner was a formal affair extra-solar alien, complete with caring to dilute my poignancies
don’t know which makes me more in the Big Tank, shirts for the gen- space-suit. Besides his flair for with alcohol, I passed the whiskey
bitter, Firebird; losingAnne or be- tlemen and shoes for all. showmanship, Keto was a remark- among the tables nearby.
ing denied the chance at the stars. ably fine doctor. As we passed his
Now that the solar system is get- r >
HE other Lapins were already table, he slapped the Firebird’s '
I 'HE Firebird was managing to
ting man’s footprints all over it,
|
eating. They greeted me and short-shorted callipygia in a kin- A stay quite close to me, though
now that the Orion ships are slam- especially the Firebird with jokes ship-gesture of the Flesh-Presser technically remaining on her own
ming out to Mars and back on a and fellowshippy sounds. clan. side of the table, eating and talk-
busline’s schedule, and the biggest much at home with
I felt very I felt a sudden overwhelming ing and now and then flashing me
ship of all is being fitted for deep them. There was Bud Dorsey, our love for all these people, my such a glance of yearning that I
space at the back of the moon, the weight-lifting astrophysicist, his brothers-and-sister-in-exile. I took was pierced by the sight of her and
constellations don’t seem much magnificent u.v.-blackened body a my tray to sit down quick with by a remembered line of e. e. Cum-
further off than Chicago. But not study in the surface musculature the Firebird before my reserve, de- mings’s: your slightest look
. .

for me.” human male. At his table was

of the pleted by the emotional beating I’d easily will unclose me though I
“You think you’re bitter, bud, Karl Fyremeister, who has a prac- taken at noon, gave way. have closed myself as fingers . .

you should hear me with my hair tically complete collection of the The menu featured radared Just as suddenly, I realized that
down,” the Firebird said. “But airmail stamps of the world to con- steak. The meat wasgerm-free mine was a highly pathological
we’ve had dirges enough for one sole him on long winter evenings. and somewhat tenderized by the state of mind, the rinse-phase of
evening. Your whiskey should be All the stamps are quite sterile. high-energy beams. (A purist in the brain-wash. Autism can be

22 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 23

produced as surely by loneliness had once been a picture window, WENT to the phone in the cor- “Mary knows how likely it is

or unrequitable love as by injec- overlooking a green stretch of

1 ner of the dining-room and that she’ll never grow old,” Dr.
tions of LSD-25. Central campus, a source of com- dialed Dr. McQueen’s home. McQueen said. “But I suspect that
So I turned my attention to my fort to us all. An Air Force jet, “Chief? John Bogardus. Mary de- she hasn’t said a word to her hus-
environment, consciously flexing though, pulling out of a dive invis- Witte still hasn’t come home to band. I’d better go now, John.
my muscles of mental health. I ibly above us, had sonic-boomed a we’d better find her
roost. I think My plane leaves in twenty min-
answered the Firebird’s sallies crack in both panes of the double before she does something splen- utes.”

with automatic flippancy. I ate my glass of the window, causing a gen- did and foolish.” “Don’t let this prey on you too
steak, savoring its flavor. And I eral alert as we realized that some “Like perhaps marrying her con- much, Chief,” I said. “We Lapins
looked about the dining-room, ex- airborne Proteus or fortunate taminated basketball-player and have free will, too. We’re old
amining it as though I’d never Staphylococcus or lonely Asper- setting out on a suicidal honey- enough to bear the responsibilities
eaten there before. gillis might have invaded our for- moon?” Dr. McQueen suggested. for our own actions.”

The Lapins’ dining-room in the tress through this almost micro- “You’re right, John; we should “Thank you, Johnny.” Dr. Mc-
Big Tank is about the size of a scopic breach in our walls. prevent that sort of thing. The rub Queen hung up.
railroad restaurant car. (Not that Careful decontamination had is, late. I got a phone-
we’re too I returned to the table with no
I’ve ever been aboard a train to saved our sterility, but now the call from Mary a few minutes af- enthusiasm for the remaining half
make the comparison. The strin- Big Tank had no window. ter I got home this evening. She of my steak. “What’s up, John-
gencies of the sterility-suit tie such “I was saying . . .” the Firebird abandoned her sterility-suit in a ny?” the Firebird asked me.
of us to the Big Tank on a short said, in a firm voice. “Now we are twenty-eight,” I
downtown Chicago hotel room at
leash: the most sanitary of outside You were saying?”
“Sorry, doll.
noon today, and married her fledg- said. “They were married in Chi-
washrooms would prove a pesthole “That Mary deWitte isn’t here.
ling lawyer in a civil ceremony at cago at one o’clock.”
to a Lapin.) The kitchen, which Do you suppose she’s still outside?
“How wonderful!” the Firebird
one o’clock. I tried to find out
was under the supervision of the She checked out her sterility-suit
from her where she was, but she exulted.
Firebird, our dietitian, could have about the same time you did.”
just said she was very happy and She stood and pounded our
been squeezed into a telephone “That’s a good nine hours ago,”
hung up.” table-top with the vase, scatter-
booth. It served chiefly as receiv- I said, glancing at the clock set
ing-station for the autoclave and over Saturn on our mural. “Either “Hell! What are we going to ing damp daisies on the cloth.

the radar-room, through which all Mary has been on a restricted- do?” “Quiet, everybody! I’ve got an an-
our food came. With its ten little fluids diet, or True Love has made “I’m flying to Chicago, where nouncement.” The chatter over
four-place tables, each covered her*careless of visceral discomfort.” I’llask the help of the police in dessert simmered down. “Mary
with a gypsy red-checkerboard “Don’t be coarse, Johnny.” finding Mary,” the Chief said. deWitte got married today —
cloth, set with a green glass vase of “The demands of the kidney are “Once I’ve run down the happy here’s to the bride!” Firebird
Tank-grown daisies, our dining- as exigent as those of the heart, couple, though, damned if I know slopped two White
ounces of
room was friendly enough. The Firebird,” I said. “I think I’d better what I’ll do next. Shall I stand Horse into her glass and downed
Tank-ness of it, though, was em- call Dr. McQueen.” outside the bridal chamber with them at a heroic gulp. She sat,
phasized by a mural along one “You’ll only cause trouble for a syringeful of broad-spectrum an- sputtering. The chatter at the
wall, a fantasy of stars and men her and Lofting,” Firebird said. tibiotics, waiting for Mary to other tables crescendoed as our
and microbes that half a dozen of “I’ve decided that it’s better to
sneeze?” colleagues reminded one another
us had planned and painted one be lovesick than dead,” I explained,
“They’ll have a short marriage,” of the significance of the Firebird’s
week. Where the mural was now getting up from the table.
I said. news.

24 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 25

 “Will you also propose the toast death is what she’s got to pay for “She’ll die,” I said. exalted enough for the honor. Our
at Mary’s wake?” I asked. a few days’ happiness. Don’t you “One flight in the sunlight, then predicament is not dissimilar. The
think the price is fair, Johnny?” her wings fall off. We Lapins are primal urge, John, will in time
X\T HAT May I?” I nodded. overwhelm the curse of contigu-
66
“ say!”
a hideous thing to
said
“If I did, I’d
. .
be paying it,” I
“No, Firebird. Seizing a
.
a fragile race.
Dorsey poured some of the Scotch ity.”

“It was, Firebird,” I said. “For- little love and poetry before the into Firebird’s empty water-glass “Could “But it’s not
be,” I said.
give me, please. This thing has left sacrifice is great stuff for epics, and sipped it. just sex that’s agonizing me, Bud.
me in a wounding mood.” but it doesn’t make much sense Prison has whole constellations of
“Is Mary really in such dan- to me. When I’m married I’ll want 66 rT' HE men who devised the frustration. However warm and
ger?” Firebird asked. to see my children all the way Nuremberg Principles failed understanding our guards may be,
“She may last a week, not much through Spock and Gesell. I’ll us when they forgot to underwrite a prison, and half of
this is still
more. Today she’ll meet Klebsiel- want to grow old with my wife, if the romantic aspirations of human us are stir-crazy. Why did Mike
la, probably; perhaps E. coli and you’ll excuse the com.” guinea-pigs,” I said. “As a result Bohrman take off his chastity-suit
Shigella. Pretty soon she’ll start “WeFlesh-Pressers have a natu- of theiroversight, it seems that last winter, to walk barefoot
to sniffle with the first common ral reverence for corn,” the Fire- McQueen’s Beasts have made a through the snow with only his
cold she’s ever experienced. Polio bird said. “It’s part of the syn- bigger contribution to sociology suit-shortson, till he collapsed
virus and the ECHO
group may drome. Johnny, really wantif you than to bacteriology. We’ve from the cold? It was a prison-
get to her first, and establish what you want those
just said, demonstrated that familiarity break, Bud. So was Mary de-
themselves before there is suffi- things badly enough to set up a doesn’t breed. Here we are, now, Witte’s witless marriage. They
cient growth of bacterial flora to marriage on half a love, give me fourteen pairs of healthy Ameri- were both suicide, the lifer’s one
give them competition. Her intes- a call. Anytime. Even though I cans in their middle twenties, and way over the wall.”
tinal walls are thin and weak, so don’t set your blood aflame.” She neither a marriage nor a pregnan- “Stir-crazy?” Dorsey asked.
she may suffer megacolon as a stood up, a little unsteady, and cy amongst us. Why?” “You’re exaggerating, John.”
result of gas-producing fermenta- rubbed her hand across her eyes ‘Tell me, John,” Dorsey said. “Open your eyes, Bud,” I said.
tion. From a pathologist’s point in a tardy effort to hide tears.
“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “It’s “Look at Karl Fyrmeister’s hands,
of view, I’ll find it most instruc- “Save the brushoff till tomorrow,
because we’re fond of our foster- for example. I’m violating no
tive to learn the manner of Mary Johnny,” she said. “Goodnight.”
sisters, but we’re also a little medical confidence to tell you that
Lofting’s death. From the stand- “Goodnight, sweet Firebird,” I
point of a friend and fellow Lapin, bored with them. And they with Karl got his dermatitis as the re-
said. She turned and walked
though, I’ll think her death a quickly from the dining-room.
us. We men know every canned sult of compulsive hand-washing.

damned shame.”
“I’m getting a
little
ny,” the Firebird said, “and a
tle maudlin. So, say you’re right.
After all, you’re the doctor and
I’m just a dumb dietitian. But
don’tyou think maybe it’s worth
while,what Mary’s done? Con-
demning herself to die, I mean, be-
cause she’s really in love, and
Bud Dorsey, our weight-lifting
drunk, John- astronomer, left his three com-
lit- panions to bring his coffee over
and sit with me. Bud was the
Lapin who’d have been a Central
U. fullback as an undergraduate,
if only Dr. McQueen had let him
play the game
“What happen to Mary de-
will
Witte, John?” he asked.
in a chastity-suit.
peach’s flirtations and frailties and There’s a fine neurotic symptom
conversational gambits so thor- for a germ-free Lapin! If I’m exag-
oughly that one of us could no gerating our collective un-sanity,
more marry one of them than the Bud, tell me why Lucy Cashdol-
average outsider could marry his lar has become an apprentice al-
kid sister.” coholic. Why does Fizz Ewell,
“Even that’s been done, John, with an I.Q. that must range in
just for principle’s sake,” Dorsey the 150’s and the most brhliant
said. “The Pharaohs wed their sis- record the Nuclear Engineering
ters because no one else was Department has ever seen, spend

26 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 27

six hours a day working cross- want to join up for the chase after that Martian talus to jar larger Air tian micro-organism that’s since
word puzzles? Why do you have interplanetary white whales.” Force appropriations from Con- gone extinct from drought and a
that tic of your left orbicularis “It’s only natural,” I said. “When gress, keep it from me,” I said. “I shortage of hosts? The big ques-
oculi? Why am I an insomniac, we were kids, Bud, we saw the cherish the illusion that the Immer- tion, to my mind, is why none of
with a nasty barbiturate habit? same TV
programs, the same mann is genuine, and a mystery.” our explorers has yet found any
Look around, Bud. You’ll see that space-adventure movies, as the sign of the rest of the expedition.”
our little home has turned into kids who are now the men in space.
uT T isn’t phony, and it’s sure “Expedition?” I asked.
something of a snakepit. Our neu- Every boy in America was condi- A as hell a mystery,” Dorsey “A man could hardly have been
roses are only garter snakes so tioned to long for a space-suit. I’m said.“Colonel Immermann’s initial alone on Mars,” Dorsey said.
far; but they’ll grow into cobras, one of the ones who could have report of the skull’s discovery was “From where?”
given time and further frustration made it, Bud. I love medicine, and verified by every member of the “Pick any ‘F’- or ‘G’-type star
to feed on.” I think I’m going to be a damned Orion Gamma’s crew, a gang with planets,” Dorsey said. “After
fine pathologist; but I’d turn in my recuited mostly from Service- all, it’s easier to posit extrasolar
T\ORSEY’S left eye twitched as M.D. for an Ordinary Spaceman’s Academy grads and other high man than to suppose a flint-drive
though my mentioning his ticket without a second’s hesitation. moral types. The peculiarity I’m spaceship was devised by some
tic had triggered He self-con-
it. When I read, two years ago, that talking about isn’t forensic. It’s early neolithic von Brauns.”
sciously raised his fingers to the Immermann had discovered that functional. If you were to mix in “I’d never expected to see an
vellicating muscle, more to hide human skull in the oxide rubble the Immermann skull with an as- astrophysicist take off on such a
than to soothe it. below Roosevelt Ridge in Syrtis sortment of skulls of modern west- flight of improbabilia,” I said.
“While our keepers were send- Major, I cried for the first time ern men, age forty or thereabouts, “John, would you like to hear a
ing Lapins through every major since I was six years old. Twenty only one characteristic would allow thread-recording I just got from
discipline offered on the campus,” thousand years ago there was man you to pick it out from the mixture the radio observatory Ade-
at
he seems they’d have done
said, “it on Mars. And I’m confined to again. ‘Look, Mom—No Cavities!’ laide?” Dorsey asked.
well to have trained one of us in Earth for life.” Like us Lapins, Immermann Man “Hi-fi?”
psychiatry.” “How much do you know about had acarious teeth.” “The radio sky is strictly spark-
“For what?” I demaftded. “So the Immermann skull, John?” Dor- “Because he was germ-free?” I gap quality, no fi at all,” Dorsey
we could have someone right here sey asked me. suggested. said, getting up to lead the way
in the Tank to spoon out our “What I’ve said. Is there more?” Or medical
“It’s possible. his from the dining-room. “This trans-
soothing-syrups? Man, we’ve got “One point,” Dorsey said. “My science may have gotten oral bac- mission you’re going hearto
a right to be stir-crazy. We’re life field, radio astronomy, is a deep- teria under control with drugs. doesn’t have anything to do with
prisoners and we’ve committed space sort of specialty; but I do Maybe he preserved his teeth by the ordinary 2 1.1 2 -centimeter
no crime.” I stopped to get my from time to time condescend to diet, or with fluorides in his drink- neutral-hydrogen radiation; but of
calm back. “Bud,” I asked, “do you read the Journal of Aerology and ing-water. Perhaps his mother course you realize that our big
know what I want more than the other parochial, solar-system never him eat candy when he
let paraboloid bowls can catch any-
anything else, next to Anne?” publications. Somewhere I read was a kid,” Dorsey said. “Who thing from hydrogen hiss to low-
“Of course I do,” Dorsey said. that there’s something odd about knows? Good teeth and all, though, flying bats. Remember the Christ-
“Like you’ve pointed out, John, that skull Colonel Immermann our Immermann Man died twenty mas celebration at New Caanan
we’ve got no secrets from each dug up.” thousand years ago. Why? Was he that was telecast to earth a couple
other. Your big itch is to step “If you’re suggesting that it was germ-free, as you suggest; and was years back? That show was caught
aboard one of fhe Orion ships. You a second Piltdown hoax, planted in he killed by some species of Mar- by the six-hundred-foot receiver

28 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 29

at Green Bank, West Virginia, and — talking; playing chess or bridge; of magnetic thread from his shirt The Australian thread had a
rebroadcast by C.B.S.” or sitting behind the closed glass pocket and fit it to the playback noisy background, sounding like a
doors of the TV alcove watching head of the machine. dozen rashers of bacon tossed into
IV the picture through stereo spec- “I’m interested in your unin- a too-hot skillet. Over this hissing,
tacles. We entered the alcove at structed reaction, John,” he said. the code began to sound. “DIT —
^XT e entered the Tank’s
Big the other end of the room, where “So don’t ask me any questions DIT .DIT-DIT
. . DIT-DIT- . . .

common room, where a few the record-player and music library tillyou’ve heard the whole se- DIT-DIT DIT-DIT-DIT
. . . . . .

of our colleagues sat reading or were, and closed the door. quence.” DIT - DIT - DIT - DIT - DIT -
writing notes for tomorrow’s classes Dorsey took a three-inch spool “Spin it, professor,” I said. DIT DIT - DIT DIT
- DIT - . . .
-

30 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 31

 result of some cosmic coincidence “. and whistle, ‘Shave and a
DIT-DIT-DIT ...” I dutifully en- have called it, country boy at heart
. .

tered my count of each burst of that I am, ‘Shave-and-a-Haircut, as unrelated to intelligent planning
Haircut, Two Bits,’” I went on;
Law.” “which musical interlude argues
in my pocket notebook. The
” as Bode’s
DIT’s two-bits!’
“You’ll have to explain that to for a certain degree of conviviality
sequence went: 1, 1; 2, 4; 3, 9; 4, “So it is,” I said. “Now we’ve
this groundsman,” I said.
on the part of our Centaurian. This
16; 5, 25; 6, 36; then 5, 2, 49; 8, 64. deciphered that broadcast, and
“Bode’s law, too, looks like an thing of his message, though. Do
There the count stopped climbing listened to the singing commercial.
intelligently devised code of some you think he was just looking for
and commenced again with the But I’m still puzzled, Bud. We
sort,” Dorsey said. “Take the se-
other hams to talk with?”
pair of ones, to repeat the whole don’t have the sponsor’s name and
set again. address; and I’m not at all sure I ries: 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192.
Dorsey cut off the machine. caught the name of his product. Add 4 to each number, and divide 1 1
HEN he’s awfully patient,
sending out the same ‘CQ’
“I’ve got four hours of the same What’s he advertising?” by ten. The result will be, when
you take the asteroid belt into for two solid years,” Dorsey said.
thing on this thread,” he said. “His presence,” Dorsey said. “I
consideration and fudge a little, “It’s hardly practical to communi-
“Want to hear it all, or have you interpret the message as a simple
very nearly the proportional dis- cate between stars, John. Broad-
got it already?” CQ.”
tance from the sun of the first seven casting from here to Alpha C. and
“It’s obvious, up to a point,” I “Seek you?” I asked.
back,it would take more than nine
asked. “It’s a table of the first eight “Xes. Radio-ham code for, ‘I’m planets. Accident, or evidence of
intelligent planning? Turned out years just to ask how’s the wife
natural integers and their squares, lonely — will somebody please talk
there are excellent physical rea- and kids.
except for the number seven, tome?”’
which for some reason is split in sons for this relationship, reasons “The way it looks to me, our
old Johann Elert Bode couldn’t friend out there got the duty of
two.” <^T’LL accept that interpretation
took me possibly have guessed. Things like cutting an educational recording
“It quite a while to rec- only till I can think of one
ognize what happened to that this make astronomers leary of to be broadcast automatically to
even more fantastic,” I said.
seven,” Dorsey said. “Listen to it teleology. Make them avoid the the rest of the galaxy. Kind of a
“O.K., John,” Dorsey said. “Get-
again.” He spooled the thread back splendid guess.” lighthouse, to help his race get in
ting the address of the station was
“Go ahead, make a splendid it might
touch with any relatives
and I listened again to the frac- a simple exercise, thanks to my
tured seven: “DIT DIT - DIT Digger confreres in Adelaide guess,” I said. “I won’t report you have. That same recording has
- - and
DIT - DIT DIT DIT.” Then the men to the Astronomers Union.” been played over and over again
. . . - at Harvard’s South Afri-
again the forty-nine clicks, seven- can radio observatory. We first
“Sure,” Dorsey said. “Alpha ever since, sending To Whom It

squared. Dorsey switched off the heard the message two years ago. Centauri, as the U. Cal’s five-meter Might Concern its dual message.
player. It’s' still being broadcast, un- Luna ’scope demonstrated several Simple math — and the most per-
“Let’s have the distillate of your changed. The fist on the key that years ago, has a system of at least sistent rhythmical cliche known to

cerebrations now, Brothers Bogar- sent out our arithmetic message three planets. We don’t know much man.”
dus,” he dropping into the
said, belongs to someone in the neigh- about those planets except their “What’s being done about it?” I

deep, red-leather easy chair be- borhood of Alpha Centauri.” time of revolution.” asked.
side the thread-player. “Hot damn!” “And that one of them has a citi- “We’ve answered,” Dorsey said.
I said. “But why
zen clever enough to calculate na- “A big radio noise on the moon is
“It’s syncopation, Brother Dor- didn’t I know about this? I read
squares and build a radio broadcasting the same message,
sey,’* I said. Time, and all. Why wasn’t this tural
“I’d never have given my own headlined?” transmitter . .
.” minus the syncopation, and adding
modest observations so high-flown “Because it’s guesswork,” Dor- “. . . one hell of a transmitter!” the next two terms; all this beamed
a title,” Dorsey said. “I’d simply sey explained. “This may be the Dorsey said. toward Alpha Centauri. And two

32 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 33


years ago, the Defense Depart-
ment cut other programs to the
bone to start construction of Orion
Zeta, the sixth of the big nuclear-
pulse ships. She’s up in von Weiz-
sacker Crater on the back of the
moon now, John, nearly finished.
She’s not meant to call at solar-
system ports.”
“The government thinks, and
you think, that our operator four
and a half light-years from here
was human,” I said.
“I can’t speak for the govern-
ment. But that’s what I think. Isn’t
it human to toss notes out to sea
in bottles? What’s more human
than dropping a joke into an arith-
metical table?”
“All we’ve got to do to prove
your splendid guess is to highjack
a germ-free spaceship,” I said.
“You and me and any of the other
Lapins who feel as we do. We’ll go
shake the hand — or other prehen-
sile member, if he’s not human
after all — of our Centaurian
thread-jockey. What’s to keep our
feet in the mud, when our heads
are ’way the hell out in a southern
constellation?”
“I Herr Doktor, that
gather,
you jest,” Dorsey said. “If you were
serious, I’d point out one minor
flaw in your blueprint for adven-
would take our little band
ture. It
hundred twenty-five
of pirates one
years to get to Alpha Centauri,
after we’d stolen the ship. That’s
with the gas-pedal to the floor.”
34
1
“I was joking,” I said. “I was to talk this up around the Big Tank
pretending to be the hero of one of to see how
many want to break out
those TV
space-operas we used to with us. What the sex-distribution
watch . . .But if I were serious, I of the volunteers is,
whether we’ve
don’t think a mere century and a got the right range of specialists
quarter would faze me. We to man Bud?”
a spaceship. Right,
couldn’t reach our goal in person, “It’s your dream,” Dorsey said.
Bud; but we could send our chil- “O.K. Immermann Man appears
dren’s children. All we’d need to to have been germ-free,” I said.
make the trip, if I were serious “Perhaps his culture had been gno-
about my suggestion, would be a tobiotic for so long that they’d
few more volunteers. A proper pro- forgotten the existence of micro-
portion of those volunteers had organisms. Landing on other
best be philoprogenitive females.” planets, they’d not rediscover the
danger of infectious disease till it
U r) O you think the BICUSPID was too late. Suddenly they’d
brass will be happy to see falling,dying of illnesses as mys-
its expensive guinea-pigs taking terious tothem as the plague was
off into space?” Dorsey asked. to men of the Renaissance. This
“Since ’29, John, there’s been may have been the manner in
eighty million bucks poured into which the original owner of the
gnotobiotics here at Central Uni- Immermann skull died, on Mars.
versity.We’re the payoff. We can We have a reasonable suspicion
hardly expect Dr. McQueen to that there was germ-free human
stand on the launching-pad, tossing life in our corner of the galaxy
roses and shouting Bon Voyage as twenty thousand years ago. Per-
we blast off forever.” haps, as you suggested, these visi-
“I think they could be per- tors were members of an explora-
suaded to be, if not enthusiastic, at tion party. From Alpha Centauri?
least resigned to our departure,” I Is our ham who hammered out the
said. table-of-squares a member of that
“It does prisoners good to plot gnotobiotic race? Is he our brother
escape-plans, even when they’re as in purity?”
obviously fantastic as this one,” “Go on, Johnny,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey said. “Go on, John.” “You ain’t even winded, yet.”
“As you say, our purpose in this “The Orion Zeta is being built
adventure would be to escape,” I for deep space,” I went on. “Some
said. “There’s no place on earth group from earth is certain to set
that can take us, so we’re forced out in her on the four-generation
to escape into space. We’ll have hop to Alpha Centauri. Would it
GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE
be morally right to allow this
group of ambassadors to be made
up of ‘normal,’ contaminated hu-
mans? To carry to a possibly de-
fenseless population a mixed bag
of goodies like Micrococcus ureae,
Bacillus vulgaris, Staphylococcus
aureus, Mycobacterium tubercu-
losis— a whole spectrum of benign
and malignant bacteria? Remem-
ber, Bud, bugs that are benign or
only mildly pernicious on earth
might prove to be killers away
from home.”
“Lots of maybes,” Dorsey said.
start “Lots of perhapses.”
64 T ’VE got one more shaft in the
quiver,” I said. “This one’s
got a poisoned point, and it carries
the names of our keepers. It’s dirty,
Bud. It’s hardly fair to Dr. Mc-
Queen to use such blackmail.”
“Blackmail sounds like just
what we need,” Dorsey said.
“O.K. Thirty of us were bom
into the Big Tank,” I said. “One
has already died as a result of his
mental state, caused by imprison-
ment. Another is certain to die
within the next few days. Had they
been entirely sane, Mike Bohrman
and Mary deWitte wouldn’t have
shed their sterility-suits outside
the Tank. Without purpose to their
lives, they cracked up.
“Two of us dead in the first
twenty-six years of the human
studies at BICUSPID,” I went on.
“Two, out of an original thirty. An
35
attrition-rate of six and seven- airlock. What’s a sterility-suit, any. was asked
ed shotgun-blast of every antibiotic I to assist Dr. Mc-
tenths percent. How many more way, but a special breed of space
she could safely take. Dr. McQueen Queen and the senior pathologist
Lapins will wander out to commit suit? Could you find a better cre^
rode back to the University in the at autopsy — I was, after
a all,
innocent suicide in the snow, their than us twenty-eight, skilled in two ambulance with her, and with her resident in pathology, and had
minds messed up by the frustra- dozen professions, young, sound o| husband. Lofting, holding the girl’s besides a special interest in this
tion and hopelessness of the wind and limb, and willing ashell
hand, explained time after time case — but I found the job more
guinea-pig way of life? How many to take on the job? None of whom
that she’d never told him about than I could take. Mary had been
more of us will escape from the Big will ever have appendicitis, halij
the likely consequence of her re- a sister to me for twenty-three
Tank into the morgue? The Orion tosis, toothache, barber’s itch, or
moving her chastity-suit in an un- years. In tears, I left the morgue
Zeta could be our salvation, Bud. athlete’s foot? Any one of whom world. The basketball during the classic cruciform
chaste inci-
It could give us the sort of purpose can, in case of accident, first-ai( player said he’d never forgive him- sion.
human beings must have in order his wounds with a spit-damp hand self if she didn’t recover.
to live.” kerchief, and heal wholesome! Mary was taken to the C.U. T FOUND the Firebird in the li-
Dorsey shook his head. “The Man, we’re what those generals hospital. Wearing a sterility-suit, I -*• brary. I recognized her through
Defense Department set up its have been dreaming of! Once we’ve attended her examination, which the anonymity of her chastity-suit
young Clydeside in von Weizsaqker been trained to aim that big ship was conducted by my chief-of- by the characteristic pose of her
Crater just to build, test, and and kick her off the back of the service, the staff pathologist, as head and arms as she sat reading:
launch one ship: the Zeta. Two moon, we’ll be the finest extra-solar well as the hospital’s internist and elbow braced on the table-top, her
years of round-the-chronometer crew that ever blasted free of the neurologist. I took a few cc’s of right fist blocked stubbornly
work have been poured into her,” system!” Mary’s cerebrospinal fluid back against the plastic cheek of her
he said. “She’s cost four billion “One question,” Dorsey said with me to the BICUSPID contam- helmet, her left arm curved around
dollars so far, Johnny; and they “Where do I sign Ship’s Articles?” inated labs. There, to anticipate a the book as though to be a break-
haven’t bought the living-room fur- few days’ deliberate bacterial water against distraction. I sat
niture yet. I hardly think the gen- T\ R. McQueen was in Chicago
growth in media, her meningoen- beside her, and said, “Dorothy.”
erals will volunteer the result of for three days before he found cephalitis was discovered to have Without a word she closed her
serve as psycho-
all this effort to Mary Lofting, nee deWitte. She been caused by Erysipelothrix book, stood, and replaced it on the
therapy for twenty-eight neurotic had wakened that morning suffer- monocytogenes, an organism whose shelf. We walked hand in hand out
Hoosiers.” ing from a headache, a stiff neck, more usual victims are rabbits. into the autumn campus.
“You miss the point, Bud,” I and four degrees of fever. Her hus- Mary’s husband could explain her “Last year,” I said, “it was
said. “We Lapins were born to band had called an ambulance to coming in contact with so exotic a Mike Bohrman, walking through
crew the Zeta. Where else could take her to Michael Reese Hospi- pathogen only by the fact that snow-drifts in his suit-shorts, want-
you find a crew that’s already spent tal. There, just before she’d lost they’d visited the Brookfield Zoo ing for once in his life to feel the
twenty-odd years or so inside a box, consciousness, Mary had asked a on the second, and last, day of their real world against his skin. So he
living together in close quarters, nurse to call BICUSPID. The C.U. honeymoon. died. Five days ago, Mary deWitte
being conditioned against claustro- authorities had in turn called Dr. By the time these technical de- married the man she loved. So she
phobia? This Big Tank of ours McQueen in Chicago. tails were known they were died,” I said.
could be a grounded spaceship, She came home on a stretcher, a
academic. The epidemiological “Our life isn’t generally as hope-
Bud! armored against
It’s airtight, bottle of fructose solution dripping problem had become secondary to less as that,” the Firebird said.
outside dangers, even has the for- into her veins. Mary had already the pathological. Mary Lofting “No,” I said. “We’re fed and en-
maldehyde sump to serve us for been loaded with a double-barrel- had died. tertained. We’re being educated at

36 GALAXi WORLD IN A BOTTLE 37

one of the finest universities in the “Firebird,” I said, “I’m happy to
breast pocket was one four dollars a pound to build. She
world — for us, she’s been a genu- welcome you aboard. Now we’ve his left

ine, homogenized-milk Alma got to get that ship.” rarely seen: the circle-with-arrow weighs five hundred thousand tons,
Momma. She even gives us an al- “We’ll get it,” she said. “Under- symbol of Mars had within it a Dr. Bogardus.”
lowance to buy airmail stamps for stand, Johnny, it’s not the profes- “III,” signifying that its wearer had “You’re mistaken, Colonel,

our collection, or bar-bells, or gas sional challenge that makes me been a member Mars
of the Third when you say that the University’s
for our sports-car. She’s given us want to blast off for Alpha Cen- Expedition, back in the days when investments in gnotobiotic research
everything we need for happiness. tauri with four generations to feed, a flight to Mars had been some- over the past eighty years will be
Everything, Firebird, but purpose. I’ve got no special urge to tame thing more than a teamster’s run. lost if we Lapins end our part of

That’s why we’re all going nuts — frontiers. The reason I’m going - The Marsman Badge was balanced the experiment. That’s not true.
why Mike went barefoot in the forgiveme for mentioning it again, by the star-topped, laurel-wreathed That investment has been repaid
snow and Mary used love for a and cold sober — is to stay near, — and anachronistic — silver wings many times over. More has been

why we’ve
suicide-weapon. That’s you.” of a Command Pilot. learned of human physiology, nu-
As shook hands with Colonel
I trition, and disease processes in the
got to break free.” Istood up, drawing her up after
“Free?” she asked. “You mean, me, and was struck again by the Barrett I found it difficult to con- twenty-six years’ study of germ-
free to step outside the Big aptness of the nickname, “chastity- ceal the envy that writhed in me. free humans than was learned con-
Tank,
shed our sterility-suits, turn septic suit.” He’d seen the continents spread cerning these subjects during any
- and die?” “Perhaps I’ve overestimated the cloud-flecked on the receding, curv- similar period in medical history.
“I mean free to step off earth.” effectiveness of a certain taboo,” I ing earth, the stars shining beside “And, Colonel,” I went on,
We sat by mutual consent on a said. “Come sweet Firebird.
on, the sun against the black sky. He’d “we’re not untrained. Bud Dorsey,
bench beneath a sugar maple, Let’s get back to the Tank to help splashed across the dust-carpet of to your right, is an astrophysicist
brushing aside half an inch of mul- Bud recruit the rest of our crew.” the moon, tasted water melted who worked with the Agassiz Ob-
ticolored leaves. I told the Firebird from the polar cap of Mars. As a servatory team in mapping the
member of Expedition Three, he’d interstellar anti-matter dust clouds.
^ OLONEL
of the broadcast from a southern Z"1 Barrett was young
star, and about the Immermann for eagles. My
fellow volun- been with the crew of the Orion Dr. Keto Hannamuri is a pedia-
skull. I told her all I knew about teers-designate and I, all twenty- Gamma when Immermann dis- trician. Dorothy Damien, our Fire-
the Orion rockets, the nuclear- eight of us, were gathered in the covered the twenty-thousand-year- bird, is a dietitian.Fizz Ewell is a
pulse ships that had gone through lounge of English Hall, creaking old skull at the base of Roosevelt nuclear engineer. Karl Fyrmeis-
five prototypes to reach the Zeta. and wheezing in our sterility-suits, Ridge. ter’s degree is in chem engineering,
“She’s built to travel light-years,” looking very ready for hard space. Colonel Barrett addressed his as is Janie Bohrman’s. Gloria Moss
I said. “I’m going with her when The colonel wore crisp blues. remarks to me. “Central Univer- is working on her doctorate in
she leaves.” His tunic was decorated by a triple sity,” he said, “will lose the results sociology. Her thesis, Colonel,
“Of course, I’m going with you,” row of medals-for-merit. It was not of an eighty-million-dollar invest- deals with the social dynamics of
she said. “Your spacemen will need his fault that he wore no battle- ment if you people leave. They’ll small human groups such as ours.
a dietitian to make metabolic sense stars. Barrett had graduated from be getting off cheap, compared to Alfred MacCoy, standing behind
out of algal soups and hydroponic the Air Academy into our seem- us.The Defense Department has you, has written three symphonies
salads for the couple of gen-
first ingly endless Pax Desperandum. been requested to turn over to you and an oratorio so far; and R.C.A.
erations, and to teach the young- He’d never had a chance to see a twenty-eight untrained grounds- Victor has threaded them all with
sters to take over the kitchen once roentgen radiated in anger. The men the greatest spaceship yet theNew York Philharmonic. Lucy
they’re on their own.” Marsman Badge at the center of built, the first of the interstellar Cashdollar has had her works of
ships. The Zeta cost the taxpayers sculpture displayed in the National
38 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 39
Gallery and at London’s Tate. organisms, cluttering up the pic- “You’re right, Miss Damien,” surrected to vegetable life in the
There are some few resources ture for the bacteriologists who Colonel Barrett said. “My new hydroponic tanks of the ship.
here, Colonel.” were scheduled to arrive later. The assignment is a vital one. You must We Lapins clustered close to-
“I didn’t intend to belittle your Chief of Staff said that if there is forgive me if I seemed curt and gether on the moon-dust, staring
intellectual accomplishments, Dr. a germ-free population on one of unfriendly.” He paused. “I’ve been up the sides of our ship. Her upper
Bogardus,” the Colonel said. “I’ve the Centaurus planets, we must trying to hide my
feelings, but evi- reaches were hidden by the globu-
read your dossiers. They’re impres- not initiate our contact with them dently I failed. You see, Miss lar bulge of the enormous thrust-
sive. When I called you untrained, by handing out the sort of prizes Damien, my wife and I had headed chamber, where kiloton capsules
what I really meant was that Cook’s crew brought to the South the previous list of volunteers — of nuclear fuel would be fired,
you’re totally unskilled in terms Seas — measles, tuberculosis, the contaminated crew.” three a second, to blast us into
of my own specialty. I meant that smallpox. We can’t know that even space. In this great ship our chil-
none you knows anything of the innocuous bacteria might not be OOKING from the ports of the dren would be born and would die,
skills of
of
simple chemical rocketry, fatal to a gnotobiotic, alien popu- L rocket that had brought us and our grandchildren as well.
much less the techniques required lation. So you go.” from Memorial Orbital Station, From the Zeta, our aged great-
to lift half a million tons on a “Colonel,” I said, “I’m sure that I’d thought von Weizsacker Crater grandchildren, limping down long
nuclear-pulse thrust.” Washington didn’t give up the Zeta the most impressive sight I’d ever ladderways to the exit-hatches on
“We can learn,” I said. to us out of sheer altruism. What’s seen. The Orion Zeta looked from the arms of their teen-aged grand-
“I hope so,” Colonel Barrett their real reason?” our height like nothing so much as sons, would step onto the soil of a
said, “because I’ve been ordered “Where else could we get a crew a miniature silver cocktail-shaker, planet that circled Alpha Centauri.
to teach you.” of twenty-eight men and women glinting at the center of the vast One hundred and twenty-five
who’ve given proof they can live circle of von Weizsacker. years from now, I thought, clasping
it
W” E’RE
manded.
in?” Bud Dorsey de-

Barrett
together for a long period of time,
peaceably, retaining a fair degree
Miss Moss’s studies in
Later, standing a few hundred
feet from Zeta’s base, I’d found the
order of impressiveness reversed.
the Firebird’s hand in mine. So
little in history, so big in human
“You’re in,” Colonel of sanity? lives!

said.“The decision in the Penta- group dynamics were most inter- The great ship was a tower of fif- One hundred and twenty-five
gon went against my recommen- esting to the Chief of Staff. Doubt- teen hundred feet, blacking out the years ago, the Brooklyn Bridge
dation that professionals in rock- less they did much to influence his stars like a geometric mountain; had been brand-new. U.S. Grant,
etry be recruited for the Alpha decision in your favor.” while the crater’s twenty-thousand- defrauded and cancer-ridden, was
Centauri flight. The generals “There’s one thing I don’t un- foot ringwall, so far away in all gritting his teeth against the pain
liked your argument, Dr. Bogar- derstand, Colonel Barrett.” directions, was no more obtrusive to write his memoirs. President
dus, that we
should send a germ- “What’s that, Miss Damien?” that a decorative hedge. This ship, Chester A. Arthur had just signed
free ship and a germ-free crew to a he asked. I thought, is the intelligent comet into law a bill prohibiting poly-
possibly germ-free planet. In a “Why is it that you seem so un- on which we’d be passengers until gamy in the territories.
sense, this is tradition. Back in the happy about our being accepted as the day we died, some two and a As far away as those things lay
moon-missiles were sponged
’50s, the Zeta’s crew?” she asked. “After fraction light-years away from our goal.
down with Lysol before launch- all, you’ve been given the duty of home. We were guaranteed immor- We entered the sublunarian
ing, just in case they got where training us to take her between though, in our offspring. Our
tality, chambers beneath the ship. Dr.
they were aimed at. Our people stars. That’s a pretty important descendants would very literally McQueen had preceded us here;
didn’t want to contaminate the assignment, isn’t it, even for a bird become flesh of our flesh, bone of and under his direction the Orion
moon’s surface with earthly micro- colonel?” our bone, as our bodies were re- Zeta had been made as aseptic as

40 GALAXY WORLD IN A BOTTLE 41

the Big Tank itself. Colonel Bar- “Cold feet, Johnny?” she teased
By ALFRED COPPEL
rett and his subordinates who’d me.
train us to operate the Zeta would “Gloria Moss once told me, Fire-

have to wear sterility-suits aboard bird, that a healthy respect for

her, and would enter through the tradition is essential to the organic
forty million miles is only
formaldehyde sump that was now strength of a group such as ours,”
her only entrance. Even the dust I said. “So ...” I bent and picked
a step — when the star trail
of the moon was not entirely the Firebird up, her weight moon-
sterile. trimmed to that of a three-year-old. —
is the road that leads to
The Firebird took my arm to She put her arms around my neck
urge me toward the liquid gateway as I carried her down the ladder
to the ship, eager to see our new into the poisonous decontamina-
home. “Wait,” I said, holding her tion tank that was our front door
back till all the others had gone
thrnucrh thp antisentic nool.
to Alpha Centauri.
— ALLEN KIM LANG
!

The Hills of Home

Illustrated by DILLON

HE
T
younger.
ing to
boy on the riverbank
was named Kimmy. He was
eleven, but he looked
He stood as though listen-
some distant sound.
There was a tarnished nickel-
plated faucet in his hand and a
wooden sword had been thrust
through the belt of his denim shorts.
The river ran still and deep, gray
and green in the eddies, with the
smell of late summer rising out of
the slow water. The madrone and
willow trees stood limp in the early
evening quiet.
It
It
wasn’t the Russian River.
was the Sacred Iss.
The sun had touched the gem-
encrusted cliffs of the shore of the
Lost Sea of Korus and had van-
ished, leaving only the stillness of
dusk and the lonely cry of high fly-
ing waterbirds.
From downstream came the
faintsound of music. It might have
been a phonograph playing a Rudy

THE HILLS OF HOME 43

Vallee record in one of the summer taste of the cigarette on his tongue. for Project Ares. Kimmy Kimball the warm water riffle around his
cabins with names like Pollyann Oddly enough, he wasn’t tired. is going to Mars. No one else. feet.Looking up at the green bea-
Roost and Stumble Inn. But to He wasn’t nervous or excited, He snapped on a light and looked con of the planet of his birth, he
Kimmy it was the hated cry of the either. And that was odder still. at his watch. Oh three ten hours. thought: I’ve left all that behind
Father of Therns, calling the dread- He stood up and opened the win- Zero minus one fifty. me. I’m sorry about leaving mother
ful Plant Men to their feast of help- dow to look out at the velvet night He opened his steel locker and and dad, but it was never really
less pilgrimsborne into this Valley of the Cape. He could hear the sea. began to dress. what I wanted. Mars is where I be-
of the Lost Sea of Korus by the Overhead the stars were bril- With my
long. friends, John Car-
mysterious Iss.

tian
Kimmy shifted the
radium pistol into
heavy Mar-
his left hand
and checked his harness. A soft
smile touched his lips and he
brushed a dark fall of hair out of his
eyes. He was well armed.
There was nothing he had to fear
from the Plant Men.
His bare feet turned upstream,
away from the sound of the phono-
graph, toward the shallows in the
river that would permit him to
cross and continue his search for
Tars Tarkas along the base of the
Golden Cliffs . . . bad for this job.”
r
''HE Charge of Quarters said,
|
-*•
“Oh three hundred, Major.
Briefing in thirty minutes.”
Major Kimball tried to see
inthe early morning gloom. He had
not been asleep. It would have
been wasteful to spend these last
few hours sleeping. Instead, he had
been remembering —
He said, “All right,
Coming up.”
He swung his feet to the bare
boards and sat for a moment wish-
ing he hadn’t given up smoking. He
could almost imagine the textured
liant. Mars gleamed
against the sable night.
russet-colored
He smiled, T HE water swirled warm and
velvetyaround his ankles.
ter the Warlord, Tars Tarkas the
Great Green Jeddak, and all the
remembering again. So long a road There, behind that madrone tree, beautiful brave people.
from then to now. Kimmy thought with delicious hor- The hated Father of Therns
He stopped smiling and turned ror. Was that a Plant Man? He sang with Vallee’s voice: Come
away from the window. The road could see the thick white trunk and withme where southern skies will
had also been hard. Combat, test the bloodsucking arms— watch you with a million eyes —
flying,competition all the way. The The radium weight made
pistol’s Kimmy’s eyes narrowed.
goddam headshrinkers were the his wrist ache, but he clung to it He waded stealthily across the
toughest, always wanting him to tightly. He could not cope with a shallows of the Sacred Iss. He
bug out on the deal because of their Plant Man with a sword alone. The could see Matai Shang, the Them
brainwave graphs and word asso- certainty of coming battle made Father, resplendent in his jeweled
ciation tests and Rorschach blots. him smile a little, the way John harness and his yellow wig and
“You’re a lonely man, Kimball.” Carter would smile if he were here Holy Diadem, spreading his arms
“Too much imagination could be in the Valley of Korus ready to at- out to the sunset. He stood safely
tack the white Therns and their in his balcony above the river while
Kimball shook his head and Plant Men. the Plant Men responded to his
grinned slightly. You couldn’t For a moment Kimmy felt a Were they gathering to attack
call.
blame them in a way.What was it thrill of apprehension. The deepen- Tars Tarkas or another band of
like when a man sat there with ing stillness of the riparian dusk helpless pilgrims?
him pentothal in his veins and enceph- was closing in all around him. Even Matai Shang looked a little like
alograph electrodes on his head and the music of the phonograph was Mr. Grossman standing on the
told you about the still waters of very, very faint. Above him, the verandah of his cottage. But that
Korus, or the pennons flying from great vault of the sky was chang- was all right. The dreadful Valley
the twin towers of Greater Helium, ing from pink to gray to dusty blue. of Korus was wonderfully alive
or the way the tiny slanting sun A bright star was breaking through with adventure. It didn’t matter
Sergeant. gleamed at dawn through the rig- the curtain of fading light. He knew thatMatai Shang looked like Mr.
ging of a flyer? itwas Venus, the Evening Star. But Grossman and sang like Rudy
Cry in the wilderness, head- let it be Earth, he thought. And in- Vallee.
shrinkers! He thought of them with stead of white, let it be the color of Kimmy stepped cautiously ashore
satisfaction. There were five picked an emerald. and moved into the cover of a
for Project Mercury. But only one He paused in midstream, letting clump of willows. The sky was

44 GALAXY THE H ILLS OF HOME 45

darkening fast and soon someone
was sure to start calling him. There
wasn’t much time left.
Tl/T AJOR Kimball stood now in
-L"-®-
the bright glare of the brief-
ing bunker’s lights, a strange figure
in G-suit and helmet. The repre-
sentatives of the presshad been
handed their mimeographed re-
leases by the PIO. Now they sat
listening to the briefing being de-
livered by General Hazel, the
Project Officer. Occasionally Kim-
ball would surprise one of the news-
men looking at him with mixed ad-
miration and doubt. Kimball knew
what they were thinking. Why him?
Out of all the applicants— and there
are always applicants for a nearly-
sure-death job — why this particu-
lar one?
Well, Kimball thought, why not?
Maybe Project Ares was meant to
be mine from the beginning.
General Hazel talked, reading
from the mimeographed sheet. He
was skirting some highly sensitive
areas. He spoke carefully and with-
out expression, wishing he didn’t
have to talk at all to these civilians.
Kimball listened, only half
aware of what was being said. He
watched the faces of the men sit-
ting on the rows of folding chairs,
saw their eyes like wounds, red
with sleeplessness and the celebra-
tion last night at the Officers’ Club
— the celebration in his honor that,
of course, he hadn’t attended.
46
On the dais nearby, listening to
General Hazel but watching Kim-
ball, sat Colonel Steinhart, the
Project Psychiatrist. Kimball re-
turned his steady gaze without
flinching, inwardly amused. If I
look away, he thought, Steinhart
will write it down. The accumula-
tion of trivia was the good doctor’s
life work. Kimball felt sorry for
him. It must be a bitter thing, he
thought, to wish to know the hu-
man mind and find only shadows.
Stephen Crane once wrote: There
is nothing but opinion — and opin-
ion be damned.
It was like that.
The big clock on the wall of the
bunker said oh three fifty-five. Zero 1
minus one hour and five minutes. [
The countdown on the rocket had
begun twenty -five minutes ago. No
hold so far; none expected.
Kimball looked around at the'
red eyes and open mouths. What
have I to do with you now? There
are worse things than being alone.
Outside the bunker, the night lay j
warm and still over the base. Flood- i
lights spilled brilliance over the|
dunes and the scrubby palms, high
fences casting laced shadows across
the burning white expanses of fer-
roconcrete.
As the men filed out of the brief-
ing room, Dr. Steinhart climbed
into the command car with Kim-
ball. Was it chance or design? The
pilot wondered. The others were
leaving them alone.
GALAXY
 “We haven’t gotten on too well, You know that,” Steinhart said. “Thanks.” Kimball answered thing about loonies, Kim. It’s just
have we, Major?” Steinhart said “It’s just some of the things—” him across a widening gulf. that we have so little data on the
in a quiet voice. Kimball said, “I talked too I
“You’ll have a long, lonely wait psychology of spaceflight.”
Kimball thought: He’s pale much.” for the next shoot,” Steinhart said. “That’s what I’m supposed to
skinned and very blond. What is “You had to.” “I’ve got my instructions,” Kim- provide, isn’t it, Colonel?” Kimball
it that he reminds me of? Shouldn’t “You wouldn’t think my secret I
ball said. was looking up at the sky.
there be a diadem on his forehead? was so dangerous, woujd you?”
life “Two years alone—” “What I’m trying to say, Kim, is
He smiled vaguely into the whis- Kimball said, smiling. They are all so sure I’ll be alone, that a man of your type sometimes
pering night. That’s what it was. The doctor made an impatient I
Kimball thought. He glanced up regresses—”
Odd that he should have forgotten. gesture. “You won’t try to under- I at the red planet low on the horizon “Doctor,” Kimball said patiently,
How many of my generation, he stand.” and smiled. Amber smoke was ris- “I passed all the tests.”

wondered, were raised on those Kimball shrugged. He didn’t I

ing from the control bunker. It was Steinhart nodded reluctantly.
Edgar Rice Burroughs books any- really care now. now zero minus fifty-six minutes. “Yes. Yes, you did.”
way? And how many remembered “I know you were married and
'
“Then let’s drop it, please.”
now that all the Them priests wore divorced, Kim,” the doctor said. ffl^IM,” Steinhart said slowly. Steinhart subsided into uncom-
Am. “There something you fortable silence. He listened to the
yellow wigs and a circlet of gold “Would you tell me what happened is

with some fantastic jewel on their now?” should know about. Something you rumble of the tires on the concrete,
foreheads? “For the record? More therapy?” should be prepared for.” the murmur of the motor. I could
‘We’ve done as well as could be “No. This is for me. I’d like to “Yes?” be wrong, he thought. After all,
|

expected,” he said. know.” Disinterest in his voice, Stein- what is reality?

CTEINHART reached for a ciga-
^ and then stopped, re-
rette
The pilot shrugged again. “It just hart noted clinically. Natural un- Reality was the rocket, towering
didn’t work. She was a fine girl, but der the circumstances? Or incipient in the floodlights, garishly painted
she finally told me it was no go.”
|

neurosis already? If they had only in black and orange, against the
membering that Kimball had given And he remembered what she said. listened to me, Steinhart thought. first flickerings of the false dawn.

them up because of the Project. “You don’t live here, Kim.” That !
Steinhart continued, “Our tests
Kimball caught the doctor’s move- was a strange thing for a wife to say. showed you to be a schizoid — well 1Z~IMMMY saw the girls before
ment and half smiled. He’s good, But there was no point in telling compensated, of course. You know they saw him. In their new,
the pilot thought. He’s very good. Steinhart. He’d make something thereis no such thing as an abso- low-waisted middies and skirts,
Friendly, compassionate, con- significant out of it. lutely normal human being. We all they looked strange and out of
cerned. They probably taught him “She didn’t like the life,” Kim- have toward one or
tendencies place standing by the pebbled
that in medical school. ball said with finality. more types of aberration. In your shore of the Sacred Iss.
“I didn’t try to kill the assign- The doctor frowned. “She knew ;
case, the symptoms are an over- They were his sisters, Rose and
ment for you, Kim,” the doctor said. you were a career officer. What did active imagination and sometimes Margaret, older than he at fifteen
“Well, it doesn’t matter now." she expect?” an inability to distinguish reality and seventeen. But they were walk-
“No, I suppose not. I just don’t Kimball didn’t answer. He had from — well, fancy.” ing into the Valley of Korus and
j

want you to think of me as an forgotten Steinhart already. He “You headshrinkers see a looney into danger. Behind him he could
enemy.” was looking out across the ramp at under every bush,” Kimball said hear the rustle of the Plant Men as
|

Kimball shrugged. The bindings the Project Ares launching pad. vaguely. the evening breeze came up and
of his pressure suit creaked slightly. Dr. Steinhart sighed and said, “I Steinhart felt futile and out of touched the willows.
“Kimm-eee—
[

“Your record is good all the way. wish you luck, Kim. I mean that.” his depth. “No one is saying any-
j

’'
48 GALAXY THE HILLS OF HOME 49
 They were calling him. In the weaving a pattern of skillful sword- And his mother, tall and In time he opened the shielded
vea r-old.
deepening dusk their voices carried ports.
points in the shifting light of the
shadowy, standing on the screen-
far down the river. two moons. porch of the rented cottage and
He shrank from what he saw.
“Mr. Grossman, have you seen “Kimmmm— eee! We know you saying exasperatedly:
“You worry Desolation! An eternity of waste-
Kimmy?” can hear us! Momis going to be
us so running
off like that, Kimmy!” land.
The hated Father of Therns mad at you! Answer us, you hear?” He thought with vague amuse- Red sands blowing across a sere
shrugged and pulled on his galluses. If only Tars Tarkas would come ment: “I’ve really run off now.”
and sterile plain. Emptiness.
“Kimmm-eeee— !” now! If only the Great Green Jed- It was good to dream of the low,
“I’m alone,” he murmured.
Kimmy knew he should answer dak would come splashing across beamed ceiling of the cottage and The dry, icy wind plucked at the
he did not. Behind him scored surfaces of the cone.
then, but the stream on his huge thoat, his the thick close darkness of the sum-
he could hear the Plant Men ap- two swords clashing— mer nights. Oh, there had been He could feel panic clutching at
proaching. He shivered with de- “I see him! He’s hiding in that such longing. For something.
him. The protective suit he wore
licious horror. He stood very still clump of willows!” What was it? A place, a time? seemed to press in on him, suffo-
and listened to his sisters talking, “Kimmy, you come here this in- Perhaps that. The place was a catingly.
letting their voices carry into the stant!” world of low red hills and a sky The wasteland beyond the port
clump of willows where he hid from The Valley of Korus was fading, that burned deep blue through had been a wasteland for ten times
long, long days. And canals — yes,
the dangers of the Valley of the blurring. The Golden Cliffs were ten million years. Kimball felt the
Lost Sea of Korus. turning into sandy, worn riverbanks were clear and still. And
canals that weight of these years pressing on
“Where is that little brat, any- and the battlements and balconies what was the time? The
the time, his sanity.
way?” were the verandahs of summer cot- timewas youth. The time was to- He began to whimper softly.
“He always wanders off just at tages. morrow and yesterday. The time “Help me,” he said pleadingly.
dinnertime and then we have to The faucet felt heavy in Kim- never was. “Help me, Kimmy—”
find him. It isn’t fair!” my’s grimy hand. He shivered— not But the place? Something began to move on the
“Playing with that silly old fau- with wonder now, with cold. Kimball thought with sudden great empty desert.
cet!” Cruel mimicry now. “My ray- He walked out of the willows, wonder I’m going to Mars!
: Kimball cried out with joy and
dee-yum pistol—” stumbling on the rocks. There were routine duties in the clawed desperately at the hatch.
“Oh, where is he anyway? Kimm- tiny cone. That way time slipped Suddenly the inner pressure
eee, you answer!” ]tf AJOR Kimball lay like an by as all around the missile spread jerked the valve from his hand and
Something died in him. He tried embryo in the nose cone. the stunning, star-dusted night. he plunged to the rusty sand, his
hard to keep it alive. It wasn’t a fau- Time was not. Time became the ears cracking and his lungs gasping
cet. It was a radium pistol! Tars ticking of the timers and immense TTE had been confined for nearly for air in the thin Martian atmo-
Tarkas the Great Green Jeddak speed. a hundred days when the de- sphere. His vision was cloudy and
had given it to him himself! He was thinking of that summer scending orbital spiral began. The his head felt light.
He
looked at his sisters with dis- when the river lay and deep
still great ribbon parachute burst from Something was moving on the
may. They weren’t really his sisters. under the hanging willows. Never the nose cone. plain.
They were Therns with their yel- before and never afterward had it Heat. Terrible heat and tum- A shadowy cavalcade.
low hair and pale skins. He and held that same evocative magic. He bling blows. Kimball never knew Strange, monstrous men on fan-
John Carter and Tars Tarkas had remembered his sisters, thin and when the cone landed. He lay for tasticwar-mounts, long spears and
fought them many times, piling angular creatures as he recalled a long while, shocked and injured, flutteringpennons. Huge golden
their bodies for barricades and them through the eyes of an eleven- but alive. chariots with scythes flashing on

50 GALAXY THE HILLS OF HOME 51

the circling hubs, and armored The voice was thin and distant
giants — on the icy wind. Kimball knew that
The figments of a long-remem- voice.
bered dream. He knew it from long ago in
He dropped to the sand and dug by the
his
He
hands into the dry, rusty soil.
fought to suck air into his labor-
the Valley of Korus,
of the mysterious sacred river.
He came to his knees
shores

and then
BEAC
ing lungs. his feet, stumbling happily across
“Kimm-eeee!”
A huge green warrior on a gray
monster of a thoat was beckoning
the empty, lifeless plain.
He knew the voice, he knew the
man, and he knew the hills that he
SCEN
to him, pointing toward the low hills must reach before he died.
on the oddly near horizon. They were the hills of home.
“Kimm-eeee!” — ALFRED COPPEL
By MARSHALL KING

R.S.Y.P.
You are most cordially invited to the 18th World Science Fiction
URNIE ran laughing and it from the scrutiny
far behind. Safe
Convention, to be held at the Penn-Sheraton Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pa.,
Labor Day weekend, September

Guest of honor will be James

3, 4 and

Blish,
5, 1960.

winner of the 1959 Hugo

P shouting through the forest
he could run no more.
until

He fell headlong into a patch of

of brothers
nothing
and parents, there was
nowto stop him from go-
ing to the ocean. This was the mo-
ment to stop time.
blue moss and whooped with de-
Award for his novel A Case of Conscience.
light in having this day free for ex- “On your mark!” he shouted to
Isaac Asimov, Philip Jose Farmer, Hal Clement and many other ploring. He was free to see the the rippling stream and its orange

science fiction luminaries will be present. ocean at last. whirlpools. He

glanced furtively
When he had caught his breath, from side to side, pretending that
Among the stellar events will be a masquerade, a banquet where he looked back through the forest. some object might try to get a head
the 1960 Hugo Awards will be presented, an auction of books, artwork No sign of the village; he had left start. “Get set!” he challenged the
and manuscripts.

Registration fee is $2.00 ($ 1 .00 for overseas).

Illustrated by WOOD
Mail your registration fee and requests for further information to:
PITTCON, c/o Mrs. Dirce
It was a fine day at the beach
S. Archer, 1453 Barnsdale Street, Pittsburgh

17, Pa. Make your checks or money orders payable to P. Schuyler Mil-
ler, Treasurer, or to 18th World Science Fiction Convention Committee.
for Purnie's game — but his new

friends played very rough!

BEACH SCENE 53
thin-winged bees that hovered over creatures found only at the ocean.
tive maxim that “small children step, facing the spot where Purnie
the abundant foliage. “Stop!” He He bounced through the forest
who stop time without an adult be- now stood. Some distance behind
shrieked this command upward to- as though the world was reserved
ing present,
may not live to regret them- were eight more, each of
ward the dense, low-hanging purple this day just for him. And who whom were motionless in a curious
it.”
clouds that perenially raced across could say it wasn’t? he thought.
He chose, instead, to picture the pose of interrupted animation. And
the treetops, making one wonder Wasn’t this his fifth birthday? He
beaming praise of family and down in the water, where the ocean
how the trees really were.
tall ran along feeling sorry for four-
friends when they learned of his ran itself into thin nothingness
His eyes took quick inventory. year-olds, and even for those who
brave journey. upon the sand, he saw standing
It was exactly as he knew it would were only four and a half, for they
The journey was long, the clock here and there the comical tripons,
be: the milky-orange stream had were babies and wouldn’t dare try
stood He stopped long enough
still. those three-legged marine buffoons
become motionless and its minute slipping away to the ocean alone.
to gather some fruit that grew along who made handsome careers of
whirlpools had stopped whirling; a But five!
the path. It would serve as his lunch munching seaweed.
nearby bee hung suspended over a “I’ll set you free, Mr. Bee — just during this day of promise. With it “Hi there!” Purnie called. When
paka plant, its transparent wings wait and see!” As he passed one of
under his arm he bounded along he got no reaction, he remembered
frozen in position for a downward the many motionless pollen-gath-
a dozen more steps, then stopped that he himself was “dead” to the
stroke; and the heavy purple fluid ering insects he met on the way, he
abruptly in his tracks. living world: he was still in a zone
overhead held fast in its manufac- took care not to brush against it or
He found himself atop a rocky of time-stopping, on the inside
ture of whorls and nimbi. disturb its interrupted task. When knoll, overlooking the mighty sea! looking out. For him, the world
With everything around him in Purnie had stopped time, the bees
He was so overpowered by the would continue to be a tableau of
a state of perfect tableau, Purnie — like all the other creatures he before him that his “Hurrah!” mannikins until he resumed time.
vista
hurried toward the ocean. met—had been arrested in their na-
came out as a weak squeak. The
If only the days weren’t so short! and he knew that as
tive activities,
ocean lay at the ready, its stilled 66"U" I there!” he called again; but
he thought. There was so much to soon as he resumed time, every-
waves awaiting his command to now his mental attitude
see and so little time. It seemed thing would pick up where it had
resume their tidal sweep. The was that he expected time to re-
that everyone except him had seen left off.
breakers along the shoreline hung sume. It did! Immediately he was
the wonders of the beach country.
in varying stages of disarray, some surrounded by activity. He heard
The stories he had heard from his TJP7HEN he smelled an acid
having already exploded into tow- the roar of the crashing orange
brothers and their friends had sweetness that told him the
ering white spray while others were breakers, he tasted the dew of acid
taunted him for as long as he could ocean was not far off, his pulse
poised in smooth orange curls wait- that floated from the spray, and
remember. So many times had he quickened in anticipation. Rather
ing to start that action. he saw his new friends continue
heard these thrilling tales that now, than spoil what was clearly going
And there were new friends the actions which he had stopped
as he ran along, he could clearly to be a perfect day, he chose to ig-
everywhere! Overhead, a flock of while back in the forest.
picture the wonderland as though nore the fact that he had been for-
sporawere frozen in a steep glide, He knew, too, that at this mo-
he were already there. There would bidden to use time-stopping as a
preparatory to a beach landing. ment, in the forest, the little
be a rockslide of petrified logs to convenience for journeying far
Purnie had heard of these playful brook picked up its flow where it
play on, the ocean itself with waves from home. He chose to ignore the
creatures many times. Today, with had left off, the purple clouds re-
higher than a house, the comical oft-repeated statement that an
his brothers in school, he would sumed their leeward journey up
three-legged tripons who never hour of time-stopping consumed
have the pets all to himself. Fur- the valley, and the bees continued
stopped munching on seaweed, and more energy than a week of foot-
therdown the beach was a pair of their pollen-gathering without hav-
many kinds of other wonderful racing. He chose to ignore the nega- ing missed a single stroke of their
two-legged animals poised in mid-
54 G A L AXY BEACH SCENE 55
 .

delicate wings. The brook, the “My, my. Seventeen planets.

clouds, and the insects had not And me, Forbes, just what the
tell
been interrupted in the least; their hell are you going to do with them
respective tasks had been per- — mount them on the wall of your
formed with continuing sureness. den back in San Diego?”
It was time itself that Purnie had “Hi there, wanna play?” Pumie’s
stopped, not the world around him. invitation got nothing more than a
He scampered around the rock- startled glance from the animals
pile and down the sandy cliff to who quickly returned to their chat-
meet the tripons who, to him, had ter.He scampered up the bench,
just come to life. picked up his lunch, and ran back
“I can stand on my head!” He to them, tagging along at their
set down his lunch and balanced heels. “I’ve got my lunch, want
himself bottoms-up while his legs some?”
pawed the air in an effort to hold “Benson, you’d bettertell your
him in position. He knew it was men back there to stop gawking at
probably the worst head-stand he the scenery and get to work. Time
had ever done, for he felt weak is money. I didn’t pay for this ex-
and dizzy. Already time-stopping pedition just to give your flunkies
had left its mark on his strength. a vacation.”
But his spirits ran on unchecked.
The tripon thought Purnie’s feat '
1
1
HE
animals stopped so sudden-
was superb. It stopped munching ly that Purnie nearly tangled
long enough to give him a salutory himself in their heels.
wag of its rump before returning to “All right, Forbes, just hold it a
its repast. minute. Listen to me. Sure, it’s your
Purnie ran from pillar to post, money that put us here; it’s your
trying to see and do everything at expedition all the way. But you
once. He looked around to greet the hired me to get you here with the
flock of spora, but they had glided best crew on earth, and that’s just
to a spot further along the shore. what I’ve done. My
job isn’t over
Then, bouncing up to thefirst of the yet. I’m responsible for the safety
two-legged animals, he started to of the men while we’re here, and
burst forth with his habitual “Hi for the safe trip home.”
there!” when he heard them mak- “Precisely. And since you’re
ing sounds of their own. responsible, get ’em working. Tell
“. .be no limit to my oper-
will ’em to bring along the flag. Look
ations now, Benson. This planet at the damn fools back there, play-
makes seventeen. Seventeen plan- ing in the ocean with a three-legged
ets I can claim as my own!” ostrich!”
56 GALAXY BEACH SCENE 57
 “Good God, man, aren’t you hu- make you so rich that you can buy
man? We’ve only been on this your next planet. That’ll mak«
planet twenty minutes! Naturally eighteen, I believe.”
they want to look around. They
“Radiation, bah! We’ve
found
half expected to find wild animals low-grade ore on every planet I’ve
or worse, and here we are sur- discovered so far, and this one’ll be
rounded by quaint little creatures no different Now how about
that run up to us like we’re long- flag? Let’s get up, Benson. And
it
lost brothers. Let the men look the cornerstone, and the plaque
jt
represents an empire, Benson. to see the remainder of the group
The Forbes Empire. On each of running toward them.
my flags is the word FORBES, a “Captain Benson! Here’s the flag,
sir. And here’s Miles with the scin-
symbol of development and prog-
sentiment if you will.” tillometer. He says the radiation’s
ress. Call it
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ve seen getting stronger over this way!”
that real-estate flags before.” “How about that, Miles?”
“Damn it all, will you stop refer- “This thing’s going wild, Cap-
.
11

ring to this as a real-estate deal? tain. It’s almost off scale.”

around a minute or two before we “All right, lads. The sooner we What I’m doing is big, man. Big!

stake out your claim.”
“Bah! Bunch of damn children.”
As Purnie followed along, a leg
shot out at him and missed. “Ben-
son, will you get this bug-eyed kan-
garoo away from me!” Purnie
shrieked with joy at this new
and promptly stood on his head. In
this position he got an upside down
view of them walking away.
He
gave up trying to stay with
them. Why did they move so fast,
anyway? What was the hurry? As
he sat down and began eating his
lunch, three more of the creatures
came along making excited noises,
apparently trying to catch up to the
first two. As they passed him, he
held out his lunch. “Want some?”
No response.
Playing held more promise than
eating. He left his lunch half eaten
and went down to where they had
stopped further along the beach.
“Captain Benson, sir! Miles has
get Mr. Forbes’s pennant raised This is pioneering.” 13 URNIE saw one of the animals
and his claim staked out, the “Of course. And if I’m not mis- hovering around him with a
sooner we can take time to look taken, you’ve set up a neat little little box. Thankful for the atten-
around. Lively now!” escrow system so that you not only tion, he stood on his head. “Can you
own the planets, but you will vir- do this?” He was overjoyed at the
HEN the three animals went tually own the people who are fool- reaction. They all started making
frolic back to join the rest of theii ish enough to buy land on them.” wonderful noises, and he felt most
group, the first two resumed walk- could have your hide for talk-
“I satisfied.
ing: Purnie followed along. ing to me like this. Damn you, man! “Stand back, Captain! Here’s the
‘Well, Benson, you won’t have It’s people like me who pay your source right here! This little chuck-
to look far for materials to use for way. It’s people like me who give walla’s hotter than a plutonium
the base of the flag pole. Look at your space ships some place to go. pile!”
that rockpile up there. It’s people like me who pour good “Let me see that, Miles. Well,
“Can’t use them. They’re petri- money into a chancey job like this, I’ll be damned! Now what do you
fied logs. The ones on top are too so that people like you can get suppose—”
high to carry down, and if we move away from thirteen-story tenement By nowthey had formed a wi-
those on the bottom, the whole houses. Did you ever think of dening circle around him, and he
works will slide down on top of us.” that?” was hard put to think of an encore.
‘Well—that’s your problem. Just “I imagine you’ll triple your He gambled on trying a brand new
remember, I want this flag pole to money in six months.” trick: he stood on one leg.
be solid. It’s got to stand at least—" When they stopped, Purnie “Benson, I must have that ani-
“Don’t worry, Forbes, we’ll get stopped. he had been inter-
At first mal! Put him in a box.”
your monument erected. What’s ested in the strange sounds they “Now wait a minute, Forbes.
this with the flag? There must be were making, but as he grew used Universal Law forbids—”
more to staking a claim than just to them, and as they in turn ignored “Thisis my planet and I am the

detected strong radiation in the putting up a flag.” his presence, he hopped alongside law. Put him in a box!”
vicinity. He’s trying to locate it “There is, there is. Much more. chattering to himself, content to be “With my crew as witness, I offi-
now.” I’ve taken care of all requirements in their company. cially protest—”
“There you are, Forbes. Your set down by law to make my claim. He heard more of these sounds “Good God, what a specimen to
new piece of real estate is going to But the flag? Well, you might say coming from behind, and he turned take back. Radio-active animals!
58 GALAXY BEACH SCENE 59
Why, they can reproduce them- powers the little fella has. Play it passed, he might see a sign point-
selves, of course! There must be safe and use the rope.”
and deliberately ran within a few
the lead box, then, just as ing to their purpose. He limped by
feet of
thousands of these creatuf es around “I swear he knows what we’re
the nearest pursuer was about to
one who had in his hand a small
here someplace. And to think of saying. Look at those eyes.”
push him in, he sidestepped onto shiny object that had been emit-
those damn fools on Earth with “All right, careful now with that
safer ground. Then he heard a deaf-
ing smoke from one end; the smoke
their plutonium piles! Hah! Now line.”
ening roar and felt a warm, wet now billowed in lifeless curls about
I’ll have investors flocking to me. “Come on, baby. Here you go.
one of his legs. the animal’s head. He hobbled by
sting in
How about it, Benson — does pio- That’s a boy!”
“Forbes, you fool! Put away that another who held a small box that
neering pay off or doesn’t it?”
gun!” had previously made a hissing
“Not so fast. Since this little fel- TJURNIE took in these sounds “There you are, boys. It’s all in sound whenever Purnie was near.
low is radioactive, there may be with perplexed concern. He These things
knowing how. Just winged him, told him nothing. Be-
great danger to the crew—” sensed the imploring quality of the
that’s all. Now pick him up.” fore starting his climb up the knoll,
“Now look here! You had creature with the rope, but he didn’t
was nothing: he passed a tripon which, true to its
The pang in his leg
planned to put mineral specimens know what he was supposed to do. reputation, was comical even in
purnie’s misery lay in his confusion.
in a lead box, so what’s the differ- He cocked his head to one side as
What had he done wrong? When fright. Startled by the loud explo-
ence? Put him in a box.” he wiggled in anticipation.
he saw the noose spinning toward sion, it had jumped four feet into
“He’ll die.” He saw the noose spinning down the air before Purnie had stopped
him again, he involuntarily stopped
“I have you under contract, Ben- toward his head, and, before he Now
time. He knew better than to use time. ithung there, its beak
son! You are responsible to me, and knew it, he had scooted out of the
this power carelessly, but his ac- stuffed with seaweed and its three
what’s more, you are on my proper- circle and up the sandy beach. He
tion now was reflex. In that split legs drawn up into a squatting po-
ty. Put him in a box.” was surprised at himself for run-
second following the sharp sting in sition.
Pumie was tired. First the time- ning away. Why had he done it? He
mind had grasped in all
his leg, his Leaving the assorted statues be-
stopping, then this. While this day wondered. Never before had he felt
directions an acceptable
to find hind, he limped his way up the
had brought more fun and excite- this fleeting twinge that made him
course of action. Finding none, it knoll, torn between leaving and
ment than he could have hoped for, want to protect himself. staying. What an odd place, this
had ordered the stoppage of time.
the strain was beginning to tell. He He watched the animals huddle The scene around him became ocean country! He wondered why
lay in the center of the circle hap- around the box on the beach, their he had not heard more detail about
a tableau once more. The noose
pily exhausted, hoping that his attention apparently diverted to
hung motionless over his head the beach animals.
friends would show him some of something else. He wished now that
while the rest of the rope snaked Reaching the top of the bluff, he
their own tricks. he had not run away; he felt he had
its way in transverse waves back to looked down upon his silent friends
He didn’t have to wait long. The lost his chance to join in their fun.
one of the two-legged animals. Pur- with a feeling of deep sorrow. How
animals forming the circle stepped “Wait!” He ran over to his half-
nie dragged himself through the he wished he were down there play-
back and made way for two others eaten lunch, picked it up, and ran
ing with them. But he knew at last
congregation, whimpering from his
who came through carrying a box. back into the little crowd. “I’ve got
inability to understand. that theirs was a game he didn’t fit
Purnie sat up to watch the show. my lunch, want some?” As he worked his way past one into. Now there was nothing left
“Hell, Captain, why don’t I just The party came to life once but to resume time and start the
creature after another, he tried at
pick him up? Looks he has no
like more. His friends ran this way and
long walk home. Even though the
first to not look them in the eye,
intention of running away.” that, and at last Purnie knew that
forhe felt sure he had done some- short day was nearly over, he knew
“Better not, Cabot. Even though the idea was to get him into the box.
thing wrong. Then he thought that he didn’t dare use time-stopping to
you’re shielded, no telling what He picked up the spirit of the tease, by sneaking a glance at them as he get himself home in nothing flat.
60 GALAXY BEACH SCENE 61
 «J — I can’t move, Captain. My Scarcely noticing his own in-
His fatigued body and clouded Purnie moved across the top of
mind were strong signals that he the rockpile for a last look at his leg, it’s . . . My God, we’re going to jured leg, he ferried one victim
drown!” after another until there were no
had already abused this faculty. friends. His weight on the end of
“Look around you, Cabot. Can more in the surf. Up on the beach,
the first log started the slide. Slow-
you see anyone moving?” he started unraveling the logs that
VjfTHEN Purnie started time ly at first, the giant pencils began
" again, the animal with the cascading down the short distance “The men on the beach are near- pinned down the animals caught
there. He removed a log from the
to the sand. Purnie fell back onto ly buried, Captain. And the rest of
noose stood in open-mouthed dis- lap of one, who then remained in
solid ground, horrified at the spec- us here in the water—”
belief as the rope fell harmlessly to
“Forbes. Can you see Forbes? a sitting position, his face con-
the sand — on the spot where Pur- tacle before him. The agonizing
Maybe he’s—” His sounds were cut torted into a frozen mask of agony
nie had been standing. screams of the animals below filled
off by a wavelet gently rolling over
and shock. Another,with the
“My God, he’s — he’s gone.” him with hysteria.
weight removed, rolled over like an
The boulders caught most of his head.
Then another of the animals, the
iron statue into a new position. Pur-
Purnie could wait no longer. The
one with the smoking thing in his them as they stood ankle-deep in
tides were all but covering one of nie whimpered in black misery as
hand, ran a few steps toward the the surf. Others were pinned down
the animals, and soon the others he surveyed the chaotic scene be-
noose, stopped and gaped at the on the sand.
would be in the same plight. Dis- fore him.
rope. “All right, you people, what’s “I didn’t mean it!” Purnie
regarding the consequences, he or- At last he could do no more; he
going on here? Get him in that box. screamed. “I’m sorry! Can’t you
dered time to stop. felt consciousness slipping away
What did you do with him?” hear?” He hopped back and forth
Wading down into the surf, he from him.
The resumption of time meant near the edge of the rise, torn with
worked a log off one victim, then he He instinctively knew that if he
nothing at all to those on the beach, panic and shame. “Get up! Please
tugged the animal up to the sand. lost his senses during a period of
for to them time had never stopped. get up!”He was horrified by the
Through blinding tears, Purnie time-stopping, events would pick
The only thing they could be sure moans reaching his ears from the
worked slowly and carefully. He up where they had left off . . . with-
of was that at one moment there beach. “You’re getting all wet! Did
knew there was no hurry — at least, out him. For Purnie, this would be
had been a fuzzy creature hopping you hear me? Please get up.” He
not as far as his friends’ safety was death. If he had to lose conscious-
around in front of them, and the was choked with rage and sorrow.
concerned. No matter what their ness, he knew he must first resume
next moment he was gone. How could he have done this? He time.
condition of life or death was at
“Ishe invisible, Captain? Where wanted his friends to get up and
this moment, it would stay the Step by step he plodded up the
is he?” shake themselves off, tell him it
same way until he started time little hill, pausing every now and
“Up there, Captain! On those was all right. But it was beyond his
him?” power to bring it about.
again. He made his way deeper into then to consider if this were the
rocks. Isn’t that
the orange liquid, where a raised moment to start time before it was
“Well, I’ll be damned!” The lapping tide threatened to
hand signalled the location of a sub- too late. With his energy fast drain-
“Benson, I’m holding you per- cover those in the orange surf.
merged body. The hand was clutch- ing away, he reached the top of the.
sonally responsible for this! Now knoll, and he turned to look down
ing a large white banner that was
that you’ve botched it up, I’ll bring "D URNIE worked his way down
tangled among the logs. Purnie once more on the group below.
him down my own way.” the hill, imploring them to save
Then he knew how much his
worked the animal free and pulled
“Just a minute, Forbes, let me themselves. The sounds they made
it ashore. mind and body had suffered when :

think. There’s something about carried a new tone, a desperate

It was the one who had been he ordered time to resume, nothing
that fuzzy little devil that we foreboding of death.
carrying the shiny object that spit happened.
should Forbes! I warned you “Rhodes! Cabot! Can you hear
His heart sank. He wasn’t afraid
. . .

smoke.
about that gun!” me?”
62 GALAXY BEACH SCENE 63
of death,and he knew that if he “Are you men all “Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Ben- “Oh, him. I’m afraid not, Cap-
right?'
died the oceans would roll again “Yes sir, but-” son, I’m holding you personally tain. I — I guess I was thinking
and his friends would move about. “Who saw exactly what hap- responsible for this. Hee-hee!” mostly of myself.”
But he wanted to see them safe. pened?” “Hmmm. If I could only be sure

P URNIE
opened his eyes as I saw him. If only someone else
He mind for
tried to clear his “I’m afraid we’re not seeing
supreme effort. There was no urg- right, Captain. Those logs—” consciousness returned. Had saw him too.”
gone? “I’m afraid I don’t follow you,
ing time to start. He knew he “I know, I know. Now get hold his friends
couldn’t persuade it by bits and of yourselves.We’ve got to round He pulled himself along on his sir.”

pieces, first slowly then full ahead. up the others and get out of here stomach to a position between two “Well, damn it all, you know that
Time either progressed or while time rocks, where he could see without Forbes took a pot shot at him. Got
it didn’t. is on our side.”

He had to take one viewpoint or “But what happened, Captain?” being seen. By the light of the twin him in the leg. That being the case,

the other. “Hell, Rhodes, don’t you think moons he saw that they were leav- why would the fuzzy little devil

Then, without knowing exactly I’d like to know? Those logs are ing, marching away in groups of come back to his tormentors—back
when it happened, his mind took two and three, the weak helping to us — when we were trapped un-
so old they’re petrified. The whole
command . . bunch of us couldn’t lift one. It the weaker. As they disappeared der those logs?”
would take super-human energy to around the curving shoreline, the “Well, I guess as long as we were
TTIS came to life. The
friends move one of those things.” voices of the last two, bringing up trapped, he figured we couldn’t do

first one he saw stir lay on his “I haven’t seen anything super- the rear far behind the others, fell him any more harm I’m sorry, . . .

stomach and pounded his fists on faintly on his ears over the sound that was a stupid answer. I guess
human. Those ostriches down there
the beach. A flood of relief settled are so busy eating seaweed—” of the surf. I’m still a little shaky.”
over Purnie as sounds came from “All right, let’s bear a hand here “Is it possible that we’re all “Forget it. Look, you go ahead to
crazy, Captain?” the ship and make ready for take-
the animal. with the others. Some of them can’t
“What’s the matter with me? walk. Where’s Forbes?” but we’re not.”
“It’s possible, off. I’ll join you in a few minutes.
Somebody tell me! Am “Iwish I could be sure.” I think I’ll go back and look around.
I nuts? “He’s sitting down there in the
Miles! Schick! What’s happening?” water, Captain, crying like a baby. “See Forbes up ahead there? You know. Make sure we haven’t
“I’m coming, Rhodes! Heaven Or laughing. I can’t tell which.”
What do you think of him?” left anyone.”
help us, man — I saw it, too. We’re “We’ll have to get him. Miles, “I still can’t believe it.” “No need to do that. They’re all

either crazy or those damn logs are Schick, come along. Forbes! You “He’ll never be the same.” ahead of us. I’ve checked.”
alive!” all right?”
“Tell me something. What was my responsibility, Cabot,
“That’s
not the How about us? themost unusual thing you noticed not yours. Now go on.”
“It’s logs. “Ho-ho-ho!
Seventeen! Seven-
How’d we get out of the water? back there?”
teen! Seventeen planets, Benson,
Miles, we’re both cracking.” and do anything I say! This
they’ll
“You must be kidding, sir. Why, A S Purnie lay gathering strength
J-~*-
“I’m telling you, man, it’s the one’s got a mind of its own. Did
the way those logs were off of us for the long trek home, he saw

or rocks or whatever they are. suddenly—” through glazed eyes one of the ani-
logs, you see that little trick with the
I was looking right at them. First rocks? Ho-ho!”
“Yes, of course. But I mean be- mals coming back along the beach.
they’re on top of me, then they’re “See if you can find his gun,
side that.” When it was nearly directly below
piled up over there!” “Well, I guess I was kind of busy. him, he could hear it making sounds
Schick; he’ll either kill himself or
“Darnnit, the logs didn’t pick us one of us. Tie his hands and take
You know, scared and mixed up.” that by now had become familiar.

up out of the ocean, did they? Cap- him back to the ship. We’ll be along “But didn’t you notice our little “Where are you?”
tain Benson!” pop-eyed friend?” Purnie paid little attention to
shortly.”

64 GALAXY BEACH SCENE 65

the antics of his friend; he was be-
yond understanding. He wondered
what they would say at home when
he returned.
“We’ve made a terrible mistake.
broke through the swirling clouds
a double shadow was cast around
the animal. With foggy awareness,
Purnie watched the creature shake
its head slowly, then walk away in

We—” The sounds faded in and out the direction of the others.
on Purnie’s ears as the creature Purnie’s eyes stared, without see-
turned slowly and called in differ- ing, at the panorama before him.
ent directions. He watched the ani- The beach was deserted -now, and
mal walk over to the pile of scat- his gazewas transfixed on a shim-
tered logs and peer around and un- mering white square floating on the
der them. ocean. Across it, the last thing Pur-
“If you’re hurt I’d like to help!” nie ever saw, was emblazoned the
The twin moons were high in the word FORBES. for
sky now, and where their light — MARSHALL KING
your
information

BY WILLY LEY
THE AIR ON THE MOON
T WAS a very clear, very
cold Texas as we
night in
I
A
walked
nearly
the campus.
across
Moon was
full
straight overhead and we stop-
ped for a moment to look at
it. “Gosh,” said one of the girls,

it’s so clear you can actually

see there is no air on the Moon!”
And that is, of course, what
every textbook since Giovanni
Battista Riccioli’s Almagestum
novum of 1651 has said: there
is no air on the Moon. And when
modem astronomers speak about
66 GALAXY HE AIR ON THE MOON 67
a “lunar atmosphere,” they are term is rather misleading because

not contradicting this idea, even some ordinary gases such as

if it may seem so at first glance.
It alldepends on your definition.
If by “atmosphere” you mean
something that you can breathe
and which exerts enough pres-
sure on your body to keep the
nitrogen or carbon dioxide can
be rather inert too, depending
on circumstances, and are so
called in industry. To call the
rare gases inert gases can (and
in the classroom does ) lead to

body fluids liquid, then the Moon misunderstandings.

has no atmosphere. But if your For reasons which will become
definition of atmosphere is more apparent in a moment, it is
scientific — a collection of free necessary to give a table of these
molecules of gases on the surface gases, together with their atomic

of a body of planetary or near- weight.

planetary mass —
then the Moon
does have an atmosphere. Name Meaning Atomic
It is, in fact, a very special
Weight
atmosphere, consisting exclu- Helium (He) sun 4.0

sively (we think) of those gases Neon (He) new

which are collectively referred Argon (A) inert 39.9

to as “rare gases” or, sometimes, Krypton (Kr) hidden 83.

as “noble gases.” The first of Xenon (Xe) stranger 13

these terms needs no explana- Radon (Rn) 222.0
tion; they are rare. The second
term, used in Europe, refers to Radon was originally named
the fact that they do not combine Niton (shining), but the name
with anything to form any chem- was later changed to indicate

ical compounds; they do not, you its close relationship to radium.

see, associate with the common

elements. Why, they are so rpHE REASON for giving the

“noble” that they do not even weights is this: As the tem-

associate with each other! perature increases, the velocity
Just to be thorough, I have to of the molecules (or atoms) of
add that there are American a gas increases, too, and for a
chemists who call them “the inert given temperature the lighter
gases.” There is some justifica- gases have, of course, higher
tion for this because the name velocities.

of one of them, argon, the Since the escape velocity of

Greek word for “lazy” or,
is

more the Moon is not very high — OUR MOON, area of the Mare imbrium
"so clear that you can see there is no air there."

politely, “inert.” However, the 1.5 miles per second —

the
Photograph by Mt. Wilson Observatory

68 GALAXY THE AIR ON THE MOON 69


molecules (or atoms) can reach
this escape velocity if the tem-
perature is high enough. Then
they will simply depart for
unspecified points somewhere in
space, the lighter gases first. The
surface temperature on the Moon
can be 135° centigrade (275°
Fahrenheit) and a useful rule,
first stated by Dr. Harold C.
Urey, is that it will not be able
to hold onto anything with an
atomic weight less than 60.
Now this seems to restrict the
list of the gases which could
stay at the Moon’s surface to the
last three, but radon is a kind of
theoretical case only. It is radio-
active with a half-life of only
3.85 days, so that it disappears
for reasons of its own.
In reality, then, the Moon can
hold krypton and xenon.
Theoretical reasoning says
that it should be mostly xenon,
because xenon-129 must be
produced steadily from the radio-
active isotope of iodine, iodine-
129. The numberof xenon atoms
produced per second on the
Moon must be about 5000
million. The production rate of
krypton is far lower, so that the
lunar “atmosphere” would be
likely to consist of 95 per cent
xenon and 5 per cent krypton.
Radioactive processes always
produce helium at fairly high
rates, but helium is too light to
be kept by the Moon. Neon is
70
also too light, but argon is an
interesting borderline case. Its
weight is about 40, which
lighter than the lower limfl
postulated by Dr. Urey. On the
other hand, that figure of 275'
Fahrenheit is rather high and so
might the production rate of
argon be. The source of argon
would be the radioactive isotope
of potassium, potassium-40.
As Dr. Isaac Asimov pointed
out, 3600 grams of potassium-40
are likely to decay every second.
Eleven per cent of this potassium-
40 turns into argon-40 (the
remainder becomes calcium-40)
which means a production per
second of nearly 400 grams (close
to 14 ounces) of argon-40. Even
though a good percentage of this
argon must dissipate in space,
these figures indicate that
lunar atmosphere should
composed of argon, krypton and
xenon.
Possibly traces of another gas
must be added, carbon dioxide.
Last year the Russians observed
a phenomenon on the Moon
which they described as a vol-
canic eruption. English and
American astronomers did not
doubt the observation itself, but
inclined to the belief that it was
a carbon dioxide outbreak, which
carried surface dust up with it
and therefore looked more
stantial than it really was.
Now the molecular weight
GALAXY
carbon dioxide is 44, just about
the same as argon. Therefore the
same reasoning applies to it,
is
u t the question mark is the
t,
production rate. The only source
of carbon dioxide
on the Moon
would be volcanism — and the
most anybody can say about this
that there might be some
is
lunar volcanic activity left
— and from that day on Aristotelian
much emphasis on
with fairly
the word “might.”
How high this highly attenu-
ated mixture of xenon and
krypton with some argon and
possibly some carbon dioxide ex-
tends is a question which can
cause a long and inconclusive
debate. At any event, the idea
of catching some with a closely
orbiting rocket is not feasible. It
will need a soft landing of an
instrument capsule to find out.
the
be
GALILEO GALILEI AND THE
LEANING CAMPANILE OF PISA
AT ONE TIME early in his
-‘career, Galileo Galilei grew
very doubtful about the idea that
had come down from Aristotle,
namely that the speed of falling
objects varies in accordance with
their weight. That, for example,
an object weighing ten pounds
will fall ten times as fast as an
object weighing only one pound.
Galileo Galilei was at that
sub-
time professor at Pisa, the city
of the famous leaning tower
of
THE AIR ON THE MOON
(which was and is called the
Campanile), and one day in
1590, he assembled his pupils
and as many of the faculty as he
could round up at the foot of the
Campanile and he dropped a
cannon ball and a musket ball
from the top of the tower. They
struck the ground simultaneously
teachings were disbelieved.
Of course it’s a familiar story.
It can be found in all books on
Galilei and any popular book
dealing with the history of
science.
A
few months ago, however, I
received a letter from a Mr.
Cockroft in New Zealand who
had come across an article in an
American magazine in which it
was loudly stated that this
“whole silly story” had been in-
vented by an English writer by
the name of R. A. Gregory in a
book published in London in
been
1917, but had since
thoroughly disproved by Lane
Cooper, Professor of English at
Cornell University.
When the letter arrived I hap-
pened to be on a long lecture
tour on the West Coast. All I
could do at the moment was
write a letter in reply, promising
to check the facts as soon as I
could. I also ordered a copy of
Professor Cooper’s book.
For the rest of the lecture tour
I wasn’t quite happy. I had used
71
 .

the story of Galileo Galilei’s ex-
periment from the leaning tower
myself, but because it had been
a minor incident in my case, I
had not specially checked on it.
While flying to my next engage-
ment I tried to remember what
Galilei himself had said in his
famous Dialogues concerning
. . . waiting for me when I came
Two New Sciences. He did use the
famous argument there that the
Aristotelian concept was illogical.
Ifa larger stone fell faster than
a smaller one, what would hap-
pen if the two were tied together?
Would they fall still faster be-
cause they weighed more?
would the lighter stone
the movement of the heavier one?
I seemed to remember that he
had spoken of experiments.
A FEW lectures later
-^-dinner in the home of a
gentleman who had a large
library. Yes, a biography of
Galilei was among his books and
but a nuisance for a man who Aristotle did not write system- A RISTOTLE, then, did not
wants to find something in a aticallyabout motions and fall, actually speak of “fall, velo-
hurry. For this reason we didn’t which is to say he did not city of,” but of movement, and
even try the university library develop a theory of his own. He Galilei’s rendering which has re-
the next morning, though there was arguing against the atomists, placed the original phrasing
would have been time to do so. whom he disliked, and his state- might be considered a “populari-
If this were a story, I would ments are meant to show how zation.”
have Professor Cooper’s book wrong they were. However, there However, it was “always”
is one sentence which seems to taken to apply to the speed of
home. Since this isn’t a story, it be the one Galilei had in mind: falling bodies too. Ioannos Phil-
was went on two more
not. I “For any two portions of fire, oponus, who wrote a commentary
lecture and forgot all
tours small or great, will exhibit the on Aristotle’s Physics in 533
about But then Professor
it. same ratio of solid to void; but A. D.,said that the reasoning was
Cooper’s book (entitled: Aris- the upward movement of the “absolutely false” and that this
totle, Galileo and the Tower of greater is quicker than that of was one of the cases where the
Pisa) did come and a week or the less, just as the downward phenomenon can better be tested
Or so later I got around to reading movement of a mass of gold, or by observation than by logic. “If
hamper it. lead, or of any other body en- you take two masses greatly
It a most careful work,
is dowed with weight, is quicker in differingin weight and release
quoting the sources in their
all proportion to its size.” This is them from the same elevation,
original tongues as well as in quoted from his book On the you will see that the ratio of
translation. That the general Heavens. times in their movements does
I had feeling of confusion emerges Elsewhere (in Physics) he not follow the ratio of the
from its pages is not Professor stated: “We see that bodies weights, but [that] the time dif-
Cooper’s fault. The story itself which have greater rhope either ference is extremely small; so
is confused. of weight or of lightness, if they that if the weights do not greatly
To make it as clear as cir- are alike in other respects, move differ, but one, say, is double the

it contained the story of the cumstances permit, let us examine faster over an equal space, and other, the difference in the times
leaning tower and stated that •the whole thing piecemeal, be- in the ratio which their mag- [required for falling a given
Galilei (who was then about 26 ginning with what Aristotle said. nitudes bear to each other.” The distance] will be either none at
years old) had not published “An iron ball of one hundred Greek word rhope unfortunately all or imperceptible.”

anything while at Pisa. host My pounds, falling from a height of is quite rubbery in its meaning; Now that we know the con-
remarked, after I told him about one hundred cubits, reaches the the Latin editions of Aristotle cept Galilei was fighting, we
the inquiry I had received, that ground before a one-pound ball use velocitas or celeritas (both come to the crucial point. When
the original source was probably has fallen a single cubit.” But meaning “speed,” of course) did he drop the cannon ball and
buried in a volume with a title these are Galilei’s words (from where the original uses rhope the musket ball from the leaning
like “Correspondence between the Dialogues) and not the words But in English the words “im- Campanile and what did he say
Galileo Galilei and So-and-so” of Aristotle. Then what did pulse,” “momentum,” “trend” or about it himself?
— such letter collections are al- Aristotle himself say? Well, find- even “tendency” might be used The answer, surprisingly, is
ways a treasure for biographers ing that out is not so simple. with nearly equal justification. that he never said a word about

72 GALAXY THE AIR ON THE MOON 73

it. In his writings (and not only Three things will be noted: And the Dutchman Simon edition of Galilei’s works believe,
his published books but many of Viviani does not mention the gtevin, in a book published in namely that Galilei told Viviani
his letter are known)' he never weights of the bodies dropped and Leyden in 1605, wrote: “The ex- about the Pisa experiments when
even mentions Pisa’s Campanile. does not say what they were. He periment against Aristotle is like he was old. There is no doubt
And while he wrote much later also does not give the year — this: take
two balls of lead (as that they had close personal con-
that one could easily test his but since Galilei was in Pisa from and tact and it is known that Galilei
the eminent Jean
Grotius . . .

ideas by dropping weights from the latter part of 1589 to the some time ago), one ball was blind for the last five years
I did
a high place, such as a tower, he early part of 1591, as he says life. He might very well
ten times the other in weight;
of his
nowhere says that he did it. elsewhere, he probably did not
and let them go together from a have told Viviani things which
Then who originated the story? think it necessary to be specific. height of 30 feet down to a he had never written down.
It can be found for the first But while everybody else at a plank below the sound of the
. . . He might even have said some-
time in a biography of Galilei by later date spoke about one two in striking will seem to thing that wasn’t so. History is
Vincenzio Viviani. Viviani com- dramatic demonstration, Viviani come back as one single report.” full of statements ascribed to
pleted his manuscript in 1654, calmly said “repeated experi- And at some time before 1612 voluble old men which could not
twelve years after Galilei’s death. ments.”
a defender of Aristotle, Giorgio be checked and which are, to
That it was not printed until Coresio, did drop things from say the least, doubtful. There is
1717 is probably unimportant; it r T'HE historical problem here is,
the tower of Pisa. Another man, no reason to think that Viviani
was then customary to let manu- of course, the reconciliation Jacopo Mazzoni, had made such invented the story. Galilei him-
scripts and handmade copies of between Galilei’s own silence and experiments finding Aristotle self might have, but I don’t think
manuscripts circulate among Viviani’s statement. Before I get wrong. so. That he did not mention it
learned men, like Vincenzio to this, it must be mentioned that Coresio said that this was earlier in his writings can have
Viviani himself. Galilei’s experiment was not as due to the fact that Mazzoni several reasons.
Viviani described the great unique as it is usually portrayed. did not go high enough; he
event in rather dry language. He Hieronymus Cardanus, in his probably dropped things
just /~"|NE assumption is that he
said that Galilei had disproved book Opus Novum de Propor- from his window, whereas Cor- '“^did mention it in some early
many of the conclusions of tionibus,published in Basel in esio had gone up all the way to letters which were not kept by
Aristotle: “among others that the 1570, began a chapter with the the top of the tower and at this their recipients or were destroyed
velocities of moving bodies of the straight statement: Si duae great height had found Aristotle’s by accident before they saw
same material, [but] of unequal sphaerae ex eadem materia de- assertion correct. print.
weight, moving through the same scendant in aere eodem temporis Am quoting all these
I, in Another possibility is that,
medium, did not mutually pre- momento ad planem ueniunt. other delaying a deci-
authors, being busy all his lifeand often
serve the proportion of their “Two spheres made of the same sion of the main question? No, I harrassed, he just That
didn’t.
weight as taught by Aristotle, material, falling in (meaning have quoted these contemporary such a thing can happen is
but all moved at the same speed; through) air, will arrive at a facts because their existence, in within my own experience. Some
demonstrating this with repeated plane at the same instant.” The my opinion, is the clue to the time ago I came across a discus-
experiments from the height of word “plane” is to be understood historical riddle. sion, by high-speed
bolstered
the Campanile of Pisa in the in its mathematical sense; the The riddle is the silence of photographs, showing that if you
presence of the other teachers illustration given by Cardanus Galilei himself — unless he used drop a drop of milk in water the
and philosophers, and the whole looks as if he had a table top in Viviani as his mouthpiece. This resulting splash will carry some
assembly of students ...” mind. is what the editors of the Italian of that milk upward. Whereupon

74 GALAXY THE AIR ON THE MOON 75

 large to-do every December 17th could not even claim priority, planets like ours] waiting for us
I told my wife that I, as a jje

about “Kitty Hawk Day.” But since Cardanus had written about to take the first step in inter-
schoolboy (about seventh grade),
the actual Kitty Hawk Day, 1570, twenty years prior to
in stellar communication?
amused myself by trying to hit it

the Wright brothers flew Galilei’s Pisa tenure, and even Let me say first that these
a floating piece of wood with when
for the first time, hardly got into Simon Stevin’s book appeared thoughts were written down in
thrown pebbles and discovered
the newspapers. All the recogni- ahead of Galilei’s own Dialogues. about 1933, but were probably
that the splash from a stone was
received for the If the Pisa experiments did not conceived by the man who wrote
clean, while the splash from a tion originally
earth was decidedly could be reprinted on
flight impress anybody, Galilei had no them at a much earlier age,
clump of first

one page of this magazine. reason to talk about them in his since in 1933 he was over
dirty. It had at that time intrigued
Likewise March 16, 1926, is later works. They had not made seventy years old.
me so much that I forgot all
about the floating wood and even the day the first liquid-fuel him famous and they were not Now stop for a moment; don’t
rocket in all history (Goddard’s) even new. read on. Try to figure out who
called classmates to watch the
Until he reached old age and
effect. I may have missed a lifted itself off the ground. His- said this.
day, isn’t it? Again the had stopped being active and The answer
“discovery” by waiting for others toric is:

publicity received would fit this
to photograph drops of milk.
In thinking all this over, one magazine page —
and the editor
point occurred to me which I could specify nice large type
cause of the importance of
haven’t seen mentioned anywhere
started reminiscing. Not a science fiction writer, but
NOTE ON EARLY
Konstantin Eduardovitch Ziol-
be- kovsky, who wrote the first of
SCIENCE FICTION the modern treatises on space
the

Modern writers have made

else. event and the meagerness of the travel in 1898 and saw it pub-

much of the paramount impor- recognition. Sometime in 1932 the

AN ONE really doubt lished in 1903.

tance, the decisiveness, of the first Russian liquid-fuel rocket ...” intelligent life

drop from the Campanile. If it (Blagonravov’s) rumbled up- has developed on other planets ANY QUESTIONS?
ward. Certainly a historic date, [somewhere in our galaxy] and
had been so decisive, contempo-
too, but it seems that even the that these intelligences have Isaw an article in a photographic
rary literature should be full of
it. Since contemporary literature Russians do not know the date; learned how to build interstellar magazine proving that the pic-
literally doesn’t say a word, the I have only seen the year men-
ships .... that they have used tures which the Russians said
these ships to colonize countless they took of the other side of
German Emil Wohlwill (in 1909) tioned.
was the first to conclude that the And the first liquid-fuel rockets other planets .... that they might the Moon are fakes. Where does
Germany (mixed system have had to destroy painlessly that put us in the space race? I
whole story probably was not in
Oberth, Riedel, von Braun and unsuccessful evolutionary devel- have also read that the Russians
true. And Lane Cooper, a quarter
Ley) received publicity only be- opments on such other planets to claim to have discovered a new
century later, drew the same
conclusion for the same reason. cause we made it —
we needed replace “painful evolution by planet beyond Pluto. Is there any
But what if the experiment, publicity to raise money. painless colonization” .... that truth to this?
It is quite conceivable that they have left other planets Erwin Richter
though carried out “repeatedly”
rounded up his students undisturbed “as a biological Farmingdale, Long Island.
as Viviani says, simply did not Galilei
reservoir” [or
impress the contemporaries? and some faculty members, made as control ex- As the first item, I can
for

We do have convincing and the demonstration —

and did periments, as we might call only say that all reputable
not impress anybody. This would
it] . . . and that they have scientists the world over accept
much more recent examples.
be reason enough for his later
refrained from communicating the pictures released by Russia
Everybody in the airplane and
more so because with us [and possibly other as genuine. Personally I don’t
airline business now makes a silence. All the

76 GALAX! THE AIR ON THE MOON 77

have the slightest doubt. That seems very unlikely that he
somebody up with the
crops ever will.

intention keeping his eyes

of
firmly closed is no novelty at How many elements are there
all. For instance, I recently got now, including the man-made By JAMES STAMERS
a phone from somebody who
call ones?
still maintains that the Earth is
Welson S. Mann
flat. So this “revelation” has ab-
Hollywood, Calif,

solutely no bearing on the space The usual statement is that

race; we still are where we were there are 92 elements, from No.
before, several years behind, 1, hydrogen, to No. 92, uranium.

with no prospect of narrowing But actually three of these 92 do

the gap during 1960 and little not occur in nature. They are No.
chance for doing this in 1961. 43, technetium; No. 61, pro-
As for the “discovery of a methium (formerly called illi-
major planet beyond Pluto,” I nium ) and No. 85, astatine. On
can report that this isn’t so — ;

the other hand No. 94, plutonium,

the “claim” seems to have been usually a man-made element,
a mistake in translation. The does occur in nature, though in
actual story is that the Russian quantities far far smaller than
astronomer Edward Denisiuk, at even radium.
the observatory near Alma-Ata, The man-made elements, so they had been human —
photographed an unlisted “ob- far, are No. 93, neptunium; No.
ject” in August 1957. He did 94, plutonium;No. 95, americium;
not then know what it was; it No. 96, curium; No. 97, berkel- estipy 9pr an incredible
could have been a new comet. ium; No. 98, californium; No. 99, net .

Near the end of 1959 the einsteinium; No. 100, fermium;

“object” was found on other No. 101, mendelevium, and No.
Illustrated by C/|STER
plates taken in 1957 and a pre- 102, nobelium.
liminary orbit calculation could However, the ones above plu-
be made, proving that
unlisted
changed
tonian
asteroid.
this
planet” will
into a
probably
never become known. The culprit
it

Just
was an
who
“trans-Plu-
tonium have been made in such
small quantities that they would
be invisible to the naked eye, in
some cases invisible even under
a laboratory microscope.
H E was in some
ing medium which pressed
him gently and released
him and pressed against him again
with irregular rhythm. He could
dark, mov- b^ihlive. He
had.mo ideaiwhire, or
even when, or whether tBesf were
valid ‘‘questions, fak the |jftp
been entering
when they
had
hy^^Jpacetime
hit the aSteijbi^l belt.
has not owned up yet and it — WILLY LEY not feel his hands. He could not Warps and elongations took place
feel any part of his body, except a in hyper-spaB§£&n& Perhaps ne
sort of itching in his calf. was now a ljyper-spacem|n.
He thrust downward to relieve He could recall his name. It was
this mild irritation and, surprising- John Shepherd. He could remem-
ly, seemed to rise up. He seemed to ber objective events such as Doc-

78 GALAXY THE IMITATION OF EARTH 79

tor Adelitka Wynn creating a scene
in theMars terminal bar. Her so-
ciology was better than her sense,
as she accused him of making a pass
at her. He would have liked
perhaps, but ship’s etiquette said:
“Crews date, captains wait, space
is not the place.” He and she had
been the last alive, and the last
image he had seen on the screen
had been a sun. Whose sun, which
sun, and where were just unin-
formed speculations. But he was
alive and conscious of himself. And
he was buried deep in something.
He tried to define his feelings.
The alternating pressure of the
darkness was only in one spot,
felt
in the area of his heartand about
the size of a small bean. The oc-
casional itching came from below
this. He thrust again and again rose
upward. Yet he had no heart, or no
sense of hearing, for he could hear
no sound of pumping. After several
years in space he was only too fa-
miliar with the sound of his own
blood circulating in his veins. The
voids of space turned men into
especially noisy bodily orchestras.
There was none of that now.
He thought of himself as having
the shape of a man, but perhaps
that was just habit. The only area
he could in fact feel was the bean
slightly higher than his middle
and a column perhaps attaching
him to the bean . and this itch-
. .
ing down below, in what seemed to
be one doubled-up leg. He
80
again and again, rising higher each
time. There was nothing else to
do. He never felt tired. He
felt anything, except the itching.
to,
t 1
VENTUALLY he felt a slack-
ening on the upward pressure.
He had kicked with his one leg,
risen found no resistance.
and
Warmth played over him and he
uncurled his head. So he had a
head.
Habit had accustomed him
seeing with his eyes, from one
focal point. It was some time
fore he found he could see, in a
general way, from any point on his
exposed surface.
He could even see parts of him-
self, where the edges doubled
over. It was like being able to run
round a large gallery on the top
of a dome, looking out at the view
— and yet being the entire dome.
He was green! He looked down
beneath him and saw a long green
pillar, tubular and shiny, rising out
of a brown background.
He
could still feel the beating
pressure down below. It struck him
that he was a plant, growing from
seed which presumably his liqui-
atomized or dissolved body
fied,
had provided, and emerging on die
surface of a planet.
Immediately overhead a bright
. . .
orange satellite swung through a
brilliant yellow and white sky. Un-
less there were two suns here, this
thrust was no more than a satellite body,
GALAXY
yapped in orbit, for he could feel
the fierce beat on his surface from
never another source on the other side of
the sky. This was a vast fiery globe
traveling atimmense speed.
He a vigorous thrusting in-
felt
side his structure as he expanded.
But darknesss rushed up from the
bottom of the pit in which he stood,
and cloud came in to mask the sky.
The general inference was that
he was on a very warm planet
to around which the bright orange
set satellite swung, and that both were
be- circling the hot sun at a speed far
exceeding that of Mercury. Natu-
was only a subjective im-
rally that
pression. But the little he had seen
did not suggest any system he had
ever heard of. He curled up.
Each time the sun went past he
grew further out toward the edge
of the pit. He branched and clung
to the earth with subsidiary ten-
drils. It was exactly as though he
were clawing with fingers into the
earth, except that he did not re-
move them but simply grew on past
them. When he reached the top of
the pit, and accustomed his seeing
to the greater distances now before
him, he saw a violently active world
of fireand steam. The ultra-rapid
rotation of this planet made day
and night into the flickering of a
primitive film. Mountains of earth
were raised up, broke off and shat-
tered. Remote volcanoes fizzed
into action briefly like fireworks
and faded, their tremendous dis-
THE I M ITATION OF EARTH
Whole swamps heaved
play spent.
and moved with internal motion.
He became big enough to be able
to lose a side creeper without giv-
ing it a thought. He felt no pain.
There were advantages in being
a plant, and particularly in being
an apparently highly active
creeper. He could see from any
point in his enormous network. He
could organize races between his
outlying tendrils. He found that
the orange satellite exerted quite
a strong pull on his internal sap
system, which was not unpleasant.
r
I ' HE first sign of life other than
himself, oddly, came up from
a neighboring pit.
It lay within the area he had
grown over, but he had never
bothered to send down shoots and
side creepers into it. It was a pecul-
iar sensation to recognize — Dr.
Adelitka Wynn.
He sent out a sly root and de-
tected that she was a bulb forma-
tion. Her indignation was trans-
mitted violently along the ground,
in a series of sharp shocks. She
stood in tall sheaves of broad-
bladed grass which rustled in the
wind. He found it was intelligible,
though of a different timbre than
the deep, rough scraping he made
with his own hairy leaves.
“Kindly keep to yourself,” she
said in effect.
Her leaves had a high hissing
note. He marveled that she had
81
managed to retain the same un-
pleasant approach to life.
She was objectionable again
when she had filled her pit and
found she could not extend onto
the flat earth beyond, because he
had already covered the area.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got
the whole world to ourselves.”
“I can’t,” she answered hissing-
ly. “You have spikes on your stems.
They’ll tear my leaves.”
He shut off the sap from a whole
subsidiary system, killing She it.
spread over his withered shoots and
leaves without a sound of acknowl-
edgment. They both developed
toward the marshes.
As he approached, leaving her
slower bulb-formation behind as he
raced tendril ahead of tendril down
the slope, he saw there were other
forms of life, in the water.
He said nothing. But he quietly
doubled his thorns and built up a
reserve in his advance tendrils, so
that he could rush an armored
shoot across the ground at high
speed if necessary. The aquatic life
moved and died extremely fast.
Whole species expanded from a
single specimen, and for no visible
reason extinguished themselves.
Life on the planet did not seem to
be stable. It was highly experi-
mental. He had been down at the
marsh for some time before the first
crablike object came into existence
and began to leave the water in
fitful dashes. He gave it an early
82
dose of his thorns. Thereafter
left him alone.
The former Dr. Adelitka Wynn,
however, approached the marsh
without looking.
He watched with satisfaction.
She was a golden brown and ten-
der green, and highly succulent ap-
parently to the crab tribe. She cried
for help.
They were, after all, the only
two of human origin on the planet
So he put his reserve to work and
sent an armored set of shoots rac-
ing across the ground as a barrier
between her and the marsh. The
crab tribes retreated.
“Thank you,” she said, regener-
ating her clipped stems.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever
said that,” he said hoarsely.
“I’m sorry. I am . .
you’re here.”
“How glad?”
“This is a most peculiar world,”
she said, changing the subject. “I
don’t recognize it at all.”
He said nothing but sent out an
advancing barrier of thorns to clear
a small area of marsh for her. He
performed small services with his
roots and tendrils, levering apart
her bulbs where they were in dan-
ger of rotting, brushing small in-
sects off her leaves when they
became established in colonies. His
main trunk was now thicker than
the body of a man, and he covered
several miles. In the marsh, his
shoots were thick and black, stand-
it ing like dark fingers deep into the
ooze. Out in the drier areas, which
seemed to be spreading, he modi-
fied his system to conserve internal
moisture. He grew fine multitudes
of hairs against the heat and preda-
tory insects. Dr. Adelitka
covered several acres herself, sur-
rounded by his thorn barriers.
"W/'HEN she felt well established,
™ she flowered in great blue
blossoms, heavy with orange
len. He had been waiting, and flow-
ered all along his immense length
in every color of the spectrum,
mileupon mile of wide flat flowers,
open and ready for the breeze. She
did not protest. He sent clouds of
pollen from his anthers, turning the
landscape into a mist that
fine
. really glad drifted over her. He
covered her
with several pounds of fine golden
dust.
“Thank you,” she said.
He wondered whether she would
produce a bulb like her or a young
creeper like himself. He kept young
tendrils hanging around her like a
catcher’s glove, until she told him
to go away and let her seed in
peace.
She seeded in a particularly
stormy period and in profusion.
She did it with a gusto and variety
that amazed him. Seeds with air-
borne devices, parachutes, airvanes,
twirling rotators, balls of
with hard shells, soft shells. She
even kept some pods, and, with a
GALAXY THE IMITATION OF EARTH
gesture almost tender, allowed
ripe seeds to fall into his waiting
leaves. He passed these very slowly
and carefully along his system,
from cup to cup. He cleared a slope
near the marsh and brushed deep
Wynn furrows with his thorns to put the
seeds in. He planted them gently
and grew an open lattice of thorny
stems above them, so that only the
sunlight could get in. As they grew,
he retreated his protective screen
pol- to allow them air and free ground
of their own. They shot up straight
and tall, saplings headed for the
stars.
The other seeds had taken hold
in remote regions, in marshes, on
the rising and falling mountains,
and in great flat stretches of pul-
verized volcanic dust. He found he
was aware of them and could, by
concentrating, even gain a vague
impression of the ground around
them, as if each were a locus of his
consciousness. He also found a tele-
pathic link now existed between
him and their mother. It was vague
at first but it became clearer, even-
tually superseding speech between
them.
None of their children had flow-
ers. Only the two of them flowered,
pollinated and seeded with regu-
larity. Their seeds spread in a
variety — and variety was the word,
for in the first seeding she had
down, packed as many variations as she
could imagine. There was, in his
opinion, too much emphasis on
83
grasses after her own general style
and too few creepers like himself.
But that was a small detail. The
original form did not last long in
any case. Some of his seedlings had
been enclosed by the rising marshes
and were now more comfortable
under water than above. A few
wilder members even retained a
measure of mobility and spent their
lives floating from place to place.
HE did not entirely approve of
But, as the marshes grew
this.
under the constant rain and ac-
quired an unpalatable saltiness so
that they were virtually seas, he
saw the sense of this development.
He now covered, by himself and in
proxy through his seeds, almost the
entire land area of the planet. She
extended just as far. They came to
a working agreement to leave cer-
tain areas primarily for the grass-
like progeny and others for his
more treelike seedlings. The global
view led them both to consider the
same experiment.
There were occasional worms
and crablike creatures, minute
bodies floating with his somewhat
gipsy water-seedlings, but they and
their own seeds were the only sig-
nificant forms of life on their
planet.
“Shall we see what we can
evolve?” he suggested.
“I had that thought myself,” she
answered.
“At least we know the end prod-
84
uct. It seems unlikely, now, but
man must have come from much
thisenvironment on Earth.”
“Very well. Where shall we
start?”
“Ihave some enterprising water-
plants,” he said diffidently.
“We have.”
It was an ambitious program.
But, on the other hand, life on
Earth had presumably also devel-
oped against all probabilities. Here
on their planet they could provide
continual intelligent guidance.
They went
out into their water-
plants and sensed through their
miles of sensory surfaces the most
favorable areas of the planet. They
encouraged the water-plants to
breed, cross-breed and extend.
They fed fractional parts of them-
selves to each other, loaded cer-
tain areas with nutrient life, en-
couraged mobility.
Great continental areas rose and
sank. Generation after generation
was rapidly produced and as rap-
idly developed and died. The
planet was littered with the re-
mains of unsuccessful experiment.
But, mainly by concentration on
iron-rich diets and localizing their
sight perceptions repeatedly in one
particular part of their species, they
produced plants which no longer
responded to them. They had sepa-
rate existence of their own.
At last they managed to lure re-
peated generations out of the water
and onto land.
GALAXY
They had the advantage not
merely controlling the environ-
ment but of being the environment.
Subject to the violence of vol-
canoes and the endless shifting of
the planet’s crust, aberrations in
the plane of rotation, and rapid
changes of climate, as ice mounted
and retreated and heat waxed and
waned, within these limits they
could and did make arbitrary deci-
sions. By withdrawing from an
area, either of
desert. By
them could create a
doubling their rate of
growth in a local tributary of them-
selves, they could create a forest.
Their descendant seeds were as
much part of themselves as the
original trunks. In fact, they rarely
distinguished between that original
growth and later developments. It
came as quite a surprise to them
both to find there was not much
left of the first bulb clusters and
the first sprawling creeper.
/'|NCE they had induced the
more-or-less fishes to leave
the water, progress was rapid.
There was never a difficulty
quite as great as that again. On
land, wherever the land happened
to be at the time, they could induce
generations of different shapes and
sizes by modifying the vegetation
— themselves, in their many forms.
He took his branches higher and
higher in a sparse zone, for ex-
ample, to encourage the necks of
the local animals to extend. They
THE IMITATION OF EARTH
of were remodeling their program
deliberately on their old Earth, cut-
ting off what they knew to be un-
successful by-paths and nurturing
the developments that should lead
to man. The original crablike in-
habitants had long since passed
away, though they had used some
features of these. The insects con-
tinued to multiply on their own by
sheer probability and without then-
guidance.
They were both ruthless
experiments. Once they abolished
whole races of enormous vegetar-
in then-
ians by withholding themselves in
inaccessible areas. Like the dino-
saurs, whom resembled
they
closely, these great reptiles were
too big and too stupid.
She blamed him for having al-
lowed them to feed too many gen-
erations on too highly radioactive
parts of themselves.
“I can’t be everywhere at once
all the time,” he said.
To annoyher, and because he
had been a space captain, he en-
couraged an entirely abortive series
of flying reptiles.
His excuse was true. By exerting
his consciousness to its maximum,
he could be aware of almost all the
planet simultaneously, but this
awareness lacked intensity and
definition.
The comfortable maximum for
concentration was about a hundred
square miles. If he focused his at-
tention within a square mile, his
85
 ] as t I can tell where they are with- sybaritic and sensual surroundings
roots and trunks and branches “He’ll never last,” he said to her.
out dashing from branch to branch to knock them off their mental
hissed with massive life and rapidly “His metabolism burns out before
like one of your monkeys.” perches. In one group of islands —
propagated themselves into a thick he has time to do anything.”
He still did not believe her mon- which she could not reach because
jungle. This in turn multiplied the “He’ll reproduce all the faster,"
key experiments had had much to his pines starved out her seeds be-
surface areas and diffused his at- she answered. “And leave those
do with it. Secretly he suspected fore they had a chance to establish
tention. There was a lot going on trees alone. At your age, really!” .

—
shehad encouraged that develop- he had a series of permanent
undergrowth that they both She was right about the proto-
in the
ment to annoy him — by putting statues erected to himself by the
missed. type brute. Never in their experi-
multitudes in his hair, so to speak. humanoids, and he had frank and
They almost missed their ulti- ments had they produced a crea-
It was and proper, therefore,
just open worship. He considered it
mate triumph. ture that was so active. They had
that the humanoids trampled all very proper. He maintained a cool
raised animals that bred much
over her grasslands by preference. and bracing temperature in the
’
1 1
HE satellite of their planet had but none that bred at a rea-
faster,
It was in this mood that he cre- trees around the sandy shores.
cooled. The sun around which sonable pace and also kept flashing
ated cool groves of tall trees and He had passed through four or
they swung was shielded by thick about the planet in a restless
concentrated in them thoughts of five hundred generations of giant
banks of the carbon dioxide they motion.
love and pleasure. redwoods before the little huma-
breathed off from their myriad They had to litter the ground The humanoids took the hint re- noids established themselves in the
bodies. They had stabilized most with suitable seeds before the
markably quickly. He had many cities across the planet. Many of
of the animals. Despite the re- humanoids stopped long enough in
happy generations encouraging the their activities were too fast for
peated cataclysms they had arrived one spot to try planting for them-
humanoids to sport in his groves. him to perceive, but he could con-
at descendants who could flower selves. And even then, the idea did
She was furious. But trees were his template their cities.
just as they themselves originally not take root for many many gen-
province and there was nothing she These were temporary struc-
had flowered. erations. But here and there, at
could do about it. tures,on the scale of the thrusting
As a matter of fact, he was quite last, they had the beginnings of a
“You’re debasing them,” she growth he felt in one of his red-
deeply taken with an offshoot culture, and the beginnings of
complained. woods. Still, to these dizzy little
wood of flowering trees. In the speech. The telepathic content of
“They’re enjoying themselves, humanoids no doubt the cities
guise of honeysuckle he spent most the humanoids’ speech was intel-
they?”
aren’t lasted long enough. It was rare
of his time wooing tenderly round ligible to them, though not appar-
“Voyeur!” now for him to pick up a humanoid
their trunks, to the fury of her ently intelligible to the humanoids
Well, he frankly enjoyed the thought. Unlike their first models,
grasses and the lashing of her reeds. themselves.
swiftrush of little pink bodies in the present generations thought at
An object that was a rudimen- They concentrated on the tem-
and out of the groves. He was sorry the high speed which characterized
tary improvement on an ape came perate zones, where they could
when she succeeded in countering their entire life. A blurred flicker
shambling into the wood where he most easily encourage the human- with a sterner line of thought, bred of an impression to him was ap-
was and quite idiotically tore off oids to stand still from generation
out of her deserts and thin-grassed parently the whole life’s output of
some of his prettier flowers. to generation. The humanoid dwell- mountains, where she was full of one of her contemplatives sitting in
On checking, he found there ings flickered into existence and
thought of privacy, and continence, a cave, until he fell to pieces and
were several varieties of this object decayed too rapidly for any reli-
and wonder and the stars. When he was whizzed away.
in various parts of the planet. None able observations until several
could, he made life uncomfortable The pink varieties no longer
appeared any better than this brute, tribes of them took to using stone
for these higher-minded genera- worshipped him, save fitfully, but
who whizzed through the trees and for building materials.
tions. He was never slow to create he still had a pleasant range of
bred and died in a flicker of time. “Well,” he said thankfully, “at
THE, IMITATION OF EARTH 87
86 GALAXY
warmer-colored humanoids whom said, interrupting her. “Our time
he could tempt into an orgy. This scale is quite different from what

kept him deep in the forests on the itwas on Earth. These humanoids What a wife! Pretty, smart
central belt of the planet. of ours breed and die like ephem.
erids.”
. . . and when she cooked it

CHE signaled to him from across She rustled impatiently.

^ the main ocean. He transferred you took trouble to examine
“If
was just out of this worldl
his consciousness to join her on the species from their time scale,
the edge of one of her wide prairies. you would find it is precisely the
“I think we’ve done very well,” same as Earth time to them.”
she said. “Is it? Very well, I believe you.
“Surely you didn’t call me all the We have created an exact duplicate
way here just to say that.”
“Yes. It really is Earthlike, isn’t
of
tions.”
the other Earth. Congratula-
cry snooker
it? I felt it was about time you “You’re just agreeing without
congratulated me.” proof. I have evidence to show the By ANDREW FETLER
He thought back. sociology is a detailed replica.
“I don’t remember, now,” he said. These humanoids are repeating Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
“But it seems to be roughly similar.” human history exactly as we knew
“Roughly! After all this time, it!One of our ivy shoots even re-
you dare to suggest I have only ported a tombstone marked ‘Killed
achieved a rough similarity? I was in the Battle of Bunker Hill, June
a trained sociologist, kindly remem- 17 1775 .’”
,

ber. It is exactly like Earth.” “Now you’re exaggerating!” he

He looked patiently up at the said. “How could they possibly
satellite and the stars. She was duplicate a time system that ap-
detailing the achievement interm- plied on the other Earth?”
inably. “What other Earth?” she said.
"It’s very difficult to tell,” he —
JAMES STAMERS

HOLD IT! ABY DOLL,” George said. “Put caps on bottles so your
W« mean
your collection of GALAXY, naturally, which will called from the bath- perfume won’t evaporate. I paid
really dress library when they're kept in our handsome
up your m 9 room. twelve bucks for that Chanel.”
gold-stamped binders, instead of just being allowed to accumu- There was no answer. Rosy looked up at him, stretcb-
late. Arranged according to date, easy to hold, protected from
George wrapped a towel around ing her neck a little.
rough handling, your back issues of GALAXY will give you con-
tinued rereading pleasure and increase constantly in value.
. . .
hisrump and came into the living “And next time close the damn
Each binder holds six issues and costs only $2.50 postpaid from room. Rosy sat curled up reading a Bendix so I won’t have to swim
Galaxy Publishing Corp., 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y. magazine. through the basement to shut it
“Do me a favor, Rosy,” George off.”

88 GALAXY CRY SNOOKER 89

 “Oh, no.” “Can’t you remember the brand?”
“I told you, die catch wouldn’t
catch.”
AT the breakfast
morning George gave her the
ring
table next
“Supposed to build up terrific
pressure,” Charlie said. “Five thou-
“No,” he said.
Meddlin’ Maude rose to her
“The catch would catch all right diamond cocktail she’d
sand pounds per square inch.” feet. She looked down at him se-
ifyou didn’t leave Timmy’s diaper drooled over. Rosy gave him the
George stared before him as verely. “George, you’re slipping,”
hanging out.” self-winding time piece he’d slob-
window. they drove into the Park-O-Port she said and marched off to the
“That’s not fair,” Rosy said. bered over in Cellini’s
He had not a moment free till Keep Smiling office.
“Blaming little Timmy.” Dear girl, had the courage to get
coffee break at ten.Mr. Per-
it for nothing down and thirty-six
his
His hands tried to crush an in-
visible bowling ball. “Just a little
presence of mind, Rosy. Okay?”
. . .
months to pay.
‘Don’t gulp your food,” Rosy
kins wanted the Lawndale policies
cleared right away and Mr. Zung- GEORGE grabbed the tele-
phone. Five thousand pounds
turn to drive enspiel had all the juniors in for a per square inch, he thought. Wham-
“You dropped your towel,” Rosy said. “It’s Charlie’s
briefing on exorbitant rates. When mo!
said, looking away. you.”
In his high chair, Timmy scooped he got back to his desk Maude The phone rang seven times.
George ran into the bedroom
up handfuls of oatmeal and heaved Doody waited to interview him Then he dialed Charlie’s house,
and came back in his pajamas. ‘Tor
about his wedding anniversary for but Beth did not answer either.
God’s sake, honey, try to remem- them over the port side.
her “Sweetness and Light” column Rosy and Beth spent hours at the
ber what you’re doing when you’re When Charlie came to the door
in Keep Smiling, the company supermart. ‘It was the social cen-
doing it. Like with the power he had a gift-wrapped box for
He gave weekly. ter of Sunnydale where the gals
mower.” them. It looked heavy. it
“I hope you’re always polite could gossip a little and compare
“I suppose that was my fault?” to Rosy and slipped on one of
to Rosy,” Meddlin’ Maude said. “I brands.
“Don’t you know enough to cut Timmy’s oatmeal bombs and flew
can’t stand rude men. How old is George took the elevator up to
the engine when you’re done?” headlong into the couch.
“Happy wedding anniversary, Timmy now?” the company cafeteria. On the fifth
“I wasn’t done. I had to answer
be three in September.”
“He’ll floor Mr. Perkins stepped in.
the phone, didn’t I?” you two,” Charlie said, picking
himself up. ‘When are you going
Maude made a quick mental Lawndale polic-
“Just got your
George threw up his hands. “So
calculation. She looked doubtful. ies,” Mr. Perkins said. “Fast work,
all right. So you left it running and to fix my fence?”
“And could you tell us what you son. Keep it up.”
it went right through Charlie’s Rosy weighed the box in her
gave Rosy for her wedding anni- “Thank you, sir. I had an in-
fence.” arms. “Charlie, that’s real sweet of
versary?” quiry this morning, About do-
“Sometimes,” Rosy said, putting you and Beth. Let’s open it now, sir.
“A pressure cooker,” George mestic accidents.”
down the magazine, “you exasper- George.”
said, forgetting everything else. “Shoot the problem, son.”
ate me, George. I told you, I put ‘We’re late,” Charlie said. He
wiped his shoe on the rug. “Come “Is that all?What kind of pres- ‘Does it cover injury by pres-
it in neutral or whatever it is.”
sure cooker, George?” sure cooker?”
“You put it in high and let it run on, pal.”
“Five thousand pounds per ‘Was it Full Coverage or Com-
through Charlie’s fence.” They took the freeway out of
square inch.” plete Coverage?”
Rosy looked at him as at a bad Sunnydale. Downtown the clock
“I mean the brand” Maude said, “Complete, sir.”
tomato. “Why,” she said, “do I get on the Trojan Life & Casualty
stabbing the air with her sharp “Covers everything from elec-
blamed every time something me- building gave them four minutes
pencil.‘Don't you think the folks trocution in the bath tub to getting
chanical goes wrong?” to get there.
would like to know the brand?” hit by a stray rocket from Cape
But they kissed and made up “What was in that box you
“Uh, I guess the best." Canaveral.”
because it was the night before brought?” George asked.
“They’re all best,” Maude said. The elevator let them out at the
their third wedding anniversary. “A pressure cooker.”

GALAXY CRY SNOOKER 91

90
cafeteria. “Mr. Perkins, I’d like to When Arlene dropped the noon
double my wife’s policy.” mail on George’s desk he sat
“Mighty sensible of you, George. dreaming. More insurance, more
Can you afford it?” credit; more credit, more debt;
“No, sir.” more debts, more prestige. He sat
“That’s the spirit! How about up with a start and dialed Rosy.
your own policy, George? Isn’t it
about time you went up a notch?” T' HIS
f
time she answered and all
“You mean it, sir?” was She’d spent the morn-
fine.

“I’ve been keeping my eye on ing in the supermart filling out con-
you,” Mr. Perkins said. “I’ll see test entry blanks and buying a big
what I can do.” roast for the pressure cooker.
George thanked him profusely. “Oh, George, it’s a wonderful
“Not at all, not at all,” Mr. pressure cooker. It looks like a
Perkins boomed. “That’s what old space ship, with bolts and portholes
dad Perkins is here for.” and all.”
George got his coffee and joined “I don’t want you to—”
Charlie at their corner table. it’s got a remote control
“And i

“Getting chummy with old dad panel or something, with all kinds
Perkins?” Charlie asked. of buttons and blinkers, Timmy
“I just got told,” George said, just loves it!”
leaning forward, “I could increase “Is Timmy anywhere near it?”

my insurance.” “He’s in it. It’s a big one.”

“No!” Arlene came by his desk
“Said it was time I moved up a “Where’s Charlie?” she asked. “I
notch.” got a telegram for him.”
Charlie clenched his fist. “We George waved her away and
can make the Country Club, I tell brought the receiver close to his
you. I’m almost twelve thousand mouth.
in the red, not counting the house “Rosy, listen,” George hissed.
and the boat. Lefs celebrate, “Put that damn thing away till I
Georgie. All four of us. can go We get home. We’re going to the
to the Emperor Room for sixty Emperor Room with Beth and
bucks. That is, if you’re still talk- Charlie.”
ing to your humble friends.” There was a short silence. “You
“Come off it.” you wanted a home-cooked
said
“I’ve seen happen,” Charlie
it meal,”Rosy said. “To remind you
said bitterly. “People getting so how married you are.”
deep in debt they start snubbing George looked up at Maude
their more solvent friends.” Doody standing at his desk. “That

92 GALAXY Y SNOOKER 93
sounds like a personal call,” Med- “If you see Charlie before they
you,” Arlene said, “tell him I “What are you waiting for, big sun glasses shining like the eyes
dlin’ Maude said. fire

a telegram on his desk.” man?” Charlie said. “Call Rosy, of a wasp and his hat snapping in
“It’s my wife.” left
the wind. George had never broken
“George,” Miss Doody shrilled, willya?”
“You’ve been on that phone
“She won’t answer,” George the law in his life. He had a deep
three minutes,” Meddlin’ Maude her sharp pencil raised, “did you
or did you not tell me to go to said. “She thinks I don’t love her.” respect for the police, preservers
said, glancing at her watch. “You
policy on personal hell?”
“Come on! We better get home of law and order.
know company making dinner.” The cop motioned the cabbie to
before she starts
calls, George.” Charlie through the
crashed
They ran down to the Park-O- The cab zoomed over a
pull over.
“I’m a homemaker,” Rosy was crowd, waving a telegram. “Look
Port. crest on the freeway and ripped
want to make dinner for
saying. “I at this, George!”
“Ahm sorry, Mistuh Charlie,” down the slope with marked in-
you and Timmy.” George read the telegram
the snappy attendant said. “Caint crease in speed.
“Oh, go to hell!” George said. git yuh cah now. It’s on de top floh George rolled down the window
Meddlin’ Maude clutched at her OWING TO ILLITERATE
SHIPPING CLERK IN WEST- behind seven lines of cahs an dey and flapped his arms. “My wife!”
heart. ERN ELECTRONICS SHIP- aint comin out till five like every he yelled.
Rosy gasped. PING DEPT YOUR MAIL OR- weekday sept Satterdays, Sunneys The cop cut the siren. His hand
Five minutes later:
DER FOR PRESSURE COOKER
MODEL G- 19-782 5 6D WAS an holidays.” went down to his holster.
“Of course I love you, baby FILLED BY TOP SECRET “Give him a tip and let’s get a “My wife!” George yelled.
doll,” George said weakly. In a GOVT CONTRACTED PRES-
SURE SNOOKER MODEL X-13 taxi,” George said. He ran into the “Pressure cooker.”
semi-circle around him stood WITH TOUCH COMMAND street just in time to flag a cab. The cop grinned and nodded to
Meddlin’ Maude, Mr. Zungenspiel, CONTROL PANEL REGRET George tossed the cabbie ten say he understood, and roaring
Mr. Perkins, Arlene, and an as- SHIPPED TO YOU FULLY
ASSEMBLED HIGHLY DAN- dollars. “Step on it. It may be a ahead waved them to follow. The
sortment of lesser office authori- GEROUS TO LIFE LIMB PROP- matter of life and death.” siren started up again.
ties. “Just don’t touch that pres- ERTY & PASSING AIRCRAFT “I could have called Beth,” They lost him when they turned
I get home, dam- NOT SUITABLE FOR COOK-
sure cooker till
ING HEREWITH ADVISE Charlie said. off thefreeway and raced past the
mit. It’s dangerous.” WESTERN ELECTRONICS “We’ll get there almost as fast.” supermarket to their street. Sun-
“I can only do my best, George,” CORP NOT LIABLE FOR ANY
DAMAGE TO LIFE LIMB They zoomed through the under- nydale looked peaceful in the af-
Rosy said with hard finality. “If PROPERTY & PASSING AIR- pass and turned onto the freeway. ternoon. George’s house came in
that’s not good enough for you, CRAFT AFTER REGISTERED A cycle cop emerged from behind view. He heaved a sigh of relief as
darling” — she choked on a sob
— RECEIPT OF THIS TELE-
GRAM WESTERN SNOOKER a Schlitz billboard and took after the cabbie pulled to a stop.
“well, I’m sorry.” X-13 DISMANTLING EXPERT them, his siren wailing. “Rosy!” he yelled, dashing up
The phone clicked and the wire ON WAY BY JET SUGGEST “Never mind the cop,” George the walk.
KEEP SNOOKER IN NICE
went dead. COOL PLACE SORRY INCON- said. He flung open the door and
VENIENCE CORRECTED OR- The cabbie hunched forward stopped. The house was silent ex-
DER FOR YOUR PRESSURE
A dozen faces bent over him.
“George,” Meddlin’ Maude
COOKER BEING FILLED BY
NEW SHIPPING CLERK WITH
COLLEGE DEGREE HOPE
and gripped the wheel. “Mister,”
he said, “I’ve been waiting for a
cept for Rosy’s voice in the kitchen.
She was counting backwards:
her sharp pencil.
said, raising chance like this.” “Five four three .”
SERVE YOU AGAIN T C . . . . . . . .

“Just a minute, Miss Doody,” FRUMP V-P IN CHARGE OF “Rosy!”

said Mr. Zungenspiel. “Young SNAFU HPHE cop gained on them and “One . . . zero.”
man, would you step into my office as he came abreast George A steaming hiss sounded in the
when you have a tree moment?” George dropped the telegram. grew confused. He saw the cop’s kitchen. In a moment it rose to a

94
GALAXY CRY SNOOKER 95
howling pitch. There was a tre- ment, then broke its orbit and dove “It’ll get hit!” Charlie said. expert,” George said hopefully.

mendous crash and a tremor shook for Charlie’s house. It smashed in George pressed all four buttons. “I am more. I am the infentor of
the plaster from the walls. at the back and came out the front. The snooker wobbled for a mo- pressure snooker.” He noticed
In the settling dust Timmy Beth ran out in a bathrobe, scream- ment. Then it seemed to shake off Rosy and Beth. “Ladies,” he said,

crawled out of the kitchen with a ing. file confused commands and rose clicking his heels and bowing. "I

pot on his head. “Stop Charlie yelled, fling-

it!” into the plane’s path. The plane haf the honor to present myself.
In the kitchen Rosy sat on the ing himself at the control panel veered. The snooker turned after Vernher von Wissenschaft, at your
floor, clutching the instruction and pressing a yellow button. it and rose steeply. Then it dove serfice.”

booklet. The snooker resumed its orbit, and slammed down through the “Lkiewise,” Rosy said. “Could
“Now see what you did, then wobbled and dove into every fuselage. you get my
pressure cooker down
George!” second or third house in the street, They all stared as the plane before does any more damage?”
it

“What /did?” working the houses from side to crashed into the supermarket. “Ha ha!” Vernher von Wissen-
“Barging in like that,” Rosy said, side. Above them the pilot floated down schaft laughed. “Very goot! Pres-
tears of frustration streaking her Women ran out and stood dazed, in a parachute. He seemed to see sure cooker!Hm, goot way to de-
dusty cheeks. “I must have clutching their children and watch- the blinking lights of the control ceive brutal enemy. Export five
pressed the wrong button.” ing the snooker. panel and worked the chute hoondred tausend pressure cookers
Beside her on the floor lay the Desperately George pressed the calmly. He landed through the to enemy homes. Ja, I like it.”
Touch Command Control Panel. blue button. The snooker resumed hole in Rosy’s kitchen. He came “You don’t understand,” Rosy
Its colored lights blinked on and its orbit, wobbled, flew once over out of the house eating a piece of said.“My roast will be ruined if
off like a pinball machine. the street as if to check what all cold chicken. you don’t get it down pretty soon.”
Charlie came into the kitchen needed to be hit, then slammed He wore an air-research uniform “You cook rosht in my inten-
with Timmy in his arms. through the whole length of houses with a belt slanted across his chest tion?”
“Oh my gosh!” Rosy cried, look- from end to end. and high shiny boots, and in his “Biggest roast you ever saw,”
ing up at the ceiling. A hole was Two houses caught fire. Charlie hand he carried a Rommel whip. Rosy said. She hugged George.

ripped out in the roof and through pressed the largest button of all, “You see, this is our wedding anni-
E up to George and
it they could see God’s blue sky. the green one. The snooker righted
itself and flew out over the town.
H strode
looked down at the blinking
versary and I’m dying to know
how it came out.”
control panel. With the toe of his
G EORGE grabbed the control
panel and they ran outside.
Wherever it

of dust rose in the

struck a small cloud
air. boot he pushed a black button in
the lower left corner and squinted
“Rosht?” he mused, following
the snooker with his eyes and lick-
ing his fingers thoughtfully. “Why
They saw the snooker describing Four fire-engines turned into the
a lovely ellipse over Sunnydale. street. Three of them turned up at the sky, chewing the chicken. not? Maybe I make deal on side
“My roast!” Rosy wailed. around and raced back to down- The snooker obeyed instantly and with Amerikan Kitchen Appliance
“It seems to be waiting for or- town. resumed its original elliptical orbit. Inkorporated. If rosht comes out
ders,” Charlie said. They lost sight of the snooker “Ja,” he said. “Very goot.” He goot.” He looked at the broken

“Have to get down,” George

it for a while. All they saw was the gazed out over the town, the houses and the firemen spraying
said, setting the control panel on clouds of dust mushrooming all clouds of dust and the fires burning. the fires. “Ja,” he decided, “kill two
the lawn. “Before it slams into over town, and here and there a “Excellent,” he said, tossing the experiments mit one snooker.”
some airplane.” fire. When the snooker came in chicken bone over his back. It hit He waited for the snooker to
He pressed a large red button. view again, it was rising toward a Charlie in the face. pass overhead. Then he gave the
The snooker wobbled for a mo- jet plane circling overhead. “You must be the dismantling control panel a sharp kick with his

96 GALAXY CRY SNOOKER 97

 .

standing room for Mr. Perkins and Senseless Destruction!” (Ap- Home
heel, breaking it in two. The $10,000 from Builders
Mr. Zungenspiel. plause.) Assn.
snooker wobbled and exploded.
Bits of steel whirred out over Sun- Beside George at the table of Vernher cracked his whip. “Ex- $ 12,500 from Construction
nydale. A brown cloud appeared honor sat Charlie. Next to hinm cellent.” Union, Local 256.
above them and in a moment they Vernher von Wissenschaft in a The mayor raised his arms for $15,000 from Last Bank of
splendid uniform, cracking his silence. “I have good news,” he America.
were all drenched in a rainfall of
Rommel whip from time to time. said. “Congress has just voted one $11,276.88 from Unified Steel
roast beef.
By the time the gravy hit them Everybody who was anybody was billion dollars for Senseless De- Corp.
there: the Police Commissioner, struction research!” (Wild ap- $20,00 from Chicago Furniture
it had cooled enough to taste.
the Gambling Czar, the District plause.)
“It’s wonderful!” Rosy said. Mart.
Attorney, the Teamsters’ Boss, Vernher cracked his whip $ 10,000 from Congress in Series
“Chust a minute,” Vernher von six

Wissenschaft said. “Scientific ex- Senator Smiley, Coroner Schaden- times. E Bonds.
frohm, the Election Commissioner, “I can promise you, ladies and
periment not so fast.” He removed George also received the follow-
Slum Owner, the Housing In- gentlemen,” the mayor continued, ing appointments:
a shred of roast beef from behind the
spector. “what happened to our town is only Special Adviser to Mayor on
his ear and chewed.
“Never before,” the mayor the beginning. As a result of the
“Isn’t it good?” Rosy asked an- ; Senseless Destruction, with nom-
orated, “has so much damage been visionary experiment by this daring inal yearly income of $75,000 tax
xiously.
done by such a little man in such a young man, fifty thousand idle con-
Vernher von Wissenschaft fin- free.
struction workers have already
ished tasting. He thought a mo- short time.” Vice-President of Trojan Life &
Vernher cracked his whip. “Very been put back on the job; twenty Casualty Co.
ment, stretched his face. “Excel- ,

goot,” he said, turning to George. new banks have sprung up to han- Chairman of the Board of Trus-
lent,” he said.
“Rhetoric, you know.” dle the flood of mortgages; a new
“Do you really like it?” tees, Sunnydale Game and Wood
“The national economy,” the steel mill will be erected in our
“Ja, excellent.” He held up a Preserve.
mayor continued, “was in danger world-famous game preserve. But Honorary Supreme Commander
finger. “Perhaps,” he suggested,
I need not go on. The industries,
“two more grains pepper.” of imminent collapse ever since of Juvenile Senseless Destruction-
our old-fashioned P.O. — planned businesses and stock markets that to be organized.
ists,
r T'WO weeks later, when all the obsolescence — reached a point of will profit by Senseless Destruc-
fires in the town had been put no return. We had to produce more tion can hardly be numbered. The
A YEAR later George sat wear-
and more until the market was biggest boom in history is on! And
out and the damage assessed, a great ily in the control room of his

banquet was held in the Emperor glutted. Of course we would not

Room to honor George. In the
street a huge crowd of well-wishers
waited to greet him as he came out.
The Emperor Room could accom-
modate only the town’s important
personages; there were so many of
them that some of the best families
did not bribe the mayor in
get a seat.
But George managed
98
so much as a toaster to our
sell
brutal enemy.” (Applause.)
Vernher cracked his whip. “Very
goot.”
“But now,” the mayor said, smil-
ing at George, “the solution to our
economic impasse has been found!
This young man had the daring
time to
vision to contribute a brilliant new
to get concept to our economics. S. D. —
GALAXY
as long as we have the snooker it chateau on Indian Rock overlook-
willnever end!” (General pande-
ing the town. Snookers buzzed over
monium.)
rooftops like flies. Clouds of dust
When order was restored, the
rose prosperously everywhere. In
mayor turned solemnly to George
the streets construction gangs
and said: “In grateful recognition
raced in speed trucks.
of your .”
. .
George had begun to wonder
After the recognition speech how it would all end.
George accepted humbly the fol-
After the novelty had worn off,
lowing sums, not listing gifts un-
Senseless Destruction became
der $10,000:
^
more monotonous, more depress-
| CRY SNOOKER 99
 Way of “Too goot. Russian
slashed his face.
“Nonsense! My snookers haf no A snooker had strayed off its
ing than the Installment
emotions.” orbit and was hissing in toward the
Life before it. worked
People economy caught up with ours.
“Justseems that way some- chateau. came
harder than ever now and had less They vant snookers too. Must It over the
fast
times,” George said, going out. grounds, heading straight for the
to show for it. Of course, it was have snookers or they go kaput.”
Their job could even make stones control window.
unpatriotic to have anything to “What’s so bad about that? Let
feel something, he thought. Vernher never saw it coming.
show for it. Nobody in his right them go kaput. Cold war will be
He ran down to Rosy in the Probably he did not even hear the
senses would argue against Round- over at least.”
kitchen. She had consented to hav- glass crashing as the sharp slivers
the-Clock Employment for All. Vernher shook his head. “They
ing servants only because of her shot into the room.
And if you didn’t go around grin- threaten atomic war if they don’t
social but she still in-
position,
ning and saying how happy you get snookers. This time for real.”
were with your seventh mortgage,
sisted on personally running the
kitchen her own way.
DY the end of May George was
people began to suspect you. EORGE gave a low whistle. George pulled her into the hall-
still chopping a small clearing
George had talked it all over “Ja,” Vernher sighed. “Char- in the Montana woods. George and
We way and put his arms around her Charlie’s old
with Rosy and she agreed. Sure, it lie had secret cabinet meeting. campsite. It was
and kissed her. harder work than he’d expected.
was all right for them — for the cannot take chance. You must go
“What on earth?” she said.
time being. But George had begun teach them how.” But it was a good site and the tent
“You must be very brave, dar- would be replaced by a heavy log
to despise himself. “Can’t you go?”
“I’m leaving for Johannesburg
ling.” He fixed her with his eyes. cabin before winter set in. Some-
He had to keep sharp control
“Rosy, this is it.”
over the snookers. Some of them tonight. United Africa also caught times they’d climb one of the peaks
«It?” on the Flathead Range and sit gaz-
showed a tendency to sneak off up.”
“E-Day.” ing at Hungry Horse Reservoir
course, looking for some nice fresh “As it is our economy barely in
E for Escape.
target — like the chateau, maybe. keeps ahead of the Russians!” the distance.
“We can’t talk now,” he said. The were stubborn here,
The butler came and pre-
in “Ja. But cannot be helped.” trees
“Vernher is at the controls.”
sented a calling card on a silver “Maybe,” George said, “if you blunting the ax. But they’d make it
“Can I change?” all right. George sat down to rest.
platter. invented something bigger, better,
“No time. Are the suitcases Rosy waved to him from the
“Vernher! Show him in at once.” more efficient.”
packed?” potato patch. A strand of smoke
Vernher von Wissenschaft “You think I haf not tried?”
“They’re in the garage, behind rose
marched in, cracking his Rommel George stood thinking a long peacefully from the stone
the beer barrels.”
whip. He looked worried. moment. He said, “Vernher, is He waved back and grinned.
oven.
“Go get Timmy,” George said. Timmy worked his way up
“Bad news,” Vernher said, shak- there no way out?”
“I’ll drive the station wagon
ing hands. “Chust come from the “Sure,” Vernher laughed. “If round bravely to where George sat. He’d
tothe back door.” gotten used to his bark shoes and
President.” we go back to savage pre-civiliza-
At the gate to the grounds they had quite forgotten that he had
“How is Charlie?” tion.”
stopped and took a last look at the
“Goot. But too much work. And “All right,” George said. “I’ll go ever worn any other kind.
Watch
the control panel
chateau. They could
see Vernher “Can I help you, Daddy?”
trouble.These snookers.” Vernher tell Rosy.
standing in the control window. He Education too, George thought.
strode to the window and looked a moment, will you? Especially the
seemed to be enjoying the spec- The real kind. “No, thanks, son,”
out over the town. Eastern Section.”
tacle in the town below. he said. “You’d better help your
“They’re doing a fine job,” “What’s the matter with them?”
Rosy gripped George’s arm. mother plant the potatoes.”
George assured him. “They seem to be getting rest-
“Look!” That evening at supper, as they
Vernher turned. A grim smile less lately.”

GALAXY CRY SNOOKER 101

100
 sundown and the quiet
sat enjoying
President of the United States.”
woods and mountains, they “I got a present for you, George,”
of
the best of Galaxy novelets
heard a motor far away. The wind Charlie said.
— with a special plus for
took it away and then it sounded “Not another pressure cooker!”
Galaxy readers
much nearer, grinding in low gear. Rosy said.
George stood up as a jeep came “A peace pipe,” Charlie said.
round the mountain. In it sat a
man and a woman.
Timmy’s big round eyes took
him in. “Are you the President?”
he asked in a small, awed voice.
THE WORLD THAT
The jeep came
into the clearing,
swaying over stones and roots.
“Charlie!”
“Not any more,” Charlie said.
George stared at him. “You
COULDN’T BE
“Hi,” Charlie said. He helped didn’t give up the White House?” AND 8 OTHER NOVELETS FROM
Beth down.
George yanked
feet.
Timmy
“Stand up, son. This
to his
is the
“What
said. “I
else could I
gave it
do?” Charlie
back to the
— ANDREW FETLER
Indians.”
GALAXY
Edited by H. L. Gold
One look at the contents tells you
that this is a ‘must have’ book for
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Once a Greech; L. Sprague de
Camp’s A Gun for Dinosaur; Edgar
Pangborn’s The Music Man of GALAXY PUBLISHING CORP.
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D. Simak’s The World that
Couldn’t Be. $3.95 Please send me copies of
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AND 8 OTHER NOVELETS FROM
GALAXY, hot off the press. I enclose
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GALAXY
102
 T HE Double-A
wailed and blinked itself
into a bright red hemor-
rhage on the wall. I woke up fast.
My first thought was fire. Logical-
call light

ly, reasonably, I know there hasn’t

been a hotel fire in 800 years —
but tradition is tradition.
punched the visor and Greel’s
I
face popped on the screen. The
lobby clock over his shoulder read
3 35.
: 1 moaned silently and flipped
on vocal.
“Duncan here.”
“Chief, get down here quick.” I
didn’t ask why. Greel’s my head
bellhop and bellhops can smell
hotel trouble.
“Where are you?”
“Level 12. Desk 19.”
- “Check. Hold everything, kid.”
I started to cut off, then I saw
something else behind him. I took
a deep breath and held it.
“Greel. Is that - Ollie?” Greel
nodded. Like he was going to be
sick. I was in my clothes and out
the door. I took a manual emergen-
cy lift and fell seventy-eight floors
in eighty seconds, not even think-
ing about my stomach. Not with
Ollie to think about.
Ollie’s uncle is Mike Sorrenson,
owner of Hotel Intergalactica, and
a reasonably decent person. Ollie is
something else again. Crewcut,
eager, bowtie and fresh out of col-
lege. My
job — teach him “all there
is to know about the hotel busi-
ness.” Which should be a real snap,

105
as he already
know about
knows
everything.
all there is to “They kind of grinned at me, Mr.
Duncan,” Ollie interrupted, “and OUR luck was holding. At least
the Skeidzti were still just the
“I thought so. Well, first of
don’t refer to them as ‘pets.’
all,

They
Thursday, for instance. Ollie got said that was fine, there was no hur- hotel’s problem. I’ve got a few may be cute as a kitten to a Sten-
his menus mixed and served scram- ry about the bags.” friends on Free City’s revolving torii, but as far as you’re concerned

bled eggs to five hundred visiting “Yeah, I’ll bet they did,” I said. council, but I don’t like to mess they are dangerous, quick, carniv-
Vegans. That’s all. No trouble. Ex- I looked at Greel, and we both felt with those boys unless I have to. orous, highly adaptable little mon-
cept the difference between a sick.“Don’t tell me the rest. Ollie I sent Greel to organize the bell- sters. Only ‘adaptable’ is about as
Vegan and a chicken is strictly a checked them in on the Master boys into search squads. Then I descriptive as calling the ocean
matter of size and evolution — and Register, turned to get their bags — checked the Stentorii’s room num- moist. A
Skeidzti in a kitchen will
we’re still cleaning up Ballroom and what-do-you-know, they were ber and hauled Ollie out of his hide in a stack of plates and, by
Nine. gone.” chair, figuring the only way to make God, you’ll eat off of him and swear
Ollie looked surprised. He sure he stayed out of trouble was he is a plate. A Skeidzti in a gar-
T CAME out of the lift, my started to ask how I could pos- to keep him with me. Before I left den is a rock, a weed, a pile of
stomach only ten floors behind. sibly know but I glared him back the lobby I picked up a pair of low- leaves. In your bedroom he’s a gar-
Ollie popped out of his chair and to his chair. charge stunners and handed one to ter, a sock or a necktie. Only —

came toward me, a sick smile “Okay,” I said. “What have you Ollie. put one around your neck and
pasted across his face. done so far?” Greel took a deep ‘Took,” I said, “do you think you’ll damn well know he’s not a
“Mr. Duncan, I—” breath. you could possibly handle one of necktie.Now do you think it might
“Sit down, Ollie, and shut up,” I they have about thirty to
“First, these things without knocking us be permissible for me to continue
said quietly. He swallowed and sat thirty-five minutes head start. I’ve both out cold?” to bear arms against the Skeidzti,
down. shielded four levels above and be- Ollie nodded vaguely. He took just in case?”

Iturned to Greel. low. I don’t think they’ll get that the weapon and held it as if he Ollie was taken aback, I could
“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready. Let’s far, but no use taking chances. were certain it would go off in his tell. Almost enough to keep his
have it.” We’ve got one lucky break. Since hand. mouth shut He thought for maybe
“I’ll save the details for later,” the whole Quadrant borders on “Sure, Mr. Duncan, but why do a full second before he said any-
said Greel. “We’ve got to get mov- Free City they can’t get out except we need weapons? mean. I’m sor-
I thing.
ing. Fast. I have reason to believe through a Registration area.” ry I let those things get loose, but—" “But Mr. Duncan, if the Sten-
there are from four to fifty Skeidzti “What about—” I stopped at the lift and stared toriiknew they were dangerous —
loose in the hotel.” Greel nodded. “Already done it. at him. I suddenly realized the poor And that did it. I poked a hard
I drew a blank at first. Then it I’ve closed all five Desks in the kid had no idea what he had done finger in his chest and backed him
hitme and I felt cold all over. Quadrant. Anyone wants to regis- wrong. All he could see was that against the wall.
“Oh, my God,” I said, sending a ter has to come in by way of Greel and I were making a big fuss “Look, Ollie,” I said grimly, “that
withering look at Ollie. Seven.” over a couple of alien housepets. college line of logic is what got us

“Uh-huh.” Greel nodded. “The “Fine. Just one thing—” I flipped “Ollie,” I said patiently, “do you into this jam in the first place. Now
way I get it from Ollie, four Sten- through the register. “Could they really know what a Skeidzti is? I get this, and remember it. You
torii checked in about 3:00. They have gotten outside through this don’t want an oration. Just tell me don’t need a degree in Alien Psy-
wanted to go right up tb their room door?” the simple truth. Do you or don’t chology to know that Rule One is
so Ollie sent a boy with them and “No. It was unshielded, all right you?” He started to say something, never use your own viewpoint as a
told the Stentorii he’d put their But there were no checkouts after then changed his mind and shook premise in guessing what an alien
luggage in a lift right away.” the Stentorii registered.” his head. is thinking or doing. It just simply

106 GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE 107

doesn’t work that way. An alien’s resemblance to human form is no standard of your race.” The Sten- a look of mock astonishment.
actions are based upon what he indication that his outlook will in torii just grinned. I spoke a little “Mr. Duncan, do you imply the
thinks reasonable and proper — any way resemble human logic and louder. “I said I speak without of-
is hotel has allowed my pets to be-
not what you think he ought to reason. Until you know, don’t fense!” come lost? Naturally, I will hold
think. guess; and don’t assume, either, The Stentorii frowned. He didn’t you responsible if they come to any
“Why do you think we have that a lack of human form denotes like that at all. But he understood harm while in your charge.” I had
separate Quadrants and private en- a lack of common interest. A Goron it.
half expected something like this
trances to each room? It sure as is a repulsive, warty glob of pink “All right,” he said grudgingly, I couldn’t do a thing but play it
out
hell isn’t for economy’s sake, I can and brown protoplasm consisting “I accept.”
“All right,” I said, “I haven’t time
tell you that. It so happens that of twelve eyes, nine pseudoarms— “Fine,” I said, and let him see to appreciate your humor. You
some of these so-called reasonable and an entirely human liking for that I had switched off my record- know it is illegal to bring unregis-
civilized beings still consider each jazz, poetry, Scotch and women er. I never start an argument with
tered alien pets into this hotel. I am
other as rare culinary delights. Or anyway, Goron females. an alien without invoking the non- also certain you are aware that we
While that sort of nonsense is SOP On the other hand, ignoring the offense clause. Of course, the same are in the Federation Circle, which
in Free City, this hotel is strictly general hairiness and the rodent- clause is stated in every Registra- is not in Free City territory —
out of bounds. And here’s another like features, a Stentorii looks as tion Contract, providing mutual which means all guests, by the act
rule you can put down in Duncan’s humanoid as I do. He is also a com- protection for the hotel’s guests and of signing their Registration Con-
lectures on Alien Psychology: If pletely alien, cold-blooded, mur- its employees. But I like to play it tracts,place themselves under Fe-
a guest phones down for a midnight derous creature without a shred of safe.
deration law for the duration of
snack, he may mean he wants the mercy in his body. By now the three other Stentorii their stay here.”
key to his neighbor’s room.” I took I stared hard at the Stentorii were up, grinning at Ollie. I ignored
a deep breath.
“Am I getting through to you,
who opened the door. He stared
back at me from tiny red eyes set
them and spoke to the one at the
door.
TX HE Stentorii grinned, showing
his yellow teeth.
Ollie?” Ollie nodded, wide-eyed, wide on either side of his whiskery “My name is Duncan,” I told “Mr. Duncan, you are bluffing.
and I shoved him into the lift ahead pink muzzle. Then he saw Ollie him. “I am manager of the hotel. I am quite aware of the law,
and
of me. We hung for a moment, then and gave a high squeaky laugh, This is my assistant, Mr. Sorren- respectfully submit that if you
the gravs caught hold. baring a mouthful of sharp yellow come right to the point.
son. I will
check your copy of our Registra-
teeth. He turned into his room and You played a little joke down. in tion Contracts you will find your
IN my business you learn to get said something in Stentor to his the lobby a few minutes ago. Al-
employee here countersigned the
along with aliens, or at least companions. They nearly fell apart though this incident is a serious Alien Responsibility Clause.”
put up with the ones you can’t pos- I had had just about enough. breach of your Registration Con- Well, that was his round. I was
sibly get along with. And some are Time was running out I switched tract, I am willing to forget the sure he was too oily a character to
completely impossible — like the on my portable recorder and said: matter if I am able to gain your full fall for it, but I had had to try.
He
Nixies. Except for simple trade re- “According to Statute XII, Gal- cooperation. On behalf of Hotel In- was right. Under our Registration
lations, I can’t conceive of anything actic Standard Code, I wish to in- tergalactica, I formally request you
Contract it is presumed that while
I might have in common with a voke the privilege of communicat- recallyour Skeidzti immediately the hotel is responsible for a full
Nixie. ing with you; without fear of future and turn them over to me for hous-
knowledge of the Galactic Customs
And there was another rule of prosecution in case I may offend, ing in the hotel kennel.” Restrictions, an alien cannot be ex-
thumb for Ollie: Never be de- by way of accidental implication, The Stentorii glanced at his com- pected to inform the Desk Clerk of
ceived by appearances. An alien’s any tradition, custom or moral panions, then turned to me with all possible violations he may be
108 GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE
109
 si. I like to have them on the pay- rule instinctit had imitated a hair-
guilty of on any particular world. I looked at Ollie. His fists were
roll, and I’d hire fifty more if I less blue Fensi arm nearly up to
And any clerk green enough, or clenched by his side and there was
could get them. Fensi are quick, the elbow, before it had either run
stupid enough, or both like Ollie — a look of iron determination in his
alert, reasonably honest and highly out of material or died.
—who signs a Responsibility Clause eyes.
adaptable. Their adaptability Now
“Well?” I said.
that it was dead it was
without checking Galactic Customs alone makes them worth their slowly changing back to its natural
— ought to have his head examined. “Boy,” said Ollie. “Just wait un-
weight in gold to a big hotel. A form. The part we could see re-
Of course, we could take the Sten- til they try to check into a GHA
Fensi can breathe a wide variety of sembled a thin, eight-inch-wide
torii to court. Maybe we might hotel again.”
atmospheres, take plenty of G’s, worm-like creature with stubby ser-
even win, on the grounds of pur- “Ollie,” I said weakly, “I didn’t
and doesn’t care whether he’s hot, rated legs. I figured it could move
poseful malice, but I don’t like to come up here to actually accom-
cold or in-between. Unless you’re a about as fast a caterpillar without
get the hotel into law suits. It’s plish anything with those charac-
Fensi, room service around here adapting. It was a highly vulner-
bad publicity, and it gives other ters. It is strictly a matter of form.
can be a literally killing job. able creature, and in order to sur-
wise guys grand ideas. A necessary routine for the record.
Greel sprinted across the lobby, vive it had developed a high degree
The legal pitch having failed, I Everything I said went completely
a wide smile stretching over his of protective camouflage. With
was ready to continue with Un- down the drain. They were not im- its
hairless blue face softbody and slow speed almost
veiled Threat No. 1. pressed, frightened or embarrassed
“I’m glad you’re so happy,” I anything could pick up a quick and
“Look,” I said wearily, “I admit in any way. It is impossible to rea-
said. “Maybe you should have easy meal. And its natural color
you are within your legal rights. Al- son with a Stentorii because he is
gone to see our friends upstairs.” didn’t help at all. The dead quarter
though just how far within I’m not inherently incapable of taking any-
Greel laughed. “Maybe we won’t of the Skeidzti was a brilliant, al-
too certain at the moment. But be- thing you say seriously. He is also
need ’em, chief. The boys think we most phosphorescent orange.
fore you come to any decision let incapable of caring whether he gets
can clean the Skeidzti out by morn- “Well, son, get some idea what
me remind you that, while I may a hotel room. Anywhere. Ever. He — with a little luck, of course.”
ing we’re up against?” Ollie’s eyes were
not be in a position to take official has one now, and the future is
“More than a little, if you ask glued to the box and his face was
action against you, I fully intend to absolutely of no importance. He
me. Get any yet?” as blue as Greel’s.
a Warning Report to every doesn’t care about you, me, life,
file
death or hotel rooms. Didn’t you
Greel held up a finger. “One. “Can they — can they adapt to
member of the Galactic Hotel As- Skorno picked up an ashtray on anything?”
sociation, which includes nearly hear anything I said in the lift?”
Ten and it nearly bit his hand off.” “No,” said Greel, “they have
twelve million first-class hotels and “Sure, Mr. Duncan, but—”
He nodded toward the desk and limitations. I’m sure they can imi-
their subsidiaries. I don’t know “Ollie. Shut up.”
Ollie and I followed. He picked up tate most anything, but they
what your business is. But since a small stationery box and pushed couldn’t change as quickly under
you are here I presume it entails DITCHED Ollie and stopped
toward me.
traveling. Traveling means hotels.
1 off at my office for a wake-up
it six or eight G’s, or, say, in a
“Skorno got it before could
it methane atmosphere.”
If you refuse your cooperation, I pill. Greel had his command post
change completely — you can see “Not for two or three genera-
assure you it may be quite difficult set up in the Level 12 lobby and I
what it was trying to do.” tions, anyway,” I added soberly.
to find a decent room within twelve joined him there. The lobby was
I could. The object in the box Greel nodded.
thousand parsecs of this planet” full of squat Fensi bellhops, swarm-
was a dead Skeidzti, but only one- “Anyway, Ollie, the point is
The shrugged and
Stentorii ing in and out of the lifts like agi-
quarter of it was in its natural form. these varmints are already used to
closed the door on my foot. I’m sure tated ants.
The last thing had touched was
it a Stentor-Earth atmosphere. And if
he would have hacked it off for a Most of my
bellhops and some
Skorno’s hand. Following its blind- any get out—”
souvenir if I hadn’t jerked it out. of the Administrative staff are Fen-
THE STENTORII LUGGAGE
110 GALAXY 111
 “It would be comparable,” I The Skeidzti had been loose in
added, “to a plague of invisible the hotel since 3:00 a.m. By 5:30
i -
-1
bobcats.” we had killed eight of them. And
eight Fensi bellhops had bandaged i i

THINK for the first time Ollie hands.

I was hit with the seriousness of It was obvious we couldn’t go

our problem. I could sense a kind around touching everything in the

of helpless panic in his eyes, as if hotel to see if it was real or Skeidz-
he had suddenly realized he’d ti. Added was the problem of know-
opened the floodgates and let the ing when we had killed them all.
valve break off in his hand. The Skeidzti came in disguised as
“Mr. Duncan, I — well,maybe four pieces of Stentorii luggage, but
we ought to get help. I mean — I’ll we had no idea how many had
take the blame — and — and ” He
— clustered together to form each
was shaking like a leaf. I eased him piece. And the Stentorii weren’t

down to a chair. telling.

“And just what sort of help did I called Greel and Ollie to the
you have in mind?” I asked. Desk for a strategy meeting. Ollie
“Well, the police! Couldn’t dropped and sank into
in a chair

you—” brooding silence. Even Greel’s cus-

I shook my head firmly. “No. I tomary optimism seemed to have
certainly could not. That, my temporarily vanished. He reported
friend, is all we need. The Federa- the bellhops were doing their pok-
tion would quarantine the hotel, ing with sticks now, but the results
rout several thousand guests out of were still alarmingly low.
their various notions of sleep, and “What we need,” Greel com-

raise enough hell to wake every plained, “is a system.”

DeepDream addict from here to “Yeh, we need a system, all
Andromeda.” right,” added Ollie helpfully. I
“Aside from the Greel
fact,” stood up, paced around the Desk.
added, “that every Skeidzti in the The strategy meeting was dying
hotel could hitch a free ride out of on its feet.

here in some cop’s pocket.” “Look,” I said, “let’s analyze it

“Right. No, we can handle it our- Our problem is to get rid of the

selves, a hell of a lot quieter. We’ve Skeidzti, right?”

had worse before.” Ollie’s face told “Right,” from Greel and Ollie.

me he thought I was an out and “Okay. Now to kill them we have

to see them. And by seeing them I
out liar. But then, like I said, this
kid has a lot to learn about the mean we have to see them as they 7J ^ ^i
hotel business.

112
really are.”

GALAXY P
IgpT ..
>\
 E said, “Three more, chief.” reaction time. We still only get way to finish off this mess, but I
“Or catch them during a change,”
I bent down for a closer look. about one out of every ten we see.” do have one humble idea that might
added Greel.
This time, three Skeidzti had Swell, I thought. If they were too save a
“Exactly.” Somewhere in the little of Hotel Intergalacti-
back of my head an idea was catch- joined to imitate a portion of the fast for the Fensi, we were really ca’s property. I figure as long as
rug. It was a near-perfect job. They up the creek. we’re going to turn this place into
ing hold. I kept talking, trying to
had continued the intricate pattern, “What about spraying a low- a shooting gallery we might as well
push it out.
charge disrupter
“Then our problem is this. We carrying out the design exactly all over the place have something to shoot at.”
where the real rug stopped. The and picking up the pieces?” said I went over our floor plan with
have to force them to change into
only wrong, Skomo ex- Greel hopefully.
something we can recognize as a thing Greel and Skomo and picked out
plained, was that he passed the rug Skomo said, “I forgot to men- an area where the Skeidzti had
definite Skeidzti.” Greel’s frown
vanished. He sat up straight in his fiftytimes a day and knew it was tion that with a low-charge you proven particularly obnoxious.
about twice as large as it should have to hit them in just the right Then I sent Greel to seal off the
chair.
have been. place or they’re only knocked out
“You mean, like if we made them other contaminated levels, and
Something about Skomo’s rug for awhile.”
all change into an object we knew told Skorno to marshal his forces
worried me. I asked him how long “And while they’re unconscious in Humanoid
we only had one of.” Hall. I picked Hu-
he thought it took for the Skeidzti they’re just as safe as ever,” I fin- manoid Hall for two reasons: One,
“Sort of like that. Only that
to change from one form to another. ished for him. Then Skomo’s plenty of Skeidzti to work on, and
means we’d have to be able to iso-
“About half a second,” he said. words suddenly sank in. “Good two, a minimum of furniture. For
late the Skeidzti in a specified area
“But I think it varies, depending Lord! Do you mean you’re using
—and even ifwe could do that it’d previously stated reasons I kept
on what they’re imitating.” high-charge disrupters— inside this Ollie with me, and hopped a Class-
be a hell of a problem to get rid of
all the objectswe didn’t want them “For instance?” hotel!” A lift for Level Eight.
“Well, on a plain surface, like a Skorno nodded sheepishly.
to imitate. Which means more stick
wall or something, they’re faster- “What else can we do, chief? Sure, ORE than once I’ve had good
poking. Remember, they can flat- "\/T
much the place looks like a two-cluster
ten out on the walls and ceiling faster.” reason to be thankful we en-
“You mean,” I asked, “if they cruiser plowed through. But we’re
just as easily as they can curl up force stronglift security measures.

have something more complicated getting ’em, slow but sure.” No

like an ashtray or a sofa pillow.” matter where the Skeidzti
to imitate, it takes longer?" Skomo I was beginning to get a might go, I was dead sure they
Greel’s face dropped back into a little

shook his head. bit mad.

I thought about the Sten- would never reach guest quarters.
disappointed frown.
“No, you’ve got the general idea,” “I wish it did. When I said it torii,sleeping peacefully in their There’s a good reason for this.
varies, I meant just the first few rooms while we blasted four levels We ordinarily house about thirty
I said quickly. “But I think I’ve got
Once they’ve imitated some- of valuable real estate looking for thousand guests in the hotel at any
a way to work the same thing, only times.
quicker.” Greel suddenly looked thing, they don’t forget it” their damnable pets. And what, I one time. That number represents
around, and I turned and saw Skor- ‘Well, hell,” I snapped, “I know asked myself, are we doing about five to fifteen thousand separate

no, our first casualty, coming out
of the In his bandaged hand he
lift.
held an ominous looking club, and
in the other a limp and bloody
throwrug. He stopped before us,
grinning, and tossed the rug on the
they can’t imitate simultaneously!
There has to be some definite mini-
mum time lapse!” Skomo spread
his hands helplessly.
“I know, chief. But whatever
it’s too small to do us much
is,
it? Mooning around in the lobby
on our respective rears, that’s what
we are doing. I stood up again, glar-
ing at Ollie on general principles.
it “All right,” I said firmly. “This
has gone far enough, gentlemen.
races,each one requiring its own
unique set of conditions. In Quad-
rant Four
IVe got Denebian Ice-
worms at -200 F. right “next door”
to a cluster of Calistan Feroids
sleeping soundly in boiling mer-

good. They’re just too fast for our I’m not saying there any other No
floor. is cury. problem. We can handle
GALAXY THE STENTORI! LUGGAGE
114 115
 keep a gravitic lift at 9G Skorno groped toward me through Ollie down behind and dimmed
1,240 different atmospheres, with to, say, it

constant for a Cygnian than to

the wreckage. I put a handkerchief the lights. Dimmed them — not
innumerable variations in density,
change it to forty-five for a Lyri to my
nose and stumbled out to turned them off. The idea was to
temperature and lighting.
passenger. Everybody minds then- meet him, Ollie choking along be- force the Skeidzti to adapt to new
The real problem is sociological,
own business — and nobody waits hind. The air was the smell
full of lighting conditions, and I was afraid
not mechanical. If the Galaxy is
of fused plastic, burnt carpeting if I turned them off altogether
old, the oldest thing in it are its for an elevator.
That’s where security comes and a particularly nauseous odor I they’d sense they were safe in the
grudges. To put it bluntly, some lift
identified as fried Skeidzti. absolute darkness and not adapt
of these characters have hated each in.
“Are you sure there’s anything
other’s guts so long they forgot why Werun a high density force- at all.
left alive up here?” I asked. Skorno
about two million years ago. shield over each lift entrance. Try I gave them plenty of time, dim-
nodded, breathing in the poisonous ming the
Naturally, an Altaran isn’t going to enter one that’s not attuned to lights slowly until I could
your requirements and you run atmosphere like fresh country air. hardly they were on at
to walk into a Vegan’s room and
tell all.
“Sure,
strangle him. There’s a problem of smack into an invisible wall. Which chief, they’re here all Then pressed the switch for maxi-
I

precisely what would happen if right. You just can’t see ’em.” He mum brightness and the room was
about 900 degrees and thirty G’s is

the Skeidzti tried it. Imitation is

nodded toward the ready Fensi flooded with brilliant light.
toovercome first. But that’s no real
crew. “We’re all here, I What And there they were. They were
problem either — about 500,000 one thing. Fortunately, duplication think.
another. next?” fast,but not faster than the speed
years ago they swarmed all over is

suddenly dawned on me that “Nothing,” I choked, “until this of light. For nearly a full second
each other’s planets in protective It
here was the real reason the Sten- smoke clears away. What happened they stood out like ink spots on a
armor, and strangling was the
to the air conditioning?” clean white sheet, and we poured
nicest thing that happened. torii played their little joke on

And that’s where we come in. Ollie. They knew the Skeidzti “Greel’s working on it. We had it on ’em. They were stunned per-

couldn’t get by the lift shields, so to block off some of the' vents. haps a quarter-second past their
What they do outside Hotel In-
tergalactica is none of our business they didn’t even try. A typical bit Grid’s not fine enough to keep out normal reaction time. The Fensi
a Skeidzti.” I looked up. The air
— but inside we make sure no one of Stentorii humor, I thought wry- are fast anyway, and that quarter-
ly. Don’t dump your problems just
was already beginning to clear. I second margin was they needed.
is faced with temptation. That’s all

why our room segregation is verti- anywhere — toss *em where they gave it a few more minutes, then We went through the routine three
stepped up on a scorched sofa. I more times, then had to wait for the
cal instead of horizontal. The hotel can do some good.
was anxious to get started so I cut smoke to clear. We had killed thir-
is built on the hive principle. Each
cell or room has a private entrance KNEW pretty well what to ex- it as short as possible. The idea, I ty-seven Skeidzti.

bordering on the lift. There are no

1 pect on Level Eight. explained, was to take advantage Fine. But it gave me something
It was worse.
ofthe fact that there was a lapse, to think about.
wander around
halls or corridors to
What did Skorno say? Like however small it might be, between We had estimated there were at
in, and any connecting rooms con-
cruiser plowed the time a Skeidzti could change most fifty or sixty Skeidzti loose—
nect up and down. No exceptions. a two-cluster
from one form to another. Catch and if we had killed thirty-seven on
a necessary rule and we en-
It’s
through? It was more like a com-
them in that stage, and we had ’em. one level, in one room — how many
force it. There are plenty of Com- plete reinactment of the Battle
Rim. Simple as that, if it worked. did that mean were left? I men-
mon Rooms on the opposite side of of the
I lined the Fensi in a crude cir- tioned it to Greel. He shrugged it
the lifts for conferences and Through a low cloud of acrid
blue smoke I made out the dim
cle in the center of the room, fac- offwith typical Fensi optimism.
amiable gatherings—free of charge.
ing outwards. Then I pulled some
We work it that way for eco- outlines of Fensi bellhops, lined up “What difference does it make,
debris together for a shield, jerked
nomical reasons, too. It’s a lot easier in military order across the room. chief? We’ve got ’em on the run!”
GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE 117
116
 “Sure,” I said cautiously, “we’ve crack one side of his gold-rimmed “Actually,” he said, “I don’t pic- “Mr. Duncan,” said Ollie, “what
got ’em on the run now, all right.” glasses. He was beginning to look ture it being too bad on Twelve.” are you —
Both Greel and Skomo were grin- exactly like what he was supposed “You don’t, huh?” I said doubt- cut him off sharply. “Hold it,
I

ning from ear to ear, having the to be — a harried night clerk, who fully. Ollie. Whatever it is can wait.” I

time of their lives. wished to hell he could remember “No, I mean it, chief. Funny turned back to Greel. “Then if you
But I wasn’t sure at all. Some- why he had ever thought of going thing, they were as thick as flies split your crew, we should have

thing kept asking me how long it into the hotel business. on Eight and Nine, but on Ten, and twenty-four men in this room.
would be before the Skeidzti At 7:20 I located my army on here on Eleven — they seem to be Right?” Greel nodded. He started
caught on to the system — and the intercom. They had finished sort of thinning out” I raised an to speak,gave me a puzzled frown
whether we could come up fast Eight, Nine and Ten, and were eyebrow at that. instead. He turned and carefully

enough with something to meet mopping up on Eleven. I told Greel “I don’t suppose there could be counted his crew.
them. Before I left I gave explicit to split his crew and send half up to a leaky shield, somewhere, or they “Oh, my God!” he said.
instructions to keep all isolation Thirteen. We gulped the last of our might be catching on to that light “I get thirty-six,” I told him.

shields up — even after they were coffee and headed down to Eleven. trick.” “Ollie?” Ollie nodded, wide-eyed.
sure a room was clean. Greel gave breathed a sigh of relief.
I “Oh, no,” Greel insisted, “we’re I felt Greel stiffen beside me. I

a resigned shrug. I could tell they Eleven wasn’t nearly as bad as getting them all. They’re just not looked, and his hand was sliding
both thought the old man was tak- Eight. Either the Fensi had im- as thick is all. I figure when they toward his holster.
ing the sport of Skeidzti hunting proved their marksmanship or the got loose on Twelve they all high- “Hold it,” I said. “There’s one
entirely too seriously. light trick was cutting out a lot of tailed it down to the lower floors way to make sure.”
sank into a random shooting. Greelwalked up, for some reason, maybe to make—” I checked on the intercom with
Back in the lobby I
chair and lit a cigarette. Ollie holstering his weapon. I grabbed Greel’s arm and Skorno on thirteen. Skorno
brought coffee, and we stared “Well,” I asked, “what do you squeezed it hard. Something he counted twenty-four men. I nod-
bleary-eyed at each other for half think?” had said suddenly sent a cold chill ded to Greel and Ollie.
an hour. Ollie obviously didn’t feel “I think we just may survive the down my neck. Greel looked puz-
like talking and I was too damn night,” he said tiredly. “I’m going zled. I motioned him and Ollie to T HAD wondered what the Ske-
tired to chew him out anymore. I to try one more go-around here, a quiet corner of the room, then idzti would come up with to
could tell he was giving it to him- then move up to Twelve.” turned to Greel. counter our move. Now I knew.
self prettyhard anyway. That was “I have purposely been avoiding “Did you send half your crew They had done the only thing they
probably doing more good than that thought,” I said dryly, pictur- up to Thirteen?” I asked carefully. could do. They had imitated the
anything I could say. ing the grinning Fensi horde blast- Greel shrugged. “Sure, chief. most common thing in the room,
ing through my
expensive lobby. You said—” the only thing that wasn’t being
“And of course,” I added casually, “Okay. Now think. I want to
P OOR Ollie! If nothing
night of crisis at Hotel Inter-
else, one
“we haven’t really seen any Skeid-
the lobby, Greel. It may be
know exactly how many men you
had here — before you split the
blasted to shreds by the disrup-
tors: the Fensi themselves.

galactica had rubbed off a consid- zti in I walked quickly to the center
erable amount of shiny college ex- that — —
ah ” Greel shot me a sus- crew.” Greel thought. of the room.
His perfectly trimmed hair
terior. picious glance and I shut up. So “Forty-eight.” “Attention, everyone,” I yelled.
was caked with ceiling plaster. His who needs a lobby? “Exactly forty-eight?” “Line up against the wall, quick!”
Greel reloaded his disruptor — “Exactly. I’m sure because it’s watched them
neat bow tie dangled from his I carefully, getting
too eagerly, I thought - the whole night shift for the Quad-
neck like last night’s lettuce, and a little dizzy trying to spot the phonies.
somehow he had managed to and leaned against the wall. rant and everyone’s on duty.” “I’m going to tell you this once,”

118
GALAXY THE STENTORI I LUGGAGE 119
 and get right!” I “There is going to be some “Second man, go!” fakes suddenly bolted for the lift.
I said. “Listen, it

told them right off that twelve of it and do

shooting,” I said. “Ignore “Third man, go!” The third The real Fensi ignored my order
exactly as I say.” I paused, and Fensi walked to the exactly and joined the shooting. I yelled
them were fakes. They caught on lift,

fast, knowing better than anyone Ollie and Greel drew their weap- like the first two. Only that was as but no one could hear me.
what the Skeidzti were capable of. ons. far as he could go. Suddenly the whole area about
I wasn’t worried about warning the “All right, first man. When I say Ollie, Greel and I burned him the lift erupted in blinding blue
Skeidzti. Whatever they were, go, walk to thelift and drop to Ten. beforehe could change. flame. I shielded my face and felt
they were no more intelligent than Go!” The Fensi walked to the
first Then it happened. The Skeidzti a sharp pain in my side as the floor
a well-trained dog. lift and disappeared. sensed something wrong. Eleven came up to meet me.

120 GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE 121

 ”

Greel was on his feet first. I arately. Unless something else “He must have gone completely “Oh—” The intercom went dead.
off his rocker.” was through talkin g
shook my head and limped over happened, we still had them sealed Ollie ,

to him. There was a large jagged into the lift with access restricted
“He had better be off his rocker,” ‘Well?” said Greel.
Common Rooms, kitchens I said grimly. “That’s the only ‘Well what?” I snapped. “Do
hole in the wall and I knew right to the
away what it was, even before I and ballrooms. They were still thing that’s going to save him from you want to flush him out of
saw the tangled mass of fused wire within the Quadrant, and away me.” The intercom sputtered there?”
and metal. I picked up a hunk of from the guests. again. Ollie. Somehow, I knew be- Greel shrugged. “Lift Forty-five
carpet and tossed it down the lift. fore he even spoke. is this way, chief.”

Then I went limp all over. A LL right,” I said as calmly as “Mr. Duncan, listen, I had to do
66
Thecarpet went down the lift possible, “we start jover. It it. I couldn’t tell you because I 4~hLLIE let us into the kitchen.
as smooth as any living thing. The means maybe eighty floors of iso- knew you’d—” The smell nearly knocked us
“Listen, you little punk — back into the lift.
shields were down. The Skeidzti lation, and they won’t fall for that
had the run of the whole Quad- light trick again. We’ll have to
growled Greel. I frowned and “Gahhhh! What is it, Ollie!”
escort every guest through the lift
shook my head.
rant. “Ghayschi stew,” he said. “Pretty
“Ollie,” I said gently, “this
Greel was giving his crew a royal and arrange for alternate dining is horrible, isn’t it? Here. Wear
and And want every Fensi Mr. Duncan. I understand. I’m not He
chewing out. I cut him off areas. I these.” tossed me a box and I
ordered the Fensi to Level Twelve, tested through a shield that? s work-
angry. Not at all. Now listen, Ollie. quickly jammed two of the Chefs
on the double. It was too damn ing. I don’t think they’ll try that
I know you’re not feeling well. Little Wonder Air Filters into my
late for chewing out now. We were but—” You’re us where
tired, Ollie. Tell
nose and passed the box to Greel.
again,
in real trouble. I looked around for The crackled and
intercom you are and we’ll come and get Ghayschi stew, I thought. The kid
you — help you, I mean—”
Ollie. He was gone. I cursed my- Skorno’s voice came on high and has really flipped.
“Listen,” Ollie said angrily, “I’m
selfand kicked a piece of furniture frantic. “Ollie—” Then I stopped. He
halfway across the room. That’s “Chief! Listen, that crazy kid not crazy. Now pay attention and was evidently not kidding. His
all I needed — the Skeidzti and has opened the shields! He broke do what I say — exactly!” I swal- eyes were a little too bright and
Ollie running loose. into Central Control and let down
lowed. He was gone, all right. his face was wet and glistening.
“Greel! Check the inner shields, every barrier in the Quadrant!” “Yes, Ollie. We’re listening. Go Also, he had a disruptor in his
see if we’ve still got anything “What! Why in — look, itmay ahead.”
hand.
sealed off in this place!” be too but try to get the
late damn His voice relaxed. “I’m on Eigh-
“It’s on low charge,” he said,
“I did. So far as I can tell it’s things up again. Quick!”
teen. The Crystal Ballroom.” I
“but I don’t want to knock any-
just the lift.” Skorno moaned. “I can’t. He’s swallowed again. My beautiful
body
new ballroom. out, Mr. Duncan. I got us
“That’s bad enough,” I said fused the controls! I can’t even
“Come up through the loading into this mess and I’ve got to get
grimly. “On this side of the lift find the cut-off switch!” I felt a
— my own way.” He paused.
entrance,” Ollie went on. “You’ll us out
they’reopen to anything one room sharp pain in my mouth and real-
enter at Lift, ah — Forty-five, Hu- “Now,” he said, “will you give me
deep. And on the other side, the ized I was trying to bite my tongue
manoid Kitchen annex.” a hand with this pot?” I shot him a
first guest who steps out of his off. If I ever got my hands on that
“Yes, Ollie. We’ll do that.” skeptical glance.
room will—” Greel shook his head kid—
violently. I brightened, suddenly “Listen, Skorno, find him! I “And Mr. Duncan^” “Why? Where are we taking
“Yes, Ollie?”
remembering. We
had already don’t care what you do to him, it?” Ollie tensed.

sealed the guest side and I knew just find him!”

‘This is not a threat, sir. But “Mr. Duncan,” he pleaded,
moaned Greel. don’t bring any weapons.” “you’ve got to trust
the two sides were controlled sep- “I can’t figure it,” me!”

122 GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE 123

 “Trust you! You’ve wrecked my wire. One end was attached to the “Now what?” I asked cautiously. realized I was soaking wet. Later,
let those infernal pests top of the pot. Greel and I watched “Now we wait. I’ve turned on we counted two hundred seventy-
hotel,
in silent wonder as he pulled the the auxiliary blowers. The smell nine dead Skeidzti on the ballroom
loose, and you — you stand there
wire through the kitchen and into spreading through the Skeidtzi floor.
with a gun in your hand and ask me is

occupied areas.” I had a few choice It was all over.

to trust you? Move the damn pot a tiny room off the kitchen pantry.
comments on this move, but I
yourself!” Ollie seemed to think a I knew where we were; it was
kept them to myself. This was T HAD plenty of questions but I
minute, then a hurt expression the light control booth for the sea- -*
Ollie’s party. I figured I could al- saved them until after break-
spread over his face. glass floor. I had shown it to Ollie
ways strangle him later. fast. Some of it I could figure out,
“All right,” he said calmly. “If I several days before.
We waited ten minutes. but I still didn’t know how Ollie
give you the gun, will you help me? Ollie seated himself at the con-
Then Ollie suddenly went into had been sure the Skeidzti would
You said yourself the hotel is trol board and began to play the action. His hands swept over the eat his infernal stew.
wrecked. Why not give me a lights. Through a small window I light control board and the sea- “Oh, I knew they’d like it,” said
chance?” could see the ballroom, and the glass floor danced and pulsed with Ollie. “Ghayschi stew is a favorite
I took a deep breath and let it huge pot of Ghayschi stew. The shifting colors, shifting faster and Stentorii dish. I looked it up. I
out slowly. floor began to glow, pulsing from faster through the spectrum. I figured the Skeidzti ate table
“Okay, Ollie. Give me the gun.”
gold to blue to green and back watched His skin was
Ollie’s face. scraps.”
Ollie handed me the disruptor.
again. Ollie experimented a while, tight and great beads of sweat “That I can guess,” I said. “But
Greel started to move and I mo- then seemed to be satisfied. poured from his forehead down his when they couldn’t keep up with
tioned him back. Ollie was right. I “Now,” he said finally, without neck. Then the tense mask sud- the changing lights why didn’t they
really had absolutely nothing to turning away from the controls, denly broke and a wide grin spread stop eating? Were they too stupid
lose. “we are ready.” I raised an eye- over his face. to know they either had to give up
grabbed one end of the pot.
I brow at Greel. Both of us were “Look!” he yelled, nodding a meal or die?”
“This way,” said Ollie, shoving wondering just exactly what we toward the floor. “No,” said Ollie, “not stupid.
open the door to the ballroom. were ready for. I looked. At first there was noth- They just couldn’t help them-
“Here?” Ollie nodded. “Fortunately,” said Ollie, “the ing to see. Then I rubbed my eyes. selves. I figured any animal that
The Crystal Ballroom is new, ballroom itself doesn’t border di- The fast-changing lights must have could adapt so quickly and move
and I’m proud of it. The floor
is
rectly onto one of the unshielded affected my vision because the around so fast was bound to have
imported Denebian seaglass and lifts. The anteroom shield
is still whole floor seemed alive with a pretty metabolism. Any
high
the walls are Serinese
protomu- up, though. And now—” he pressed bright orange spots. animal like that has to eat, oh,
When the murals are on and
rals. a buttonby his chair—“it’s down.” Then
it hit me. Skeidzti! The maybe six or eight times his
the floor is lit, there isn’t a
hotel Greel and I exchanged another around the stew was crowded
floor weight in food every day or starve
in the system that can touch
it. I look. threedeep with them — and they to death. They came into the ho-
pot of suddenly, were all changing back to their tel at 3:00. When I turned on the
cringed as we set the large “Next,” said Ollie
natural form! lights upstairs it was nearly ten
Ghayschi stew square in the mid- “dinnertime.”
dle of the seaglass floor. I shut my eyes. Ollie jerked his We watched for an hour and a o’clock. After seven hours they had

“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we get out of here. Quick.”
Ifollowed him back to the kitchen.
Behind him he trailed a long, thin
The pot tipped and the gray half. Finally Ollie jerked a lever to eat. There was nothing in the
wire.
and brown viscous mess of Ghay- and the colors faded away. He world that could have stopped
schi stew spread slowly across the
sank weakly back in his chair. I them.” Ollie paused, sipped his
felt cold all over, and suddenly coffee.
ballroom floor.

GALAXY THE STENTORII LUGGAGE 125

124
 ”

“They your
finally adjusted to I yawned and got up to leave.
light trick because they had no “Sure, Ollie,” I said. “Let’s be sure
and talk about it some time.” J
alternative stronger than survival.
Iused the same idea, but this time started for the door.
“Mr. Duncan—?”
A
they had to make an impossible
choice
stincts.”
between two basic in- “Yes?”
“Am I fired?” FALL
“And they couldn’t,” I added. I thought a minute. I was so

“So to avoid it they sort of, what—

died of a nervous breakdown?”
tired I could hardly hear him.
“No, Ollie,” I said wearily, “j
OF
“Something like that. In school
there was this thing about some
don’t think so. There’s just one
thing, though.” GLASS
old experiments where a chicken “Sir?”
or a rat was trained to certain re- “Keep,” I said sternly, “the hell

sponses, then the responses were out of my kitchens!”

mixed or taken away and — — NEAL BARRETT, JR.
The weatherman was always -

right: Temperature, 59;

humidity, 47% ; occasional

light showers — but of what?

By STANLEY R. LEE

B *
Illustrated by DILLON

HE
T Hum-
pockets of Mr. It should have been difficult. Un-
phrey Fownes were being der the circumstances it was a mas-
picked outrageously. terpiece of pocket picking. What
It was a splendid day. The tem- made it possible was Humphrey
perature was a crisp 59 degrees, the Fownes’ abstraction; he was an un-
humidity a mildly dessicated 47 %. commonly preoccupied individual.
The sun was a flaming orange ball He was strolling along a quiet resi-
in a cloudless blue sky. dential avenue: small private
His pockets were picked eleven houses, one after another, a place of
times. little traffic and minimum distrac-

126 GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 127

 But he was thinking about It fell on the streets and houses, ANFIERRE had undoubtedly “And up and down.”
tions.
weather, which was an unusual sub- making small geysers of shiny mist, L been affected by his job. MacBride returned the note-
ject to begin with for a person liv- hitting with a gentle musical sound, Sitting behind the wheel of the book to the breast pocket of his
ing in a domed city. He was think- like the ephemeral droppings of a orange car, he watched Humphrey orange uniform. “Go on,” he said,
celesta. It was precipitation pecul- Fownes approach with a distinct amused. “It sounds interesting.” He
ing so deeply about it that it never
iar to a dome: feather-light frag- feeling of admiration, although it tossed the dossier carelessly on the
occurred to him that entirely too
many people were bumping into ments showering harmlessly on the was an odd, objective kind of ad- back seat.
He was thinking about Opti-
him. city from time to time. Dome wee- miration, clinical in nature. It was Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the
mum Dome Conditions (a crisp 59 vils, their metal arms reaching out similar to that of a pathologist ob- wheel, affronted. The cynical Mac-
degrees, a mildly dessicated 47 %) with molten glass, roamed the huge serving for the first time a new and Bride couldn’t really appreciate
casserole, ceaselessly patching and particularly virulent strain of pneu- fine aberrations. In some ways
when a bogus postman, who pre-
tended to be reading a postal card, repairing. mococcus under his microscope. MacBride was a barbarian. Lan-
Humphrey Fownes strode Lanfierre’s job was to ferret out fierre had held out on Fownes for
jostled him. In the confusion of
and apologies from through the puffs of falling glass aberration. It couldn’t be tolerated months. He had even contrived to
spilled letters
still intrigued by a temperature within the confines of a dome. Con- engage him in conversation once, a
both sides, the postman rifled
Fownes’s handkerchief and inside that was always 59 degrees, by a formity had become more than a pleasantly absurd, irrational little

humidity that was always 47%, by social force; it was a physical neces- chat that titillated him for weeks.
jacket pockets.
weather that was always Optimum. sity. And, after years of working at It was only with the greatest reluc-

HE was still thinking about tem-
perature and humidity when a
pretty girl happened along with
something in her eye. They col-
lided. She got his right and left
jacket pockets. It was much too
The
much for coincidence.
walk was wide enough to allow
It was this rather than skill that it, Lanfierre had become an admirer tance that he finally mentioned
enabled the police to maintain such
a tight surveillance on him, a sur-
He came to see that
of eccentricity.
genuine quirks were rare and, as
Fownes to MacBride. After years
of searching for differences Lan-
veillance that went to the extent time went on, due partly to his own fierre had seen how extraordinarily
of getting his fingerprints off the small efforts, rarer. repetitious people were, echoes
postman’s bag, and which photo- Fownes was a masterpiece of really, dimly resounding echoes,
graphed, X-rayed and chemically queerness. He was utterly inexpli- each believing itself whole and
side-
analyzed the contents of his pock- cable. Lanfierre was almost proud separate. They spoke in an inces-

four people to pass at one time. He ets before returning them. Two of Humphrey Fownes. sant chatter of cliches, and then-

should surely have become suspi- blocks away from his home a care- “Sometimes his house shakes,” actions were unbelievably trite.

cious when two men engaged in a less housewife spilled a five-pound Lanfierre said. Then a fine robust freak came
heated argument came along. In bag of flour as he was passing. It “House shakes,” Lieutenant Mac- along and the others — the^echoes
the ensuing contretemps they emp- was really plaster of Paris. He left Bride wrote in his notebook. Then — refused to believe it. The lieu-
tied his rear pants pockets, got his his shoe prints, stride measurement, he stopped and frowned. He re- tenant was probably on the point
wristwatch and restored the con- height, weight and handedness be- read what he’d just written. of suggesting a vacation.

tents of the handkerchief pocket. It hind. “You heard right. The house “Why don’t you take a vaca-
all went off very smoothly, like a By the time Fownes reached his shakes,” Lanfierre said, savoring it. tion?” Lieutenant MacBride sug-
game of put and take — the sole front door an entire dossier com- MacBride looked at the Fownes gested.

difference being that Humphrey plete with photographs had been house through the magnifying glass “It’s like this, MacBride. Do you
Fownes had no idea he was playing. prepared and was being read by of the windshield. “Like from . . . know what a wind is? A breeze? A
There was an occasional tinkle two men in an orange patrol car side to side?”he asked in a some- zephyr?”
of falling glass. parked down the street. what patronizing tone of voice. “I’ve heard some.”

128 GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 129

 “They say there are mountain-
tops where winds blow all the time.
Strong winds, MacBride. Winds
like you and I can’t imagine. And
if was a house sitting on such
there
a mountain and if winds did blow,
it would shake exactly the way that
one does. Sometimes I get the feel-
ing the whole placeis going to slide
off its foundation and go sailing
down the avenue.”
¥ IEUTENANT MacBride
pursed his lips.
“I’ll tell you something else,”
Lanfierre went on. “The windows
allclose at the same time. You’ll
be watching and all of a sudden
every single window in the place
will drop to its sill.” Lanfierre
leaned back in the seat, his eyes
still on the house. “Sometimes I
think there’s a whole crowd of peo-
ple in there waiting for a signal
as if they all had something impor-
tant to say but had to close the win-
dows first so no one could hear.
Why else close the windows in a
domed city? And then as soon as
the place is buttoned up they all ex-
plode into conversation—and that’s
why the house shakes.”
MacBride whistled.
“No, I don’t need a vacation.”
A falling piece of glass dissolved
into a puff of gossamer against the
windshield. Lanfierre started and
bumped his knee on the steering
wheel.
“No, you don’t need a rest,” Mac-
130
Bride said. “You’re starting to
see
flying houses, hear loud babbling
voices. You’ve got winds in y0Ur
brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigu
e
zephyrs of irrationality—”
At that moment, all at once
every last window in the house
slammed shut
The street was deserted and
quiet, not a movement, not a sound.
MacBride and Lanfierre both
leaned forward, as if waiting for the
ghostly babble of voices to com-
mence.
The house began to shake.
It rocked from side to side,
it
pitched forward and back, it yawed
and dipped and twisted, straining
at themooring of its foundation.
The house could have been prepar-
ing to take off and sail down the . .
MacBride looked at Lanfierre
and Lanfierre looked at MacBride
— and then they both looked back at
the dancing house.
“And the water,” Lanfierre said.
“The water he uses! He could be
the thirstiest and cleanest man in
the city. He could have a whole
family of thirsty and clean kids,
and he still wouldn’t need all that
water.”
The lieutenant had picked up
the dossier. He thumbed through
the pages now in amazement
“Where do you get a guy like this?”
he asked. “Did you see what he car-
ries in his pockets?”
“And compasses won’t work on
this street.”
GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 131
 The lieutenant lit a cigarette and the dome blower system, and the It was replaced by an illusion. moon. But then, neither did the
sighed. high-pressure air caused some Or, as Fownes hoped it might ap- widow. He’d have to be confident,
He usually
sighed when making buffeting against the thin walls of pear, the illusion of the domed city assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my
the decision to raid a dwelling. It the house. At least, he called it vanished and was replaced by a dear, this is a genuine realistic ro-
expressed his weariness and dis- buffeting; he’d never thought to more satisfactory, and, for his spe- mantic moon. Now, does it do any-
taste for people who went
and off watch from outside. cific purpose, more functional, illu- thing to your pulse? Do you feel
got neurotic when they could be He went in and threw his jacket sion.Looking through the window icy fingers marching up and down
enjoying a happy, normal exist- on the sofa, there being no room he saw only a garden. your spine?
ence. There was something implac- left in the closets. Crossing the liv- Instead of an orange sun at per- His own spine didn’t seem to be
able about his sighs. ing room he stopped to twist a petual high noon, there was a red affected. But then he hadn’t read
“He’ll be coming out soon,” Lan- draw-pull. sun setting brilliantly, marred only that book on ancient mores and
fierre said. “He eats supper next Every window slammed shut. by an occasional arcover which left courtship customs.
door with a widow. Then he goes to “Tight as a kite,” he thought, the smell of ozone in the air. There How really odd the ancients
the library. Always the same. Sup- satisfied. He continued on toward was also a gigantic moon. It hid a were. Seduction seemed to be an
per at the widow’s next door and the closet at the foot of the stairs huge area of sky, and it sang. The incredibly long and drawn-out
then the library.” and then stopped again. Was that sun and moon both looked down process, accompanied by a consid-
MacBride’s eyebrows went up a right?No, snug as a hug in a rug. upon a garden that was itself scin- erable amount of falsification. Com-
fraction of an inch. “The library?” He went on, thinking: The old tillant, composed largely of neon munication seemed virtually im-
he said. “Is he in. with that bunch?” devils. roses. possible. “No” meant any number
Lanfierre nodded. The downstairs closet was like a Moonlight, he thought, and roses. of things, depending on the tone
“Should be very interesting,” great watch case, a profusion of Satisfactory. And cocktails for two. of voice and the circumstances. It
MacBride said slowly. wheels surrounding the Master Blast, he’d never be able to figure could mean yes, it could mean ask
“I can’t wait to see what he’s got Mechanism, which was a minia- that one out! He watched
as the me again later on this evening.
in there,” Lanfierre murmured, ture see-saw that went back and moon played, Oh, You
Beautiful He went up the stairs to the bed-
watching the house with a consum- forth 365 times an hour. The Doll and the neon roses flashed room closet and tried the rain-
ing interest. wheels had a curious stateliness slowly from red to violet, then went maker, thinking roguishly: Thou
They smoking in si-
sat there about them. They were all quite back to the closet and turned on shalt not inundate. The risks he was
lence and every now and then their old, salvaged from grandfather’s the scent. The house began to smell taking!A shower fell gently on the
eyes widened as the house danced clocks and music boxes and they like an immensely concentrated garden and a male chorus began to
a new step. went around in graceful circles at moon shifted to People
rose as the chant Singing in the Rain. Undi-
the rate of 30 and 3 1 times an hour Will Say We’re In Love. minished, the yellow moon and the
"C’ OWNES stopped on the porch . although there was one slightly
. . red sun continued to be brilliant,
to brush the plaster of paris off eccentric cam that vacillated be- TIE rubbed his chin critically. It although the sun occasionally arced
his shoes. He hadn’t seen the patrol tween 28 and 29. He watched as seemed all right. A dreamy over and demolished several of the
car and this intense preoccupation they spun and flashed in the dark- sunset, an enchanted moon, flowers, neon roses.
of his was also responsible for the ness, and then set them for seven scent. The last wheel in the bedroom
dancing house—he simply hadn’t o’clock in the evening, April sev- They were purely speculat-
all closet was a rather elegant steering
noticed. There was a certain enth, any year. ive of course. He had no idea how wheel from an old 1995 Stude-
amount of vibration, of course. He Outside, the domed city van- a rose really smelled — or looked baker. This was on the bootleg pipe;
had a bootleg pipe connected into ished. for that matter. Not to mention a he gingerly turned it.

132 GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 133

 . .
Far below in the cellar there
a rumble and then the soft whistle
of winds came to him.
He went downstairs to watch out
the living room window. This was
important; the window had a really
fixed attitude about
The neon and tinkled
roses bent
against each other as the wind rose
and the moon shook a trifle as it
whispered Cuddle Up a Little
Closer.
He watched with folded arms,
considering how he would start. My
dear Mrs. Deshazaway. Too formal.
They’d be looking out at the ro-
mantic garden; time to be a bit for-
ward. My very dear Mrs. Deshaza-
way. No. Contrived. How about a
simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway.
That might be it. I was wondering,
seeing as how it’s so late, if you
wouldn’t rather stay over instead of
going home
. .
Preoccupied, he hadn’t noticed
the winds building up, didn’t hear
the shaking and rattling of the
pipes. There were attic pipes con-
nected to wall pipes and wall pipes
connected to cellar pipes, and they
made one gigantic skeleton that be-
gan to rattle its bones and dance as
high-pressure air from the dome
blower rushed in, slowly opening
the Studebaker valve wider and
wider .
.
The neon roses thrashed about,
extinguishing each other. The red
sun shot off a mass of sparks and
then quickly sank out of
134
”
man. She did everything passion- “Really,” Fownes protested. “I
was moon fell onthe garden and rolled —
ately talking, cooking, dressing. feel splendid. Never better.”
ponderously along, crooning When
Her beets were passionately red. He could hear her moving about
the Blue of the Night Meets the
Her clothes rustled and her high and then felt her hands on his
Gold of the Day.
heels clicked and her jewelry tin- shoulders. “And what about those
The shaking house finally woke
kled. She was possessed by an un- very elaborate plans you’ve been
him up. He scrambled upstairs to
controllable dynamism. Fownes making to seduce me?”
air currents. the Studebaker wheel and shut it
had never known anyone like her. Fownes froze with three aspara-
off.
“You forgot to put salt on the pota- gus hanging from his fork.
At the window again, he sighed.
toes,” she said passionately, then “Don’t you think they’ll find out?
Repairs were in order. And it wasn’t
went on as calmly as it was possible I found out and you can bet they
the first time the winds got out of
for her to be, to explain why she will. It’s my fault, I guess. I talk too
line.
couldn’tmarry him. “Do you have much. And I don’t always tell the
Why marry him and
didn’t she
any idea what people are saying? truth. To be completely honest with
save bother? He shut it all
all this
They’re all saying I’m a cannibal! you, Mr. Fownes, it wasn’t the old
down and went out the front door,
I rob my husbands of their life force customs at all standing between us,
wondering about the rhyme of the
and when they’re empty I carry it was air. I can’t have another man
months, about stately August and
on my way to
their bodies outside die on me, it’s bad for my self-
eccentric February and romantic
the justice of the peace.” esteem. And now you’ve gone and
April. April. Its days were, thirty
“As long as there are people,” he done something good and criminal,
and it followed September. And all
said philosophically, “there’ll be something peculiar.”
the rest have thirty-one. What a
talk.”
strange people, the ancients!
He still didn’t see the orange car
“But it’s the air! Why don’t they OWNES put his fork down.
talk about that? The air is stale, “Dear Mrs. Deshazaway,” he
parked down the street.
I’m positive. It’s not nourishing. started to say.
The air is stale and Andrew, Curt, “And of course when they do
W||/| EN are too perishable,”
Norman and Alphonse couldn’t find out and they ask you why, Mr.
Mrs. Deshazaway said
stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was Fownes, you’ll tell them. No, no
over dinner. “For all practical pur-
never so healthy as on the day he heroics, please! When they ask a
poses I’m never going to marry
was born. From then on things got man a question he always answers
again. All my husbands die.”
steadily worse for him.” and you will too. You’ll tell them I
“Would you pass the beets, -
“I don’t seem to mind the air.” wanted to be courted and when
please?” Humphrey Fownes said.
She threw up her hands. “You’d they hear that they’ll be around to
She handed him a platter of be the worst of the lot!” She left the ask me a few questions. You see,
steaming red beets. “And don’t look
table, rustling and tinkling about we’re both a bit queer.”
at me that way,” she said. “I’m not
the room. “I can just hear them.
Try “I hadn’t thought of that,”
going to marry you and if you want
some of the asparagus. Five. That’s Fownes said quietly.
reasons I’ll give you four of them.
what they’d say. That woman did it “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll
Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Al- again. And the plain fact is I don’t join Andrew, Curt, Norman —
phonse.”
want you on my record. “That won’t be necessary,”
sight. The The widow was a passionate wo-
A FALL OF GLASS 135
GALAXY
Fownes said with unusual force.
“With all due respect to Andrew,
Curt, Norman andAlphonse, I
might as well state here and now I
have other plans for you, Mrs.
Deshazaway.”
“But my dear Mr. Fownes,” she
leaning across
said,
“We’re lost, you and I.”
“Not if we could leave
dome,” Fownes said quietly.
“That’s impossible!
In no hurry, now that he had the
widow’s complete attention, Fow-
nes leaned across the table and
whispered “Fresh air, Mrs. Desha-
:
zaway? Space? Miles and miles
of space where the real-estate mon-
opoly has no control whatever?
Where the wind blows across prai-
ries; or is it the other way around?
No matter. How would you
that, Mrs. Deshazaway?”
Breathing somewhat faster than
usual, the widow rested her chin on
her two hands. “Pray continue,” she
said.
“Endless vistas of moonlight and
roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshaz-
away. And June, which as you
know follows directly
and supposed to be the month of
is
brides, of marrying. June also lies
beyond the dome.”
“I see.”
“And,” Mr. Fownes added, his
voice a honeyed whisper, “they say
that somewhere out in the space
and the roses and the moonlight,
the sleeping equinox yawns and
136
rises because on a certain day it’s
when it roams the
vernal and that’s
Open Country where geigers no
longer scintillate.”
“My.” Mrs. Deshazaway rose,
paced slowly to the window and
then came back to the table, stand-
'
the table. ing directly over Fownes. “If you
can get us outside the dome,” she
the said, “out where a man stays warm
long enough for his wife to get to
How?” know him ... if you can do that, Mr.
Fownes . . . you may call me Agnes.”
W HEN Humphrey
stepped out of the widow’s
house, there was a look of such in-
Fownes
tense abstraction on his features
that Lanfierre felt a wistful desire
to get out of the car and walk along
with the man. It would be such a
like deliciously insane experience.
(“April has thirty days,” Fownes
mumbled, passing them, “because
thirty is the largest number such
that all smaller numbers not hav-
ing a common divisor with it are
primes.” MacBride frowned and
added it to the dossier. Lanfierre
may sighed.)
upon April Pinning his hopes on the Move-
ment, Fownes went straight to the
library several blocks away, a shat-
tered depressing place given over
to government publications and
censored old books with holes in
them. It was used so infrequently
that the Movement was able to
meet there undisturbed. The libra-
rian was a yellowed, dog-eared
GALAXY
woman of eighty. She spent her
days reading ancient library cards
and, like the books around her, had
been rendered by time’s own cen-
sor into near unintelligibility.
“Here’s one,” she said to him as
he entered. “Gulliver’s Travels.
Loaned to John Wesley Davidson
on March 14, 1979 for five
What do you make of it?”
In the books and cards
litter of
and dried out ink pads that sur-
rounded the librarian, Fownes no-
ticed a torn dust jacket with a cur-
ious illustration. “What’s that?” he
said.
“A twister,” she replied quickly.
“Now listen to this. Seven years
on March 2 1, 1986, Ella Mar-
later
shall Davidson took out the same
book. What do you make of that?”
“I’d say,” Humphrey Fownes
said, “that he . . . that he recom-
mended it to her, that one day they
met in the street and he told her
about this book and then they
they went to the library together
and she borrowed it and eventu-
ally, why eventually they got mar-
ried.”
“Hah! They were brother and
sister!”the librarian shouted in her
parched voice, her old buckram
eyes laughing with cunning.
Fownes smiled weakly and look-
ed again at the dust jacket. The
twister was unquestionably a mete-
orological phenomenon. It spun
ominously, like a malevolent top,
and coursed the countryside de-
A FALL OF GLASS
structively, carrying a Dorothy to
an Oz. He couldn’t help wondering
iftwisters did anything to feminine
pulses, if they could possibly be a
part of a moonlit night, with cock-
tails and roses. He absently stuffed
the dust jacket in his pocket and
went on into the other rooms, the
days. librarian mumbling after him: “Ed-
na Murdoch Featherstone, April
21, 1991,” as though reading in-
scriptions on a tombstone.
HP HE Movement
met in what
had been the children’s room,
where unpaid ladies of the after-
noon had once upon a time read
stories to other people’s offspring.
The members sat around at the
miniature tables looking oddly like
giants fled from their fairy tales,
protesting.
“Where did the old society fail?”
the leader was demanding of them.
He stood in the center of the room,
. . . leaning on a heavy knobbed cane.
He glanced around at the group
almost complacently, and waited as
Humphrey Fownes squeezed into
an empty chair. “We live in a
dome,” the leader said, “for lack of
something. An invention! What is
the one thing that the great tech-
nological societies before ours
could not invent, notwithstanding
their various giant brains, electron-
ic and otherwise?”
Fownes was the kind of man who
never answered a rhetorical ques-
tion. He waited, uncomfortable in
137
the tight chair, while the others The leader sighed. “The gentle, The door flung itself open and “March winds,” he said.

struggled with this problem in rev- man wants to know if he’s left any- knocked him back off the porch. ‘What?!”
olutionary dialectics. thing out,” he said to the group. From a prone position on his “April showers!”
“A sound foreign policy,” the Fownes looked around at them, miniscule front lawn, Fownes The winds roared for a moment
some dozen pained expressions. watched as his favorite easy chair and then MacBride’s lost voice
leader said, aware that no one else at
“Tell the man what he’s forgot- sailed out of the living room on a emerged from the blackness of the
had obtained the insight. “If a
ten,” the leader said, walking to blast of cold air and went pinwheel- living room. “These are not Opti-
sound foreign policy can’t be cre-
ated the only alternative is not to the far window and turning his ing down the avenue in the bright mum Dome Conditions!” the voice
have any foreign policy at all. Thus back quite pointedly on them. sunshine. A
wild wind and a thick wailed. “The temperature is not 59
themovement into domes began — Everyone spoke at the same mo- fog poured out of the house. It degrees. The humidity is not 47%!”
ment. “A sound foreign policy,” brought chairs, suits, small tables,
by common consent of the govern-
ments. This is known as self-con- they all said, it being almost too ob- lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, OWNES held his face up to let
tainment.” vious for words. .
sofa cushions. The house was emp- the rain fall on it. “Moonlight!”
Dialectically out in left field,
tying itself fiercely, as if disgorging he shouted. “Roses! My soul for a
From deep in-
Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull
in the ensuing discussion and then ON his way out the librarian
shouted at him: “A Tale of
an old, spoiled meal.
side
his
he could hear the rumble of
ancient upright piano as it rolled
cocktail for two!” He grasped the
doorway to keep from being blown
out of the house.
politely inquired how it might be a Tub, thirty-five years overdue!”
She was calculating the fine as he ponderously from room to room. “Are you going to make it stop
arranged for him to get out.
“Out?” the leader said, frowning. closed the door. He stood up; a wet wind swept or aren’t you!” MacBride yelled.
Humphrey Fownes’ preoccupa- over him, whipping at his face, toy- “You’ll have to tell me what you
“Out? Out where?”
came to an end when he ing with his was a whistling
hair. It did first!”
“Outside the dome.” tion finally
“Oh. All in good time, my friend. was one block away from his house. in his and a .tingle on his
ears, “I told him not to touch that
was then that he realized some- cheeks. He got hit by a shoe. wheel! Lanfierre. He’s in the up-
One day we shall all pick up and It
thing unusual must have occurred. As he forced his way back to the stairsbedroom!”
leave.”
“And that day I’ll await impa- An orange patrol car of the security doorway needles of rain played When he heard this Fownes
police was parked at his front door. over his face and he heard a voice plunged into the house and fought
Fownes replied with mar-
tiently,”
And something else was happening cry out from somewhere in the liv- his way up the stairs. He found
velous tact, “because it will be lone-
My ing room. Lanfierre standing outside the bed-
ly out there for the two of us. too.
His house was dancing. “Help!” Lieutenant MacBride room with a wheel in his hand.
future wife and I have to leave
now.” It was disconcerting, and at the called. “What have I done?” Lanfierre
You same time enchanting, to watch Standing in the doorway with his asked in the monotone of shock.
“Nonsense. Ridiculous!
one’s residence frisking about on its wet hair plastered down on his Fownes took the wheel. It was
have to be prepared for the Open
foundation. It was such a strange dripping scalp, the wind roaring off a1995 Studebaker.
Country. You can’t just up and
sight that for the moment he didn’t about him, the piano rumbling in “I’m not sure what’s going to
leave, it would be suicide, Fownes.
And dialectically very poor.” give a thought to what might be the distance like thunder, Humph- come of this,” he said to Lanfierre
causing it. But when he stepped rey Fownes suddenly saw it all very with an astonishing amount of ob-
“Then you have discussed prepa-
gingerly onto the porch, which was clearly. jectivity, “but the entire dome air
rations, the practical necessities of
doing its own independent gavotte, “Winds,” he said in a whisper. supply is now coming through my
life in the Open Country. Food,
he reached for the doorknob with “What’s happening?” MacBride bedroom.”
clothing, a weapon perhaps? What
yelled, crouching behind the sofa. The wind screamed.
else? Have I left anything out?” an immense curiosity.

138 GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 139

 and socks and But Fownes had already begun about empty-handed. “Yoo-hool”
“Is there something I can turn?” ing shorts pillow
to run on toward the next house, he yelled, running. The artificial
Lanfierre asked. cases every which way.
dodging mountainous puffs of glass sun vanished behind the mush-
“Not any more there isn’t.” “Now what?” MacBride said,
as he went. “Mrs. Deshazaway!” he rooming twister. Optimum temper-
They down the stairs
started thoroughly exasperated, as this
shouted. “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshaza- ature collapsed. “Mrs. Deshaza-
carefully,but the wind caught them strange black cloud began to ac-
way!” way! Agnes, will you marry me?
and they quickly reached the bot- celerate, whirling about like some
The dome weevils were go- Yoo-hoo!”
tom in a wet heap. malevolent top . .

ing berserk trying to keep up with Lanfierre and Lieutenant Mac-

Recruiting Lieutenant Mac-
precipitation. They whirred Bride leaned against their car and
Bride from behind his sofa, the T TUMPHREY Fownes took out
the
back and forth at frightful speed, waited, dazed.
men carefully edged out of the the dust jacket he’d found in
molten There was quite a
then, emptied of glass, large fall of
house and forced the front door the library. He held it up and care-
rushed to theTrough which they glass.
shut. fully compared the spinning cloud
quickly emptied and then rushed — STANLEY R. LEE
The wind died. The fog disper- in his bedroom with the illustratioa
sed.They stood dripping in the The cloud rose and spun, assuming
Optimum Dome Conditions of the the identical shape of the illustra-

bright avenue. tion.

never figured on this,” Lan- a twister,” he said softly. “A
“I
shaking his head
fierre said,
“It’s
Kansas twister!” NOTICE
With the front door closed the “What,” MacBride asked, his We have on hand, in condition that the mint might well envy, these
wind quickly built up inside the bravado slipping away again, “what anthologies that may have escaped your purchase but shouldn't again:
house. They could see the furnish- ... is a twister?” The Third Galaxy Reader
ing whirl past the windows. The The twister roared and moved The Fourth Galaxy Reader
house did a wild, elated jig. out of the bedroom, out over the
Each of the above will be personally inscribed to you by editor
“What kind of a place is this?” rear of the house toward the side of
H. L. Gold, exactly as you wish him to, in 25 words or less, and of
MacBride said, his courage begin- the dome. “It says here,” Fownes
course autographed by him.
ning to return. He took out his shouted over the roaring, “that Dor-
Five Galaxy Short Novels by F. L. Wallace, Damon Knight, James
notebook but it was a soggy mess. othy traveled from Kansas to Oz in
E. Gunn, J. T.McIntosh, and Theodore Sturgeon.
He tossed it away. a twister and that and that Oz
. . .
The World that Couldn't Be & Eight Other Galaxy Novelets
“Sure, he was different,” Lan- is a wonderful and mysterious land
and you can, if you don't put off till tomorrow, get a copy autographed
fierre murmured. “I knew that beyond the confines ot everyday by Clifford D. Simak, author of the title story, an offer that is made
much.” living.” only to readers of this magazine.
When the roof blew off they MacBride’s eyes and mouth All the above are $3.95 each and may be obtained by sending
weren’t really surprised. With a were great zeros. your order on any sheet of paper, and check or money order, to
certain amount of equanimity they “Is there something I can turn?” this address:

watched it lift off almost gracefully, Lanfierre asked. Anthology Department

standing on end for a moment be- Huge chunks of glass began to Galaxy Publishing Corp.
fore toppling to the ground. It was fallaround them. 42 Hudson Street
1

strangely slow motion, as was the “Fownes!” MacBride shouted. New York 14, N. Y.
black twirling cloud that now rose “This is a direct order! Make it go

out of the master bedroom, spew- back!”

GALAXY A FALL OF GLASS 141

140
 tiam’s Sons, N. Y., $2.95 history is written in a facile style
that is exceptionally easy to take
ALTHOUGH CLASON’S book to mind. Evans skillfully weaves
is a solid technical work designed interesting vignettes of the
for junior and high school level, founders of astronomy into his
his style is far from pedantic. book and chronicles its laborious
“Planetoid Icarus is named growth from superstition to its
after a legendary Greek boy who present eminence among the
flew too close to the sun with his sciences.
wax wings. “Look, Pa. No hands!’ ”
Despite, or perhaps because of, THE ROMANCE OF CHEM-
this semi-humorous approach, ISTRY by Keith Gordon Irwin.
Clason establishes a rapport Viking Press, N. Y., $3.75
with his youthful audience that
makes his space medicine easy to EARLY MAN rose from sav-
take. agery by applying basic physical
and chemical laws, but his
ROCKETS INTO SPACE by understanding of these sciences
Alexander L. Crosby and Nancy differed greatly. Chemistry, the
Larrick. Random House, N. Y .,
interlocking of particles impos-
$1.95 sibly small to see, had to wait
for theory to catch up with
THE EASY-to-read series fea- practice, whereas physical phe-
RUSSIA is graduating scientists section. It is a clear exposition of tures simple sentences built from nomena were self-evident.

and engineers by the hundreds of fact and theory about our satel-
easy words. However, though Irwin’s book, entertainingly in-

thousands yearly —
and the pro- lite: its origin, composition, effects written for the eight-to-ten-year- formative, highlights epochal
duction of science fiction has upon the Earth, etc. old, the plentiful and technically moments of discovery that helped
class-A priority with her fiction This revision of his 1953 book excellent illustrations appeal al- lift chemistry to today’s level
factories. These are two of the still retains the amusingly archaic so to a maturer audience. In fact, of achievement.
reasons for this month’s king-size excerpts from Verne’s classic the information apparent in the

Junior Education Corner. From the Earth to the Moon in illustrations frequently is not DISCOVERING CHEMISTRY
a chapter headed “Moon Pro- treated in the text, so that even by Elizabeth K. Cooper. Har-
THE MOON by George Gamow. jectile —a Dream.” Not to end adults can look and learn from court, Brace 8s Co., N. Y., $3.00
Abelard-Schuman, N. Y., $2.75 on this note, however, it is this rocket primer.
followed immediately by “Moon MRS. COOPER’S book
IN THE belief that it is a sure Rocket — a Reality” —
which DISCOVERING THE HEAV-
is
splendid follow-up, to Romance,
a

bet that the Moon be the

will it is indeed. ENS by I. O. Evans. Roy Pub- which whets the intellectual ap-
first extraterrestrial body to be lishers, N. Y., $3.50 petite. She provides plenty of
visited by man, Dr. Gamow’s MEN, PLANETS AND STARS experimental material for the
by Clyde B. Clason. G. P. Put-
book leads off the astronomical THIS STUDY of astronomical neophyte, a concise work program

142
G ALAXY SHELF 143
 germ theory of infection.
The upper atmosphere is his man. Abelard-Schuman, N. Y.,
and a proper respect for a
special province and here he $3.00
“serious form of fun.” Both books are inspirational
presents knowledge that was
and well integrated.
Not so with Einstein. Working completely unsuspected until MANKIND’S ENTRY into the
LOUIS PASTEUR by Madeleine rocket soundings became feasible Atomic Age was assisted by
N. Y $3.25 in a restrictive 128-page frame,
P. Grant. Whittlesey, .,
numerous midwives. An enor-
these last several years.
GREGOR MENDEL by Harry Beckhard has cut and snipped
Einstein’s life into a silhouette.
mous amount of information has
Vanguard Press, N. Y.,
Sootin.
This is a pity, he was decidedly
THE CLOCK WE LIVE ON by been distilled into laudably
$3.00
ALBERT EINSTEIN by A. not only “E =MCI” Isaac Asimov. Abelard-Schuman, compact, digestible form; no
N. Y., $3.00 small feat when dealing with the
Beckhard. G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
N. Y., $2.50 SCIENCE AND THE DOCTOR contributions of such as the

by F. R. Elwell and Dr. M. DOCTOR ASIMOV again picks Curies, Einstein, Rutherford and
PASTEUR AND Mendel both Richardson. Criterion
J.
Books, a fascinating theme —Time. He — contemporary giants.

N. Y., $3.50 travels this dimension from man-

came from poor families who
give
kind’s ancient Moon and Sun BLASTOFF AT 0300 by Hugh
sacrificed enormously to
MEDICINE LEFT the realm of
timepieces to the present accurate Walters. Criterion Books, N. Y.,
them schooling. Their battle for
atomic clocks that, by compari- $3.50
education was equally against magic when its practitioners be-
gan to tie together cause and
son, make the heavens so reliable
hunger and privation. Moreover, QUEER
Unfortunately, medical that the costliest timepieces are A alteration in the out-
Mendel’s only hope for a liveli- effect.
as a Mickey Mouse watch. line of the Moon mountain, Pico,
hood lay in joining the priest- practice lost two thousand years
mumbo-jumbo, even though causes Britain to hurry its space
hood. to
Hippocrates, the ancient Greek,
THE STORY OF EARTH program in the fear that Russia
His fame rests on the results SCIENCE by Horace
set standards for observation and
G. Rich- may already have a base there.
of an eight-year experiment with
diagnosis.
ards. J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila., A young Cambridge student,
garden peas. Mendel, applying
$ 3.75 short enough to fit a hastily
numerical method and rigid con- This book of thrilling discov-
should channelize the social redesigned research rocket, is
trol, discovered the mathematics
eries
urge of any young do-gooder.
FOSSILS, ROCKS and minerals, selected for preliminary
a
of genetics. Unfortunately, he died
in that order, attract the interest hundred-mile photo-survey jump
unrecognized, his work requiring
WINDOW IN THE SKY by of laymen or prospective students into space.
rediscovery.
Homer E. Newell, Jr. McGraw- of Earth science, Richards avers, The book, a vivid fictional ac-
Pasteur, however, lived to re-
Book Co., Inc., N. Y $2.75 and his book is planned accord- count of the training program
ceive the highest honors. His Hill .,

ingly. It abounds with information necessary for such a venture,

process of sterilization saved
breweries as well as creameries AS NOTED here previously, Dr. for the neophyte archeologist — includes plenty of action and
books in from tips on sites for excavation international intrigue. Plausible
from ruin. Possessing enormous Newell equals his

powers of concentration, he interest — he is Associate Di- and research to specific informa-

tion on identification of the afore-
and detailed,
Prelude to Space.
it is a juvenile

plunged into work that saved the rector in charge of Space Science
mentioned three categories. (For Youngsters)

*
French silk industry, and he did for NASA, U.S. National Aero-
Rating: *****
despite the deaths of three of nautics and Space Administration.
it
His most valuable His book brims equally with
MEN AND WOMEN BEHIND
his children.
contribution, though, remains the authority.
THE ATOM by Sarah U. Ried- STARSHIP TROOPERS by

144
GALAXY SHELF 145
Robert A. Heinlein. G. P. Put- Miss Norton has again written
for the first time anywhere, here is a description of the greatest
nam’s Sons, N. Y. $3.95 in an endearing animal team,
this time Taggi and Togi, Terran exhibit in the monumental Bernard Baroque Museum on Sigma
IN “TROOPERS,” Heinlein has wolverines, to assist Lantee n i
Corvi IV.
penned a juvenile that really is his vendetta against the Throgs.

not. This is a new and bitter and Her making the incredible
skill in

disillusioned Heinlein. believable was never better

His story opens with flaming demonstrated than in this imag-
action and then acquaints the inative and adventuresome yam.
reader, via flashbacks, with his Rating: ****
hero, set on acquiring a citizen’s
franchise and voting rights by THE SECRET OF THE NINTH
serving in the armed forces. PLANET by Donald Wollheim.
From boot camp into combat, The John C. Winston Co., Phila.,

from OCS to command, Heinlein’s $2.50

story is well told, crammed with
political theory, and of excep- A HUGE, uninhabited alien

tional interest to veterans with installation, high in the Andes, is

battle experience but young-

. . .
robbing Earth of solar energy.
sters will find it melancholy and When discovered and smashed
Thus my split rating. by an archeological expedition,
verbose.
Rating for children: ** V2 other solar traps are planted on
Rating for adults each planet. To destroy them,
Rating for civilians: ? America’s first anti-gravity ship
is pressed into an odyssey
STORM OVER WARLOCK by through the Solar System.
Andre Norton. World Publishing The story is rich in action and By EDWARD WELLEN Sigma Corvi IV the renowned
Co., Cleveland, $3.00 mystery — up to the very mo- Galactic “Short-Snorter.”
ment thatWollheim presents his T IS OWING to Timothy This is not simply a souvenir of
YOUNG, UNEDUCATED villains. Then? Not good. Root, a cambist of Sol and of the trading and
Shann Lantee, from the slums of
planet Tyr, is one of two human
Rating: *** I we have priceless speci-
that
mens of mediums of exchange
III, his calling,
traveling it called for,
cause of his practice of writing
but, be-

survivors of a Terr an survey team Also recommended: THE CAVE that the Universal Credit Card on the margins of each bill as
on Warlock. Insect-derived Throg HUNTERS by W. E. Scheele. has rendered obsolete. In his he acquired it some account of
beetle-men, with whom Earth has World, $2.50 . . . PEOPLE AND dealings in alien monies, Timothy the society in which it functioned,
fought to stalemate for years, PLACES by Margaret Mead. Root from time time came
to a veritable compendium of the
have wiped out the advance World, $4.95 . . . OFF INTO across choice specimens, ex- history of economics.
outpost on Warlock, preparatory SPACE by M. O. Hyde. tracted them, attached them end Indeed, to appreciate to the
coming colo- Whittlesey House, $2.50. to end, and in 2137 U.E. left to full these more or less worn
to interdicting the
nist transport.
—FLOYD C. GALE the Bernard Baroque Museum in catalysts, one must view them

146
GALAXY ORIGINS OF THE GALACTIC SHORT-SNORTER 147
not only as bits of various ma-
of various sizes, shapes,
terials
and colors, but as bits of history.
Needless to say, we do not
agree with Timothy
always
Root’s evaluations —
in fact, we
discount many, many of them.
But it is as a trail-blazer that we
honor him.
Inasmuch as the Short-Snorter
winds and coils in and out
three large rooms of the Museum,
we can give only a sampling of
its riches here.
THERE no better item
is
begin with than (a) in the
This is at once the largest
exhibit.
and smallest piece of currency,
compensating in size for its mi-
nuscule denomination. It is a
w
1/10 -fuddo bill and was in use
on Megrez I for paying taxes. In
2020 U.E. the government there
began taxing a person on what
he valued himself. Psychiatrists
from all over the Galaxy flocked
there, and the natives flocked to
the psychiatrists —
to achieve
of inadequacy. The
feelings
government made out fairly well
on the take from the psychiatrists
the psychiatrists took to going
till
to one another.
The Sterope IV trader who
passed on to Timothy Root the
next item (b) himself received
it as a reward for supplying
the
authorities misleading informa-
tion. A guilt-filled Steropean had
148
yielded himself up for the killing
of a leading citizen. To substanti-
ate his confession, he furnished
the killer
details only
know. One detail he was unaware
of —the state had just emptied
the state treasury to build a new
Treasury Building. Knowing a
murder trial would cost the state
over 1,000,000 lemuc, it had
of given secret strict instructions to
prevent a trial. The trader, a
brother-in-law of the police com-
missioner (and, incidentally, a
sub-son-in-law of the builder),
came forward and to the great
to
relief of the state furnished the
self-styled killer with an alibi.
(c) This charred banknote is
a relic of El Kophrah III. Tim-
othy Root came across it, with
“nervous belly,” in his words,
poking through rubble. The
planet was in ruins. But the
starving survivors
scattering of
had one remnant of pride.
had, before the attack by El
Kophrah V, succeeded, by cut-
ting defense-research spending,
in balancing the budget.
(d) A reserve note from
Alcyone II. This is little
than play money for
childhood. One result of longer
life-expectancy was the postpon-
ing of inheritance till the heirs
were themselves rich in
and, because of welfare benefits,
in no need of such windfalls,
which soon became a mere matter
GALAXY
of form. This kind of note came (f) A non-negotiable instru-
mostly into play in the buying ment from Talitha IX. A suave,
and selling of pasts — contracts persuasive missionary to that
could
for the purchase or sale of planet, hoping a wealthy elderly
produce raised, harvested, de- native lady would endow his mis-
livered and eaten years before. sion, sold her on the transmigra-
tion of souls. With unremitting
A ND THIS leads us to another hatred, he listened to the reading
^example (e) of non-monetary of her will. She had left all her
money, the scrip of Maia V. This money and effects to herself. Her
is currency per se but a
not estate has remained intact, as
symbol of a product that the the executors have so far been
currency would have bought. unable to determine which if
This particular civilization was any of the life-forms of Talitha
attempting to move from material IX she has come back as.
gain to the purely spiritual. For (g) This is a replica; the
the benefit of those of its citizens original note vanished in a
who were still in the intermediate frightening puff shortly after the
stages, the government printed transactionin which Timothy
scrip bearing the names of cov- Root obtained it. The Electra
eted objects and distributed them VII government designed its
free, in lieu of the objects them- money to encourage spending
selves. In accord with its policy and discourage hoarding. The
of gradually eliminating the main note bore a printed circuit and
physical stumbling block, the a timing device that set off the
They money mart, the government note at some indeterminate mo-
each year took away another ment within six Terran .months
exchange seat. The members had of issue. Whoever had possession
to compete physically for the re- of the note at the time was left
maining seats. The narrowing with a hole burned in his pocket.
group of survivors, striving to (h) The opposite extreme —
more stay in condition to maintain a bill that practically inde-
is
second their sitting, grew more and more was in this currency
structible. It
fiercely engrossed with the wholly that the government of Alcor III
physical. The last two felt their paid off migrant workers who
joint strength was enough to en- had erected a dome on a new
years, able them to turn the tables on This payoff resulted in
satellite.
the government. It was. They the workers blasting the dome to
pensioned off the deposed leaders shards —
not out of eagerness
with scrip bearing titles of power. for more work in rebuilding the
ORIGINS OF THE GALACTIC SHORT-SNORTER 149
dome, but out of resentment. having to do with production,
They had worked to get the people of this planet grew more
money in order to sacrifice it as and more uneasy. They found it
a burnt offering of the fruit of hard to justify their economic
their labors. Alcor III made a upkeep.
hasty deal for the fulminating To give people the feeling that
Electra VII money and the mi- they were really earning the
money, the government turned
grant workers rebuilt the dome.
The money went off just before
the dome was finished and they
out its notes in the form of a
jigsaw puzzle. One had to piece HOURS
blew
(i)
it up
A
again.
banknote from
Alde-
baran I. The luminosity of the
money rubs off; the richer the
it together before it could be
banked or spent.
This worked for a time, but
the notes had to become increas-
to assemble,
ARE
person, the more he glowed. Na- ingly difficult to
turally, to preserve this distinc- make an acceptable work week.
tion of status, the government This specimen is one of the last
had to lay down restrictions on notes issued. A piece is missing. No doubt of it, success
the passing of notes. For example,
tellersand clerks were not al-
This is not owing to any slip-up
on the part of Timothy Root. It
calls tor a salute —
lowed to handle money. was a deliberate omission, a but a one-gun salute?
shameful, debasing device of the
TT’ROM Merope I comes exhibit government’s to put off the final By GORDON R. DICKSON
-* As automation and spe- reckoning, which came a week
(j). Illustrated by Burns
cialization more and more re- later.

moved the sense of actually — EDWARD WELLEN HE “ — sir!” he corrected.

T
mists of precondition-
ingrolled away. Harold “There you go, sir,” the tech-
Smith-Jones came back to nician made haste to amend.
IF YOU'VE MOVED himself on the hospital-like metal Harold’s frown relaxed. He
did not approve of this modern
table of the Technical Center.
let us know, will you? We want to get your copies of
please They were just cranking the hood laxity — but they were good
—
. . .

Galaxy you when they should arrive at least a week before the boys. He did not approve of
to up off him.
newsstands get theirs —
but we can't unless you inform us that you've “There you go,” said one of riding subordinates, either.
moved or are moving. the white-coated technicians, giv- He allowed himself to be
ing him a hand up. Off the table helped on with his regency coat.
Send both addresses, the old and the new, to:
and once more on his feet, A tall, blond young boy was
Subscription Dept., Galaxy Publishing Corp., Harold frowned at the young- standing back from the group a
421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N.Y. ster. bit, waiting. His new decoy, no

150 GALAXY THE HOURS ARE GOOD 151


doubt.A good type, in jumper
and slacks, athletic, his only
adornment the thin, sharp-edged
strip of polished steel that
the watch on his wrist.
was somewhat tight-faced
looked nervous.
“Cheer up, there!” said Harold,
giving him a friendly whack on
the back. “All in the day’s work.”
The decoy managed a grin.
trifle sick —
but a grin. Good
lad, thought Harold, and, leaving
the room, headed out for the job.
As he stepped, a moment later,
out of the gray building’s austere
entrance, the brilliant September
sunlight struck him a sudden,
dazzling blow, and for a
the street before him wavered
and blurred.
“Steady on, now — ”
thought, catching hold of the left
arch of the entrance. He felt the
gray stone rough under his palms,
took a deep breath, and the
street steadied
focus.
and came back in
The preconditioning again, of
course, he told himself. It
be he had developed a sensitivity
to the hypnotic drug they used
to put him in a receptive state
for instructions. Slight
reaction on his part, possibly.
made a mental note to mention
the fact in his report later.
There was no point in his
being uncomfortable. On the
other hand, it would hardly do
152
humor returned, he got down was in a special situation. Few
to take on a job without the
protection of full precondition- onto the nearest strip of the people had his opportunities for
moving sidewalk before him and what you might call excitement
ing. Under the latest laws dealing
let it carry him off. and adventure. After all, he re-
held with this sort of thing, the
The sidewalk slid him off minded himself, he had originally
The boy opposition had the right to ques-
down the block and swept around intended to be a wine-taster,
and tionhim if they happened to get
a corner. As he came around the having that wonderful discrim-
their hands on him before he
curve, he caught sight of his own ination of taste that is born in
reached the street afterward.
dark image, obscurely reflected one person in a million. If it
Only if he showed obvious evi-
dence of preconditioning, so that in a passing store display window. hadn’t been for that little psy-
he could tell them nothing of Perfect, perfect! chotic upset (but everyone had
A
how he had planned the job,
A HEAVY-BODIED, somewhat
them these days) he might not
have lost it, and never gone into
would there be no point in their
**- small man in regency coat, this business at all. And never
Andsuch questioning
doing so.
— breeches and jackboots with — discovered what an aptitude he
could be was no
well, there
point in dwelling on unpleasant
•
lilies of the valley in the little had for it. Ah, yes —
“Some are
vases at each ankle. Thank God born great. Some have greatness
details.
anything would go nowadays everybody dressed the thrust upon them . .
Not that
wrong. Not with a job he himself way they wished. When he had On the other hand Harold . . .
moment
been a boy, back in the nineteen- found himself glancing at a street
had researched and planned. Not
everybody he remembered
sixties, sign, and changed to another
with a possible new world’s record
he staring him in the face. had dressed alike. But now, with
the overpopulation pressures, no-
moving sidewalk with the auto-
mated reaction of good precondi-
Thirty-four consecutives. Thir-
ty-four! Without a hitch, or a body cared much whether the in- tioning. On the other hand,
aptitude itself was really only the
scratch upon him. He would take dividual lived or died, let alone
how he dressed. A damned, dull cornerstone of his success. Study,
a little vacation after this one,
thought Harold. Rest on his time, the past, no matter what study — plan, plan —
practice,
laurels. the historical entertainments practice — that was the real
He took another deep breath liked to pretend. He preferred the secret; thatand his attention to
details like seldom using the
must and stepped hard on his left foot. present.
The outline of the small plastic Of course, for business reasons, same decoy more than twice, and
of the
gun could be felt through the mainly. With any costume per- little touches like the lilies
inner sole, and at the feel of it the missible, was that much easier
it valley on his boots. And the
allergic old magic flooded through him to create theimage of a harmless, man thought all it
in the street
pompous, little fat man. took was a good target eye and
He once again, like a spate of warm
wine. Ah, he thought, never mind
On the other hand, thought a touch of sadism.
Harold, his feet changing slide- Harold stepped off the side-
fame and riches, never mind
and beautiful women. ways without consulting his walk into an entrance blazoned
palaces
brain, maybe his liking for the above with the legend mother
Give me a gun.
present was based on the fact he turner’s tea rooms. Marvelous,
With confidence and even good
G A L AX> THE HOURS ARE GOOD 153
 s

thought Harold, the way the pre- rpHAT’S right — the little
truth?
foolish
And
for
how
Harold.
much
“Iced
more
tea,
There’s Samantha! Sam!”

conditioning had brought him nodule of pre-planted infor- She disappeared into the
perhaps.” crowd. Moving off himself,
right to the place when every jot mation said in Harold’s head, re-
“Of course, Mr. Spence. Of Harold came on to a small empty
of knowledge about the job had leasing its interior surprise of
course!” balcony and stepped up on it for
been hidden from his mind by information. Klannert was the
the hypnotic block. He’d had no
She swept off to get him one. a look at the crowd.
author of that best-selling new
idea where he was heading until philosophical novel, Existence?
He glanced about the room. The number of people he saw
There, that was Klannert over rang a sudden icy tocsin of warn-
moment of
the
now. The boys
recognition right
in the technical
Worth; and
those publicity affairs
this was one of
promoted
there — the peaceful-faced, ing in his mind. There were at
department deserved a com-
silver-haired man
seated on the least twenty or thirty more here
by his publishers under the guise
little dais at the of the oval end than his formal estimate of at-
mendation in his report. And of auctioning off a subsidiary
room, a crowd clustered around tendance had calculated. In a
would get it. right or two. Really, just a good him. small room with a single exit,
Entering, he nodded to himself.
public relations excuse to intro- “Your iced tea, Mr. Spence.”
One of decently exclusive
the such a mob could hamper
duce Klannert to magazine edi- “Thank you, ma’mselle. escape; and he would not legally
gathering places. Wisely, these
places kept their prices up and
tors, TV
and film people, etc. He Cheers!” be free from capture or reprisal
himself, Harold pre-remembered “Oh, cheerio, Mr. Spence!” until he was actually out of the
excluded the salaried mob, who
never ceased to be baffled by the suddenly, was supposed to edit He continued on into the building.
room, glass in hand, caught up Harold carefully set down his
fact that the Tea Rooms offered one of the intellectual weeklies
immediately in the good-sized glass of iced tea and took another
no better drinks or accommoda- under the name of Spence.
crowd. deep breath, putting his weight
tions
lounges.
than their own cocktail
They missed the point
“Oh, Mr. Spence! Here you
are! Martini?”
“Oops, terribly sorry ” He — once more on his left foot to feel
had collided with a small brun- the solid shape of the gun. The
entirely. Harold became suddenly
Harold passed on into a dim-lit
ette. situation at once became clearer.
aware of a seductive blonde in
foyer. Two men converged on him flame-purple, standing just inside
“My fault, really. Say, I don’t He congratulated himself on his
immediately. entrance the placarded
know you, do I? I’m Hepzibah early study of Yoga. Like every
the to
“Mind stepping on this metal Collins. Wasteland.” other bit of knowledge he had
room and tempting him in with
plate, sir?” — hum of detectors. a full cocktail glass. A hostess,
“Aneas Spence. The Fabliau painstakingly acquired, it paid
“Excuse me, sir.” — hands pat- of course — preconditioned to
Weekly.”
“You must give me your biog
off a thousandfold at times.
ting him swiftly all over. recognize all those to whom in-
“Not at all, boys. I know you’ve vitations had been distributed. and I’ll have
preconditioned
it I^OW THAT he thought of it
into me the next time at the
*-’ more
got a job to do.” Harold’s voice objectively, the crowd
Harold himself (or the technical
rang heartily; a generous man, a boys) had been thorough with office. I do feel it’s everybody’s might not hamper him. It might
jolly, fatman with an untroubled this detail, too. Harold went gra-
duty to know everyone they even help him by interfering
conscience. With a cheerful wave ciously toward her.
meet, don’t you?” with pursuit. Harold smiled. Once
of his hand, he turned to the “Why, thanks, no,” he said. “I “Absolutely.” Harold fumbled again his wisdom in leaving the
right. There, before an arched in- never drink.” True enough. Did artistically in a huge pocket of and adaptable
final situation fluid

terior entrance, was a placard. the gunmen of the old West — his regency coat. “I don’t seem was proving itself.

WILLIAM X. KLANNERT the good ones, that is drink — to have a biog slip with me ” — He turned his attention to the
Editorial Auction while awaiting their moment of “Oh, dear. Well, tape it to me. business of spotting Klannert’s

154 GALAXY THE HOURS ARE GOOD 155

K
 for elaborate pre-action pro- “Deserved every cent of it! What?
bodyguards. Klannert would be small old lady over there. She
expecting someone to try to do a looked perfectly innocent; but
ceedings. Man is more than merely a sus-
For the boy’s own good, Harold taining mechanism! No one like
job on him sooner or later. Every- the minute Harold’s eyes noted
should censure him in his report. Klannert!”
one in the public eye knew such the way she held her silver mesh
Those hands had But on the other hand, he thought, “Come now,” said Harold,
things were inevitable. Harold let purse, he knew.
his gaze search the crowd. That had judo and karate training.
softening, why make an official smoothly intruding. “Mechanism,
girl —
Hepzibah Collins, the Harold paused, out of thor-
matter of Teach the lad a
it?
— after all, is an accepted socio-

Wasteland editor — was one, of oughness, to take one last survey

lesson instead
slightly to himself
Harold smiled
—
by taking
logical theory. All of us like to

course. An expert frisker, un- see it questioned, for form’s

of the crowd. But there were no
that good-looking redhead away sake, nothing else. But to
doubtedly; her collision with him
would have been for the purpose
more opposition people to be un-
covered. If there had been, he
from him afterward. Harold sel-
if

throw it out completely —

dom went out of his way now “Who’re you?” said the
of doubling-checking the detec- would have known who they
for female companionship, but bearded man.
tives’ search. Odd existence, were, even if his conscious gaze
it was an accepted fact that no “Spence. Fabliau Weekly.”
thought Harold, momentarily could find no flaw in them. Sixth
many people woman could resist a successful “I know your rag!” said the
struck by that strange, sad, sense, in his case, so
professional in his line of work. bearded man. “Didn’t think you’d
philosophical turn of mind that in the Organization said. Noth-
And it would drive home to the have the nerve to stick your nose
had been growing on him these ing of the sort! It was the result
boy that lessons were to be in here!”
few years. Imagine making a of long years of study so intense
last
living going through life bump- that few minds could have stood
learned. Possibly save his life as Smiling — for the Fabliau
ing up against people! Still, some up under it.
well, someday. was wholly imaginary — Harold
It was time to begin work. bent his head politely.
sorts of persons might actually But it was time for that decoy
enjoy it. of his to be here. Harold turned “I think my lead article in the

The hostess was undoubtedly toward the entrance and spotted issue before last answers your
slacks-and-jumper
TTAROLD left the little balcony arguments,” he said.
another.
And then that tall, heavy sen-
the
Then he stiffened slightly.
outfit.
The and went down into the “Lies, lies, lies —
” sputtered

An excellent actor,
atorial type.
but Harold had not studied over
fiftythousand job reports in the
past fifteen years for nothing.
This man had been a bodyguard
in the Claire Dumont job in
April ’89.
young
fool!
His decoy had brought a good-
looking redheaded girl along as
part of his camouflage. What was
the matter with the boy? Had he
been asleep during Harold’s
lectures to the apprentice classes?
crowd. The cocktails, he noticed,
had been flowing freely and the
people were already beginning to
clump in little gossipy or argu-
mentative groups. He wandered
around a while and then joined
one about halfway between the
the bearded man. But Harold
was already on his way to another
group one step nearer to Klan-
nert.
He paused with this group —
they were also singing Klannert’s
praises, but Harold refused to let

Then there was — good lord, A decoy’s job was to draw the balcony and the dais where
Klannert still sat.
himself be drawn into conversa-
tion this time. He had already
whom the bodyguards
with
did they expect to fool
that? That beetle-browed
attention of
gradually upon himself. Any
“ —Nobel Prize,” a short, bel- made the point for anyone —
plug-ugly who was supposed, no woman could either attract too ligerent,broad-shouldered, mid- who happened to be taking an
much dle-aged man was saying. He unduly suspicious interest in
doubt, to look so much like a attention or else sidetrack
bodyguard that nobody could it unduly. With this woman — had a bushy, black, ill-trimmed him —
that he was not trying to
suspect he would be one. And well, it was damned lucky that
spade beard which he was make himself unobtrusive by hid-
that was the lot —
no, wait. That Harold’s timetable had not called thrusting at all his hearers. ing his own point of view. In

156 GALAXY THE HOURS ARE GOOD 157

 fact, he had avoided drawing
nusual attention to himself by
drawing a small amount of the
usual sort of attention to himself.
At the second group he listened
a while, smiled noncommittally
nd moved on.
That feeling, almost of sad-
ness, slipped over him again as
he continued to circle about the
room.
It was all so simple, if you
knew what you were doing.
xperience taught you what the
opposition would expect. You
gave them something else. It was
as easy as that. So simple it was
almost a little pitiful.
Look at Klannert up there. A
good man, by the standards of
those who considered themselves
good men. But he had offended
somebody or other. Who, of
course, would never be known;
the Organization was strict about
protecting clients. But somewhere,
somebody had signed the neces-
sary credit chit —and here was
Harold, about to put a period to
the life that had been considered
good.
And for what? Not really
for the money. A little for the
excitement of the business. Pos-
sibly a little more because this
would make a new world’s
record. But really because that
was the way the world wagged
these days —
for himself, for
Klannert, for everybody.
158 GALAXY THE HOURS ARE GOOD
VW/'E ARE ALL bound by the
** wheel of life, thought Harold,
with a touch of soft melancholy.
All to the same wheel. After
this, he would take a vacation,
get away for a long rest to
some place where he could be
a common man once more among
men. It was time, and overtime,
for a change.
He stopped. He had worked
his way clear across the room on
a slant. He stood now by some
egg-yellow wall draperies, not
fifteen feet from where Klannert
sat. Elsewhere about the room,
the people were all huddled in
small, busily talking groups.
There was space to run between
the groups. Now. Once excite-
ment had struck, they would mill
around, getting in each other’s
way and in the way of pursuit.
But by that time, he should be
in the foyer, if not out into the
safety of the public street.
He looked for his decoy.
There the boy was, still with the
girl, standing out among the
less attractive mortals grouped
around Klannert, very satisfac-
torily. The hostess, Harold noted
with satisfaction, was standing
with apparent casualness quite
close to them.
Harold smiled entirely to him-
self, internally, with that same
touch of melancholy. He glanced
around without seeming to. His
glass of iced tea was almost
159
 He drained the last few been the belligerent, spade- .
i “They’ll shoot me now — ”
away. He stared at the entrance
finished.
bearded man who had been Ithought Harold, his heart yam- to Mother Turner’s Tea Rooms,
drops from it; and as he did, it
group mering at his throat. Then, like and then at the gun down in his
slipped from his fingers. holding forth to the first

The man was now the thudding of some huge, hand. He began to weep.
It dropped with a soft thump of talkers.
sickening velvet hammer, despair Quite a crowd had accumulated
to the thick carpet, rolling half scrambling to his feet and launch-
came to shatter his panic. What about him. A city policeman
out of sight under the draperies. ing himself in the direction of
the room’s entrance. For a second did it matter? Caught on the job came pushing through it, to
Exclaiming in annoyance, he bent
over as if to pick it up. the crowd opened out a little, — a failure — execution left to stand before Harold, red-faced

Instead, without any undue
tempt at concealment, his hand
went to the toe of his left boot.
Toe and hand lifted together, the
top part of the boot and bootsole
peeled away from
half, and the plastic
out into his fingers.
ened up — the spade-bearded man went
— and something tremen-
dously heavy crashed down on
him from behind. He was aware
of himself suddenly, on his knees
and going down further, with the
full weight of another adult on
his back. His head was foggy. He
and Harold had a sudden glimpse a decoy. Or had he been double- and sweating.
at-
“All right, all right! Move on!”
of his decoy, bare-wristed, run- crossed?
He became aware that those he shouted. The crowd started to
ning for the entrance, while the [
holding him had stopped, and drift away. He turned on Harold.
girl with him stopped and half
the detective had stepped across “What’re you doing with that in
turned, lifting a gun with cool
your hand? Don’t you know it’s
expertness and sending several the room, leaving Harold pinned
the bottom illegal? Where’s your license?”
shots into the spade-bearded man. by the stranger in an efficient
gun slipped Harold shook his head, unable
Scrambling to his own feet as judo hold. Harold could not turn
He straight-
to speak. The policeman snatched
his head to see, or make out the
the gun from him and turned it
down, Harold caught sight of
Klannert stumbling down from
words of the conversation. Sud-
denly they were interrupted by over in two freckled hands. His
expression faded from anger to
the dais. His hands were up at an ugly laugh from the detective.
exasperation. He shoved the gun
his chest; and sticking out from Heavy footsteps returned behind
back into Harold’s hands and
between two fingers was a thin him.
turned away.
metal, a strip of steel He was grabbed and rushed
strip of
about the width of a wristwatch
[

forward to the open entrance — “Get off the street,” he said to

hurled roughly out into the Harold, and then, to those of the
could still see and hear, but band. As Harold watched, Klan-
crowd that still lingered, “All
nert’s knees gave way and he
everything had a dreamlike
sank down below the bodies of
street.
Harold staggered, windmilling right, all right — move along!
quality about it. He felt the The gun’s a fake. He’s only a
the people who were rushing for balance on the slideway out-
thick, deep carpet pressing up decoy, just snapped out of con-
toward him. side. Laughter echoed behind
against the palms of his hands Nothing more to see.
him. He whirled, wild with rage. ditioning.
as he flung them out to break Move along now!” He shoved
AROLD The gun was still clutched
his fall. He had a sudden
kaleidoscopic glimpse of nearby
H gun
grabbed at his fallen
—
but in that second, hand. They had forgotten
jerked it up before him —
in his
it. He Harold impersonally. “You too.”
Harold moved off, weeping,
hard hands seized him and
faces turning to stare in his di-
rection. And then, thin and clear, hustled him through the crowd.
— and, abruptly, the mists of clutching the imitation gun in his
preconditioning vanished from hand, the salt tears streaming
above the sound of voices still Twisting his head back over his
his brain. They left him with the down his face.
woman shoulder, he saw he was in the
talking,
scream.
he heard a
grasp of one of the detective-
suddenness of support jerked — GORDON R. DICKSON
The weight on back rolled
his bodyguards and an unidentified
suddenly off. Turning his head, stranger. They impelled him
Harold saw that his assailant had swiftly into the lobby.

160
GALAXY THE HOURS ARE GOOD 161
Staghorn dared tug at the veil that hid the

future. Maybe it wasn't a crime to look .

maybe it was just that the future was ugfyi By DAVID DUNCAN

ustrated by FRANCIS

CLARENCE PEC-
D
tation
R.
CARY was an objective
man. His increasing
was caused, he realized, by
the fear that his conscience was
irri-

going to intervene between him

and the vast fortune that was
definitely within his grasp. Mil-
lions. Billions! But he wanted to
enjoy it.

He didn’t want to skulk through

life avoiding the eyes of everyone

he met — particularly when his

life might last for centuries. So

he sat glowering at the rectangu-

lar screen that was located just
above the CQntrol console of
Roger Staghorn’s great digital
computer.
At the moment Peccary was
ready to accuse Staghorn of hav-
ing no conscience whatsoever. It
was only through an act of scien-
tific detachment that he reminded

himself that Staghorn neither had

a fortune to gain nor cared about
gaining one. Staghorn’s fulfillment
was in Humanac, the name he’d
given the electronic monster that
presently claimed his full atten-
tion. He sat at the controls, his

163
eyes luminous behind the mag- Their clothing, to call it that, said. Somehow a piece of misin- It was. Large areas of the ex-
nification of his thick lenses, his was most peculiar. It was rags. formation has been fed into that terior plaster had fallen away.
lanky frame arched forward for Here and there was a garment machine. Its calculations are all Windows were shattered, and here
a betterview of Humanac’s that bore a resemblance to a dress wrong!” and there the broken slats of
screen. Far from showing annoy- or jacket or pair of trousers, but Staghorn refused to be per- Venetian blinds stuck through
ance at what he saw, there was for the most part the people sim- turbed. “But you just said you rec- them. The shrubbery around the
a positive leer on his face. ply had chunks of cloth wrapped ognize the girl on the bench. I’d building was dead; weeds had
As well there might be. about them in a most careless say that Humanac has to be work- sprung up through the cracks in
On the screen was the full color fashion. Several would have been ing with needle-point accuracy to the asphalt in the big play yard.
picture of a small park in what arrested for indecent exposure put recognizable people into a There was no sign of children.
appeared to be the center of a had they appeared anywhere ex- prediction.” “Where is everyone?” Peccary
medium-sized town. It was a cept on Humanac’s screen. How- “Then shift the scene! For all I demanded. “You must have the
shabby little park. Rags and tat- ever, they seemed indifferent to know this part of town was turned time control set for a Sunday or
tered papers waggled indolently this — and to all else. A singu- into an insane asylum fifty years holiday.”
in the breeze. The grass was an costume
larly attractive girl,, in a i from now.” The use of the past “It’s Tuesday,” Staghorn said.
unkempt, indifferent pattern of that would have made a Cretan tense when speaking of a future Then both were silent because at
greens and browns, as though the blush, didn’t even get a second event was not ungrammatical in that moment a child appeared, a
caretaker took small pains in set- glance from, a young Adonis who the presence of Humanac. “Do boy of about eleven.
ting his sprinklers. Beyond the passed her on the walk. Nor did you have the volume up?”
square was a church, its steeple she bestow one on him. The park “Certainly. Can’t you hear the IX E burst from the schoolhouse
listing dangerously, its windows bench held more interest for her, birds twittering?” door and ran across the
broken and its heavy double doors so she sat down on it. “But I can’t hear anyone talk- cracked asphalt toward the play-
sagging on their hinges. Peccary studied her more close- ing.” ground, glancing back over his
Staghorn’s leers and Dr. Pec- ly, then straightened with a start. “Perhaps it’s a day of silence.” shoulder as though expecting pur-
cary’s glowers were not for the Staghorn took another long look suit. Reaching the play apparatus

scenery, however, but for the peo- 4

4
I’LL be damned,” he said. at the girl on the parkbench and he paused and looked around des-
ple who wandered aimlessly “That’s Jenny Cheever!” then turned to the controls, us- perately. The metal standards for
through the little park and along Staghorn continued to leer at ing the fine adjustment on the the swings were in place but no
the street beyond, carefully avoid- the girl. “So you know her?” geographical locator. The screen swings hung from them. The ful-
ing the area beneath the leaning “I know her father. He owns flickered, blinked, and the scene crums for the seesaws were there
steeple. All of them were uni- the local variety store. She’s only changed. The two men studied it. but they held no wooden planks
formly young, ranging from per- twenty today, and there she is a “Recognize it?” said Staghorn. to permit teetering. The only
haps seventeen at one extreme to hundred years from now, not a Peccary gave an affirmative piece of equipment that looked
no more than thirty at the other. day older.” grunt. “That’s the Jefferson gram- capable of affording pleasure was
When Dr. Peccary had first seen “Only her image, Dr. Peccary,” mar school on Elm Street. I’m the slide.
them, he’d cried out joyfully, “You Staghorn murmured. “Only her surprised it’s still there. But, lord, It was a small one, only about
see, Staghorn, all young! All image. But a very pretty one.” as long as they haven’t built a new six feet high, obviously designed
handsome!” Then he’d stopped Peccary came to his feet, un- one, you’d think they’d at least for toddlers and not for a boy of
talking as he studied those in the able to control his irritation any keep the old one repaired.” eleven. Nonetheless, the boy
foreground more closely. longer. “I won’t believe it!” he “Very shabby,” Staghorn agreed. headed for it eagerly.

164 GALAXY THE I MMORTALS 165

 But he’d hardly set foot upon thundered, “you’ve doctored [thing any more! Artists will have started taking the hormone only
it!

the bottom step of the ladder You’ve deliberately fed false in- hundreds of years to paint their recently, he was as yet unable to

when the schoolhouse door burst formation into Humanac’s mem- pictures. Think of the books that say positively that it was respon-
second time. A young ory cells!” 'will be written, the music that will sible for the splendid health he
open a
woman charged toward him shout- Staghorn turned to glare at his be composed, the magnificent was enjoying. His impatience to
ing, “Paul! Get down from there guest, his eyes flaming at the out- cities that will be built! Everyone know the sociological conse-
at once! Paul!” rageous suggestion. “The only (will have time enough to achieve quences of the hormone had made
She was an attractive woman, hypothetical element I’ve fed into perfection. Think of your work him bring a sample of it to Stag-
but her voice held a note of panic. Humanac is your Y Hormone, Dr. and mine. We’ll live long enough horn.
She ran so swiftly that Paul, Peccary! You saw me do it. You to unravel all the mysteries of the After sniffing at the bottle,
whose ascent of the ladder was watched me check the computer universe!” Staghorn had poured its Contents
accelerated rather than retarded before we started.” Staghorn had said nothing. In- into Humanac’s analyzer.
by her command, hadn’t quite “I refuse to believe that my Y stead, he’d uncorked the small The giant computer gurgled
reached the top when she seized Hormone will bring about the bottle Dr. Peccary had given him and belched a few seconds while it
him around the legs and tried to consequences that machine is pre- and sniffed at it. assessed the nature of the formu-
drag him down. dicting!” The bottle contained a sample la. Then Staghorn connected the

“Please, Miss Terry!” he plead- “It’s the only new factor that of the Y Hormone which Dr. Pec- analyzer with the machine’s mem-
ed desperately. “Just this once let was added.” ‘cary had spent many years de- ory units.
me get to the top! Let me slide “How can you say that? During veloping. Its principal ingredient As far as Humanac was con-
down it just once!” the next hundred years a thou- was a glandular extract from in- cerned, theY Hormone was now
“Get to the top?” Miss Terry sand other factors can enter in.” sects, an organic compound that an accepted part of human his-
was aghast. “You could fall and “But the Y Hormone bears an controlled the insects’ aging proc- tory.

kill yourself. Down you come this essential relationship to the whole. ess. If administered artificially, it But, except for this one added
instant!” Sit down and stop waving your could keep insects in the larval factor, the rest of Humanac’s vast
“Just one time!” Paul wailed. arms. I’m going to see if we can 'stage almost indefinitely. memory was solidly based upon
“Let me do it just once!” get into the school.” Dr. Peccary’s great contribution the complete known history of the
Miss Terry paid no heed to his Peccary sat down, seething. had been to synthesize this extract earth and the human race. Its
anguished cries. She tugged at his
— which affected only insects — principles of operation were the
legs while Paul clung to the hand- ¥T had been a mistake to bring with protein elements that could same as those controlling other
rails. But he was the weaker of his Y Hormone to Staghorn. It be assimilated by mammals and electronic “brains,” which could
the two, and in a few seconds Miss was simply that he’d been think- humans. It had required years of be programmed to predict tides,

Terry had torn him loose and set ing of himself as such a benefac- experimentation, but the result weather, election results or the
him on the ground. Then, seizing tor to the human race that he was his Y Hormone — Y for state of a department-store inven-

him firmly by the hand, she led couldn’t wait to see a sample of Youth. tory at any given date in the fu-
him back toward the schoolhouse. the bright future he intended to In his laboratory he now had ture. Humanac differed chiefly in

Paul went along, sniveling mis- create. playful kittens that were six years the tremendously greater capacity
erably. They entered the building “Think of it, Staghorn!” he’d old and puppies that should have of its memory cells. Over the

and the play yard was once more said happily, earlier in the eve- been fully grown dogs. The only years it had digested thousands
silent and deserted. ning. “The phrase ‘art is long and human he’d so far experimented on of books, codifying and coordi-
“By God, Staghorn,” Peccary time is fleeting’ won’t mean any- was himself. But because he’d nating the information as fast as

166 G ALAXY THE IMMORTALS 167

it was received. Its photocells had tions were startlingly accurate. human why
duced a picture of the American operator to figure out
recorded millions of visual im- Humanac had never been ex- things happened that way.
continent composed of six differ-
pressions. Its auditory units had posed to pictures of Dr. Peccary’s This was what was troubling
ent nations speaking French, Ger-
absorbed the music and languages home town nor to those of a girl
man, Chinese, Hindu, Arabic and Dr. Peccary.
of the centuries. And its methods named Jenny Cheever. It arrived
Muskogean — the last being the He could see not the remotest
of evaluation had been given a at the likeness of both town and
language of an Indian nation oc- relationship between his Y Hor-
strictly human touch by feeding girl through a purely mathemati-
cupying the Mississippi Valley mone and the fact that a mathe-
into its resistance chambers the cal process.
matical probability named Miss
and extending northward to Lake
cephalic wave patterns produced Staghorn’s ultimate purpose in
Terry should refuse another math-
Winnepeg. It served as a buffer
by the brains of Staghorn’s col- building the machine was to use
state between the Hindus and ematical probability named Paul
leagues. it in developing a true science of
Chinese in the west and the permission to climb to the top of
history. Because Humanac was
French, Germans and Arabs to a six-foot playground slide.

AN added feature, though by no

means an original one, was
the screen upon which
produced visually the events of
the time and place for which the
controls were set.
This screen was simply the big
end of a cathode-ray tube, similar
to those used in television
Itwas adapted from LB.M.’s 704
computer used by the
electronic
Vanguard tracking center to pro-
duce visual predictions
orbits of artificial satellites.
Staghorn was constantly having
trouble explaining to people that
Humanac was not a time machine
that could look into the past or
future. Its pictures of past events
were based upon information
ready present in its memory
Its pictures of future events were
predictions calculated according to
the laws of probability. But be-
cause Humanac, unlike a human,
never forgot any of the million
and one variables impinging upon
any human situation,
168
Humanac
only a machine, Staghorn could
alter its memory at will.
moving the tiny unit upon which
By re-
the east. Meanwhile Staghorn had been
using the fine adjustment on the
T was Humanac’s ability to pre- geographic locator and now grunt-
the Battle of Hastings was re- I dict the future consequences ed his satisfaction. “Good! We’re
corded and then “re-playing” Eng-
of any hypothetical event, how- in the building, at least.”
lish history without it, he could On was a dusky cor-
ever, that made it an instrument the screen
find out what actual effect that
ridor. On either side of it were
capable of revolutionizing history.
particular battle had.
Once its dependability was thor- classroom doors, some closed,
sets. He was surprised to discover
oughly established, it would be some ajar. Staghorn moved his
that it had very little. According
possible for a Secretary of State hand from the fine adjustment to
to Humanac, the Normans would the even more delicate vernier
to submit to Humanac the con-
have conquered England anyway control which permitted him to
tents of a note intended for a
of the a few months later. the geographic focus inches
foreign country, then turn the shift
At another time, while review- The
;time controls ahead and get Hu- at a time. focus drifted slow-
ing the events leading up to the
manac’s prediction of the note’s one of the half-open
ly forward to
American Revolution, Humanac doors,and then he and Dr. Pec-
consequences.
had produced a picture of Benja-
If the consequences were good, cary were able to see into the
min Franklin kissing a beautiful
the note would then be sent. classroom.
young woman in the office of his was deserted. Desks were
If they were bad, the Secretary It
al- printing shop. On impulse Stag-
could destroy the note and try thick with dust. Books, yellow
cells. horn removed this seemingly in-
others — until he composed one with age, were strewn on the floor.
significant event from Humanac’s
that produced the desired result. Staghorn’s hand sought the ver-
memory and then turned the time Humanac’s flaw was that it had nier control again. The picture
dial forward to the present to see them on down the
no way of explaining the predic- led corridor to
what effect, if any, the episode had another open door.
tions produced on its screen. It
had upon history. Again it was a scene of desola-
merely showed what would hap-
To his amazement, with that pen when and if certain things tion.
its predic- single kiss missing, Humanac pro- “This can have nothing to do
were done. It left it up to the
G A L AXY
THE I M MORTALS 169
with my Y Hormone!” Peccary in- “I think they’re in the room on or I may fall and dash my brains years! In that long an interval
sisted. the left,” said Peccary. out.” He paused to sniffle and wipe even the most trivial error could
“Then why your picture on
is his nose on his sleeve, then sighed distort every circuit in the ma-
the wall there?” Staghorn said II and continued dismally. “Rule chine.” He jabbed a finger toward
with a note of malicious pleasure. four: Imust never play with sharp the screen where Paul was seated
Dr. Peccary looked and started. 'T’HE focus shifted to the open things or I may cut myself and at his desk again. “And that’s what
On the classroom wall was a faded door and then Peccary and bleed to death. Rule five: I must that picture is — a distortion. I’m
photograph of himself. Except that Staghorn could see into the class- never ride horses or I may fall off not going to let it influence me
he was wearing a different suit in room. This one was in slightly and break my neck.” Paul paused, one bit in what I intend to — ”
the picture, he looked just as he better order than the others and lowering his book. He broke off because of what was
looked at the present moment. was occupied by two people. In I
“And the sixth rule?” said Miss happening on the screen.
Staghorn got a closer focus on the front sat Miss Terry, obviously i
Terry.“Go ahead and read the From somewhere outside the
photograph so that Peccary could the teacher, and at one of the sixth rule.” school building came the wail of
read the legend beneath it. Dr. desks sat Paul. He seemed to be Reluctantly Paul lifted his a deep-throated alarm. Both Miss
Clarence Peccary, the man who the entire class. At Miss Terry’s '
book. “Rule six: Starting when Terry and Paul were on their feet
gave the world the Y Hormone. urging he was coming to his feet, I’m twenty-one I must take Dr. and by their expressions, terrified.
“All right then,” said Peccary, his face stained with tears.
still Peccary’s Y Hormone once a “The Atavars!” Paul cried, his
somewhat modified by this tribute. He held his book a few inches week to keep me young and entire body shaking.
“If they put my picture on school from his nose and stared over the healthy forever.” “To the basement, Paul!” Miss
room walls a hundred years from top of it sullenly. “Excellent, Paul!” said Miss Terry’s face was blanched as she
now, it means I’m an honored man, “Go ahead, Paul,” said Miss Terry. “And which rule were you grasped Paul’s hand and headed
a man the world admires. And Terry, sweetly stubborn. 'Tm breaking just now on the play- toward the door. But halfway
therefore the Y Hormone can’t be waiting.” ground?” there, both came to a halt, breath-
the cause of all this desolation!” Paul looked at his book and “I was breaking Rule Three,” less and staring.
“I’ve found that Humanac’s read from it in a monotone, enun- Paul said, then quoted sadly, “I A powerful bearded man strode
reasoning and human reasoning ciating each word carefully as
must stay away from high places into the classroom.
differ in many ways,” said Stag- though it had no relationship to
or I may fall and dash my brains Paul and Miss Terry fell back
horn. On the screen they were out the other words. “I am a human out.” as he advanced. He was a man of
in the corridor again when from being and as long as I obey the about fifty, his bushy hair shot
somewhere ahead came a woman’s six rules I shall live forever.” TTk R. PECCARY was on his feet with gray, his eyes cold and blue.
voice. “Very good, Paul. Now read the stomping around in front of He was followed by two younger
“You may recite now, Paul. six rules.” the computer. “Sheer idiocy,” he men who studied Paul and Miss
Please stand up.” Paul sniffled loudly and com- muttered. “He doesn’t have any Terry with interest. All three wore
“Ah, that sounds like Miss menced reading again. “Rule one: brains to dash out! I’ll admit that rough work clothing.
;

Terry,” said Staghorn. He fingered I must never go near fire or my a computer with sufficient infor- The bearded man pointed at
the vernier control. The focal clothing may catch
aflame and mation about the state of the Paul. “There’s the boy,” he said
point slid forward along the cor- burn me up. Rule two: I must world might be able to make ac- quietly. “Take him.”
ridor. keep away from deep water or I curate predictions of events a few Paul let out a shriek of terror
“Stand up and recite, Paul,” may fall in and drown. Rule three: months or possibly a year into the and a corner as the two
fled into
Miss Terry said more sharply. I must stay away from high places future — but not one hundred men advanced. He clawed futilely
170 GALAXY THE I MMORTALS 171
 hundred years, and I’m not going years from now—” He broke off,
as they laid hands on him. “For ment and finally got the screen
God’s sake, shut up,” one' of the
to sit here that long. What’s more, glaring at Humanac’s screen which
focused on the corridor again. It
men I’m not going to touch your Y was still focused on the deserted
said with more disgust than was deserted. The bearded man
anger. He pinioned Paul’s arms
Hormone even if you do put it park. “It simply doesn’t make
and his companions had already
while the other man bound them
on the market.” sense!The machine doesn’t give
departed. Staghorn touched the
“There’ll be plenty who will!” any reasons for anything. If there
together with a strip of cloth. controls again, the screen flickered
“That’s what Humanac says, were a way I could talk directly
Miss Terry meanwhile had col- and once more the little park
yes.” to some of those mathematical
lapsed into her chair. One of came into focus. But now it, too,
Dr. Peccary gestured despair- probabilities, question them, ask
Paul’s captors glanced at her and was deserted. None of the ragged
ingly. After all, he did have a them what it’s all about .” He. .
spoke to the bearded man. “What men and women were in sight,
about her?”
conscience. “I simply don’t believe was on his feet, striding back and
neither in the park nor on the
The bearded man stepped close my hormone can be responsible!” forth before the computer again.
street beyond. Staghorn twisted
“I’ll remind you that your pic- “Perhaps there is a way,” Stag-
to Miss Terry and put a hand on the focus in all directions without
ture was on the classroom wall horn said quietly.
her shoulder. She recoiled as from discovering anyone.
and that the sixth rule read by “Eh?”
a snake. “How old are you?” he “That whistle we heard was ob-
asked. Miss Terry made some in-
that boy indicated that he was “I said that it may be possible
viously some kind of alarm,” he
supposed to start using your hor- for you to talk with them.”
articulate squeaks and the man said. “Everyone must be in hiding
spoke more sharply. “When were — mone when he reached the age “How?”
from the Atavars, whoever they
you born?”
of twenty-one. That would be “By making your mind a tem-
are. I strongly suspect that beard-
about the age to stop growing porary part of the computer.”
“Two thousand four,” she man- ed fellow of being one.”
aged to stutter.
older.” Peccary studied the huge ma-
“You might as well shut it off,
“That boy is nothing but a chine apprehensively — its ranks
The bearded man considered Staghorn,” Dr. Peccary Said cold-
this and shook his head. “Over ly. “It’s too much nonsense for any
mathematical probability!” of memory units, its chambers of
flickering tubes, the labyrinth of
fifty. By that time they’re hope- sane man to swallow. And unless
less. Leave her and bring the boy.” that machine can provide a full
Unp HAT'S a h you and I are,” circuits. “How would you go about
Staghorn said owlishly. it?”
Miss Terry let out an agonized and satisfactory explanation as to
“Mathematical probabilities. De- “I put you in the transmitter,”
wail of protest and fainted across why my Y Hormone will bring
spite Omar, nothing exactly like Staghorn said. He stepped away
her desk. One of the men slung about the conditions depicted on
either of us has ever existed be- from the console and slid back a
Paul over his shoulder and the that screen, I see no reason to
fore or will exist again.” panel to reveal a niche with a seat
bearded leader led the group from keep the hormone off the market.”
“But damn it. Staghorn . .
.” in it. Above the seat was a sort
the room. Staghorn turned from the con-
Dr. Peccary sat down, his face in of helmet that resembled a hair
trols tostudy his companion. “The
his hands. “It’s worth millions! drier in a beauty parlor, except
A MAZING,” murmured Stag- only possible way that Humanac
J-*- I’ve invested years of work and that it was studded with hundreds
horn. “Absolutely amazing. could give us the entire back-
One never knows what all the money I could scrape to- of tiny magnets and transistors.
to expect.” ground of events leading up to
gether. I don’t see anything wrong Staghorn indicated the helmet.
“Pure gibberish,” said Peccary, what we’ve just seen would be to
in a scientist’s profiting by his “This picks up and amplifies brain
then betrayed his interest by say- set the time control to the present
ing, “Can you follow them?” and then leave the machine run-
And to keep it off the
discoveries. waves. I’ve used it to record the

“I’m
market just because that insane cephalic wave pattern of about a
trying to.” Staghorn ning until it arrived at this same
computer says that a hundred hundred men and women. The re-
worked at the geographic adjust- period again. That would take a
172 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS 173

i
cordings are built into the com- “Nothing. That’s just it. The Dr. Peccary examined Staghorn you’re in focus it might be impos-
puter, enabling Humanac to assign moment I turn Humanac into in amazement. He had often sus- sible to — ah — disengage you.”
a mathematical evaluation to the the future to get a prediction, the pected that Staghorn’s genius was Dr. Peccary could find no mean-
influence of human emotion in screen goes dead. Do you know tinged with madness. “You’re not ing whatsoever in this statement,
making historic decisions. In your why it goes dead?” Staghorn suggesting that those those
. . . except confirmation of his suspi-
case, instead of making a record- looked at Peccary with a pleased images are conscious?” cion that Staghorn was mad. He
ing of your brain waves, I’d feed smile and didn’t wait for Peccary “Ah! What is consciousness?” felt this so strongly that he started
the impulses directly into Huma- to cue him. “It goes dead because, “I didn’t come here to get into to rise from his seat and escape
nac’s memory units.” if war were declared, Humanac a metaphysical argument.” from the transmitter cell. But at
“And what would happen would be the first target for enemy “No, but it’s only fair for me to that moment Staghorn lowered
then?” bombs. When it predicts a future suggest the possible emotional haz- the helmet onto his head. The sen-
“I’m not altogether sure,” said event, it has to take all factors zards involved in hooking you up sation he experienced was so novel
Staghorn, and seemed to Pec-
it into consideration. If one of those to Humanac. Because you have to and startlingthat he remained
cary that Staghorn was finding a factors is its own destruction, it admit that you’// be conscious seated. For a second or two he
definite relish in his uncertainty. can predict nothing beyond that during the experiment.” could feel the tiny metallic con-
“I’ve never tried the experiment moment.” “Certainly. But I’ll be sitting tacts on the inside of the helmet
before.” right there.” Peccary pointed to pressing against his skull, but this
“I might get electrocuted?” T3ECCARY repeated this sen- the seat in the transmitter unit. sensation of physical pressure van-
“No. There’s no danger of that tence in his mind while he “In a sense, yes. Very well, take ished almost at once. It was re-
happening. The current that acti- slowly digested its meaning. What your seat.” placed by one of headlessness. His
vates the transmitter comes from it seemed to mean was that, al- Peccary eyed the helmet un- body up to his chin still seemed
your own brain, and as you know, though Staghorn and Peccary easily “I’m not sure I want to do to be sitting in the transmitter —
such electrical impulses are ex- thought of Humanac as only a this.” but his intellect had lost com-
tremely feeble. That isn’t what complicated machine, Humanac’s “But you do want to make mil- pletely its sense of localization in
worries me.” opinion of itself was altogether lions from the Y Hormone. And the head.
“Well then, what does?” otherwise. It could foresee its own you want to enjoy it with a clear He
could think clearly enough,
“In 'some ways Humanac be- death. conscience. Perhaps it’s as you say but had no notion as to the spot
haves peculiarly like a living or- “I often wonder,” mused Stag- — there may be other factors in- where his thoughts originated. In-
ganism. For example, there’s one horn, “about those people we see volved. By knowing what they are deed, the whole concept of rela-
prediction it can never make. Sev- wandering around on Staghorn’s you may be able to negate their tive seemed ridiculous.
position
eral times I’ve fed into it the screen. To us they’re only images influence.” Staghorn’s voice was a At the same instant he felt tall as
hypothetical information that the made by a stream of electrons hit- soft purr as he took Dr. Peccary’s a mountain and as low as a rug.
two opposing factions of the world ting the end of a cathode ray tube. arm and urged him into the trans- His mind could fill the entire uni-
have declared war. Naturally Their space and time is an illu- mitter unit. Peccary sat down. verse, while resting neatly in a
everyone would like to know sion. All the same, Humanac com- The seat was small and hard. thimble. He could also see Stag-
about the outcome of such a war.” prises an entire system — a system “Just bear one thing in mind,” horn, his eyes continued to
for
Staghorn paused, gazing lovingly modeled as accurately as possible Staghorn said. “Don’t get lost. It function and transmit optical pat-
at his majestic creation. on our own. It’s just possible that will be best if you stay in the little terns,but precisely where he was
“And what happens?” Dr. Pec- the boy we saw, Paul, was experi- park where I can see you and while receiving these patterns he
cary said impatiently. encing a real terror.” where you’ll be in focus. Unless couldn’t possibly say.
174 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS 175
 He heard Staghorn remark,
“Fine. The connection is perfect.
It’s always better when the sub-
ject is bald. I’m going to switch
you over into Humanac’s circuits
now.”
Staghorn’s hand moved across
the controls and one of his long
fingers flipped a switch.
THIS was the last Dr. Peccary
saw of Roger Staghorn. In-
stantly he found himself standing
in the center of the small park
in his home town. His reaction was
not one of alarm. Quite to the
contrary, his immediate thought
was one of surprise that
he wasn’t
alarmed. Standing there in the
little square felt entirely normal
and proper.
Next he was jolted by the reali-
zation that he must be an image
on Humanac’s screen. He quickly
looked about in all directions, half
expecting to see Staghorn’s huge
face peering down from the sky
like God. There was no sign of
Staghorn, however. The world
about him was as three-dimension-
al as any he’d ever known. He
was in his home town a hundred
years after he’d last seen it.
Good lord! He was a hundred
and forty-two years old!
This realization was followed
by a host of others. Like a man
coming out of amnesia, his past be-
gan filling with memories. He was
rich. He was the richest man on
176
earth. His Y Hormone was used
the world over. A mile away, on
the outskirts of town, he could see
a portion of his huge production
plant. He lived in a majestic pal-
ace surrounded by every manner
of automatic protective
Protection? From what? And how
had he dared to venture out here
in the park alone? But wait
wait. It was all an illusion. Actu-
ally he was only an image on
Humanac’s screen, a mathematical
probability.
He must keep that fact firmly
in mind, or he might lose his men-
tal balance.
Hegazed about at the town,
dismayed by its appearance. Not
a person in sight. Not even an
automobile. Of course, the motor
car might have become obsolete
during the passage of a hundred
years. There must be some new
mode of transportationsome- — “He wants to know what we
thing undreamed of a century ago!
While he was wondering what
this might be, he heard a clop-
clop-clopping and was astonished
to see three horsemen approaching
the square. As they came closer
he recognized them as the bearded
man and his two companions.
The boy Paul was bound firmly
behind one of the saddles.
A strange panic arose in Dr.
Peccary’s breast, but he managed
to suppress it with a reminder
that this was all illusion. He was
here for purposes of information;
GALAXY
he must have the courage to get
|
it. So he forced himself to the
curb at the edge of the park. When
J
the riders were within speaking
;
distance, he managed
with, “Hey, you!”
device. His nervousness madewords
harsh. But then, there was no rea-
son why he should speak politely
. . .
i to kidnapers. He saw that Paul
was conscious. The boy had a gag
over his mouth but his eyes were
i open.
.
'
|
1 HE three riders reined
horses and looked at Peccary
with frank curiosity.
“Here’s one that didn’t hide,”
one of them remarked, in a tone
that Dr. Peccary decidedwas dis-
respectful. He stepped
boldly.
“May I ask what you intend to
do with that boy?” he demanded.
intend to do with the boy,” said
the same man.
“Yes, I heard what he said,”
the bearded man remarked quiet-
ly. He hadn’t ceased to study Pec-
cary with his piercing blue eyes.
Now he urged his horse closer.
“You must be a stranger
son?”
“Not exactly,” said Peccary.
“As a matter of fact, I was born
here. That was some time ago and
it’s true I haven’t been here re-
cently.” The way the bearded man
stared at him made him extremely
THE I MMORTALS
nervous. “But I’m sure that kid-
naping is against the law. If you
don’t release that boy I’ll have to
— tomake a citizen’s arrest!” Pec-
to hail them cary knew that his words sounded
ridiculous. From the way the three
his riders exchanged glances it was
evident that they thought the
same thing.
“He’s going to make a citizen’s
arrest,” commented the one who
liked to repeat whatever Peccary
said.
“Hush,” said the bearded leader.
in their And then to Peccary, “What’s
your name, son?”
“Clarence Peccary. If you don’t
do as I say I’ll — ” He stopped
short, his heart leaping as the force
of his indiscretion struck him.
forward The three men had been struck
also.
The two younger ones were al-
ready on the ground, one on either
side of him. Only the bearded man
remained mounted. He leaned for-
ward. “I thought you looked fa-
miliar. You’re Doctor Peccary of
the Y Hormone?” His voice was
a menacing whisper. Peccary final-
ly answered with a slow nod.
“He must have flipped, running
here, around alone like this,” a man be-
side him said. “However, let’s
never insult fortune!”
This was the last Dr. Peccary
heard. For at that instant one of
the men — he never knew which —
struck him forcibly over the head
with a blunt instrument.
-177
 Ill geographic locator, he twiddled it

wildly, managing to keep the three

A T Humanac’s controls Roger riders in focus for several blocks
Staghorn leaped to his feet in as they sped down a street of the
alarm as he saw what was hap- deserted town.
pening on the screen. Then they rounded a comer
Peccary had collapsed now. The and he lost them.
two men were draping him across By the time he got a focus on
the bearded man’s saddle. There the area around the corner they
wasn’t an instant to lose! Stag- were gone. For several minutes he
horn leaped to the transmitter cell continued to search, shifting the
where Peccary’s material body focal point all over town, but in
was seated, his eyes peacefully vain. Dr. Clarence Peccary was
closed. Staghorn flipped the switch lost inside Humanac’s labyrin-
to disengage Peccary’s conscious- thean brain!
ness fromHumanac’s circuits. Staghorn was stunned. There
Nothing happened. Peccary’s would be no difficulty in keeping
body remained as before, blissfully Peccary’s physical body alive in-
asleep. definitely by intravenous feeding,
Good lord, of course nothing but it was as good as dead while
happened! How could it? Peccary separated from its sense of iden-
had just been knocked cold; at tity. Worse yet were the probable
the moment he didn’t have any consequences to Humanac of hav-
consciousness! Staghorn opened ing a free soul loose in its mathe-
the circuit again and' whirled back matical universe. These were too
to the control console. dire to contemplate. The ma-
He looked at the screen. All chine’s reliability might be alto-
three men were mounted again. gether mined and Staghorn’s life
The bearded leader gestured them work destroyed. Under the cir-
on. cumstances there was but one
They set spurs to their horses course of action. He had to find
and galloped away, taking the un- Dr. Peccary and get him back into
conscious Peccary with them. focus, so that he could be disen-
“No!” Staghorn shouted at the gaged from the computer.
fleeing images. “No, Dr. Peccary! First Staghorn focused the geo-
Stay in focus!” The horsemen paid graphic locator on the town
no heed — nor did Staghorn ex- square, the point from which Pec-
pect them to, rationally. His cary had been abducted; from
shouts were only involuntary ex- there he could begin tracking him.
pressions of despair. Grasping the Next he set the time control so
178 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS
that it would automatically dis- was no sign of it now. The men be someone’s daughter and since presence. He had an impression of
engage the transmitter units in and women moved indolently, re- my name is Cheever, you may be deep ill health, a sense of unclean,

exactly three hours. turning toward the park and the remember you. We
right. I don’t almost reptilian lassitude.
Whether or not he could find sunlit streets. All were so much must have met ages and ages ago.” “They get shorter all the time,”
Dr. Peccary in that period of time the same age and of such similar “This is the first time we’ve said Jenny, and turned away as

Staghorn had no way of knowing; beauty that it was difficult to dis- met. You were pointed out to me though the conversation bored her.
but at least he should be able to tinguish individual members of by a friend.” The man too had lost interest.
get himself back into focus at the the same sex. But he finally rec- She considered this with a Staghorn stood ignored for a
proper moment. Then, in case he’d ognized the girl Dr. Peccary had puzzled air, and, idly curious, said, moment and then spoke bluntly.
failed to find Peccary, he could re- identified as Jenny Cheever. She “Do you want to marry me?” ‘Who are the Atavars?”
set the time clock and try again. had an attractive strawberry birth- “Good heavens, no!” The word produced the first
Next he opened a second trans- mark on her hip. Jenny didn’t seem to be insulted genuine reaction. Jenny leaped to
mitter unit, sat down on the little She strolled back into the park by his abruptness. “I just won- her feet. The man turned red.
seat and pulled the helmet down accompanied by a young man. dered why you’d speak to me,” she “Don’t say that word!” Jenny
on his head. As sensations of vast- The two of them took possession said. “Because if you want to said.

ness and lost dimensions spread of the bench where Jenny had marry me you have to wait. I’ve “I’m sorry. I’m a stranger.”
through him, he reached out and been seated earlier. They sat well promised to marry him first.” She “No one can be that much of a
pressed down the switch that apart from each other, silently gestured to the man on the bench stranger!”

would pour his own brain impulses contemplating the other passers- with her. The man looked at Stag- “It’s indecent,” the man said. He
into Humanac’s circuits. by. horn for the first time. stood up and touched Jenny’s arm.
Feeling that his knowledge of “Yeah,” he said. “I feel my blood pounding. Let’s
T NSTANTLY, as with Dr. Pec- Jenny’s name constituted a sort of go get married.”
cary, Staghorn found himself introduction, Staghorn approached SEE,” said Staghorn. “And Jenny nodded and, with a cold
standing in the little park. the couple. The man paid no at- when is this merry event
. . .
glance at Staghorn, moved away
He examined his hands and tention tohim but Jenny watched to take place?” with her companion. Staghorn was
slapped his sides a few times, tak- him curiously. Staghorn was not a “Some day,” Jenny said indif- tempted to follow and demand an
ing time to assimilate the fact that man over whom women swooned, ferently. “When we both feel like answer to his question when he
he felt perfectly solid. Ah, Bishop and it occurred to him that she it. There’s no use rushing things. saw Miss Terry approaching. Miss
Berkeley was right all the time! found something odd about his I don’t want to use up all the men Terry was more likely to have the
The universe was subjective — a dark suit and thick spectacles. He too soon.” information he needed, and in any
creation of consciousness! seemed to be the only man in “Use them up?” case — since she was only in her
He left off these speculations town wearing either. “He’ll be my twenty-fifth hus- fifties — she was less than half of

and recalled himself to his mis- “How do you do,” he said to band.” Jenny Cheever’s age. He hoped
sion. her. “I believe you’re Ben Chee- “Yeah,” said the man. “She’ll this would make a difference
Glancing around, he saw that ver’s daughter.” be my thirty-second wife.” in her attitude. That she was cap-

people were beginning to reap- She continued to examine him “Your marriages very can’t last able of emotion he already knew.
pear. They came up from base- languidly, slowly stroking a heavy Despite the
long,” said Staghorn. Her expression, as she approached,
ments and out of the doors of the strand of her auburn hair. “Am I?” physical of both
attractiveness was disconsolate.

dilapidated houses and buildings. she said at last. “It’s been so long Jenny and her escort, Staghorn Staghorn bowed low before her
If there had been a panic, there I’ve forgotten. But then I had to began to feel clammy in their and introduced himself. “Good af-

180 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS 181

ternoon, Miss Terry. I’m a stranger handsome young males wander- “We’ll all die!” wailed Miss period in the past the town had
to you but since you’re a teacher ing through the park. “All these Terry. “We’ll all die!” gone through a surge of prosperity,
by you may have heard
profession, men — why don’t they rescue “In that case it can’t hurt you for there were several quite ma-
of me. I’m Dr. Roger Staghorn.” He Paul?” to tell me.” jestic buildings whose cornerstones
straightened, twisted his lips into This suggestion so shocked Miss “The mountains!” cried Miss bore dates of the late twentieth
a smile and waited for Miss Terry Terry that she stopped weeping. Terry. “High Canyon!” century. But it was also clear that
;

during the last fifty years not only

to associate his name with those
scientificachievements that had so
startled the world a hundred years
earlier. To his chagrin Miss Terry
only gazed at him blankly and
shook her head.
WIVO,” she murmured. Then
' tears formed in her eyes
and she tried to move on. Stag-
horn stopped her.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m
aware of your recent loss. Your
“That’s impossible! There’d be vi-
olence. Someone might get killed!”
“They think of that with a boy’s
life at stake?” Staghorn felt his
rage rising. He was an irascible
man by nature and had controlled
himself so far only because he
knew he was part of an illusion.
The sense of illusion was fading
rapidly, however. The guiding
principles of morals and ethics
were themselves abstractions and
therefore operated just as power-
It was with great difficulty that
Staghorn forced directions from
her. The news of Peccary’s capture
had unsettled her entirely. But
despite the roughness with which
he was forced to use her, no one
came to her rescue. Several young
men and women gathered at a safe
distance to watch, but they did
nothing to interfere.
TAGHORN finally elicited the
S information that High Canyon
had few new enterprises been
started but the old ones had been
allowed to languish. The museum
even lacked an attendant at the
door — unless one gave this title
to the bust of Dr. Peccary which
stood on a pedestal just inside the
entrance. The plaque beneath the
bust noted that Dr. Peccary had
given the museum to the city in
1985 “to preserve for our immor-
tal posterity a true picture of the

fully in an abstract universe. He was several miles north of town world of mortals.”
pupil, Paul.”
and could be reached by follow- In the seven and a half decades
Her tears dropped more freely. grasped Miss Terry by the arm.
ing a dirt road. To his inquiry as since, however, this true picture
“Sooner or later I knew they’d get “I’ll go after him myself. Where

him. The only child in town. And do I find him?” to where he could rent a car, Miss had suffered badly.
now I have nothing to do. Noth- “You can’t find him! If you fol- Terry went blank again. There In the absence of curtains and
ing at all!” low they’ll capture you too!” were no cars. They had been draperies, and in the nudeness of
— “I’ll chance that! Where have abolished before Miss Terry was the mannekins whose purpose
“They? Just who are they
the Atavars?” they gone?” born. She thought there might be could only have been to display
one in the museum. twentieth century costumes, Stag-
Miss Terry turned pale. “Don’t “I can’t tell you! They might
say it,” she pleaded. “In time punish me!” Staghorn glanced at his watch. horn gained a hint as to where
I’ll
He’d already been in the trans- the populace got at least a part of
forget.” Staghorn shook her heartily,
mitter thirty minutes. He had only the rags they wore. He didn’t
“But where have they taken ignoring the fact that she was
Paul? And what will they do with two and a half hours to get to pause to examine details, however.
over fifty. “Tell me! It so happens

him?” that besides Paul, they’ve captured High Canyon, rescue Dr. Peccary A wall directory with a faded map
and Paul and return to the square. of the building had given him the
“He’ll die, of course.” She spoke Dr. Clarence Peccary, and I’m re-
He dared not cut too fine.
it location of the wing of twentieth
these words almost indifferently, sponsible for his life!”
He’d have to be back with a few century machines. He headed
then wept copiously as she added, At this statement Miss Terry
minutes to spare. there at once, passing by displays
“But I’ll live on with nothing to let out a cry of horror. “They’ve
So, after learning the location of of tractors, bulldozers, jackham-
do!” caught Dr. Peccary? No! No!”
“Then why the museum, he took off at a run. mers and other commonplaces be-
didn’t someone stop “They most certainly have. So
reaching the automobiles.
them?” He gestured angrily at the hurry up and tell me — ” It was evident that at some fore
183
182 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS
 There was an excellent selec- Dr. Peccary sat up and touched
tion of standard and sports mod- the back of his head gingerly. It
a uniform gray under their
els, all was very, very sore. He’d never
coats of dust — and all of them had an illusion quite like this be-
out of gas. fore. Besides, the illusion had per-
After so long a time it was doubt- sisted too long. How long had he
ful if any would have run anyway. been out? Hours? Days? Good
He had simply hoped that one lord, had Staghorn deserted him?
lone attendant might have kept The bearded man ushered
one in working condition. doctor out, locked the door and
In the next room, however, he came back to observe Peccary. He
found the reward for his effort. put a booted foot on the chair and
Bicycles. He chose a racing model. leaned an elbow on his knee.
Afew minutes later he was ped- “I hardly need tell you, Dr.
aling rapidlynorthward on the dirt Peccary,” he said, “that this is the
road that led to High Canyon. happiest day of my life.”
“But not of mine,” Peccary re-
IV sponded sourly. “I doubt if you
can make it a bit worse by telling
R. PECCARY could feel fin- me what this is all about and what
gers probing at his sore head. you plan to do with me.”
A bit of damp cloth or cotton was The bearded man showed sur-
pressed against his upper lip. The prise. “You don’t know?”
sharp odor that stabbed his nos- “No! I know!” Peccary
don’t
trilsmade him jerk his head away was losing his detachment.
and suck in his breath. The bearded man considered
“Good. He’s coming around.” him thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t have
Dr. Peccary opened his eyes. let the doctor go so soon. Appar-
For a few seconds faces and ob- ently you were hit harder than
jects swung around him giddily, we thought. On the other hand
but finally the environment it’s just possible, living
achieved stability. He saw that he have these seventy years
last
was in a log cabin, on a bunk. locked up in your palace and iso-
Seated in a chair beside him was lated from the rest of the world,
a man whose manner could belong that you’ve lost touch with what
only to a doctor. Standing behind is going on.”
the doctor was the bearded man. “I’ve lost touch with a great
“He’ll be all right,” the doctor many things. Obviously I’m a
said, packing bottles and probes prisoner. How long is this going to
into his little black bag. last?”
184 GALAXY
“Only until my demolition “And who is that?”
squad is ready. Then we take you The bearded man looked down
to your production plant where at him balefully. “Yourself, Dr.
you produce the Y Hormone. Peccary! That’s why we’re so de-
There will be a gun at your back, lighted to capture you — because
of course. You know the combina- now you’ll never use it again!”
tion to get us safely past the au- Peccary stared at him aghast.
tomatic guards. Ah, I’ve waited all “I understand now! You mean to
the my life for this! Once we’re in the steal it. You mean to force it out
plant, my men will do the rest.” of me and start producing the Y
“You’re going to blow it up?” Hormone yourself!”
“Absolutely!” This accusation resulted in a
violent reaction from the bearded
?? A ND what do you gain by man. He grasped Peccary by the
that? The formula for the lapels of his jacket and hauled
Y Hormone still exists!” him to his feet. Peccary could feel
The bearded man laughed. the man’s powerful hands trem-
“Yes, I can see you’ve been out bling with rage.
of touch with the world. It’s been “You fool! You utter imbecile!
thirty years since the country pro- Don’t even yet know who we
duced anyone capable of working are?”
with that formula. That’s when Peccary was so throttled by the
the last university closed dowfi — man’s clutch that he could only
thirty years ago.” waggle his head in the negative.
“That’s shocking,” said Dr. Pec- The bearded man’s face came
cary. “But my experiments showed close to his.
conclusively that the Y
Hormone “We’re mortals!” He flung Pec-
has no deleterious effect upon in- cary back on the bunk contemptu-
telligence. I took every precau- ously. “We accept our allotted
tion!” span of years and call it quits.
as you “Nothing wrong with anyone’s But during that time we live! We
intelligence,” said the bearded have to. It’s all the time we have!”
man, “except that no one’s under He glared at Peccary a moment
pressure to use it. When the fu- before resuming in a milder tone.
ture stretches on indefinitely, it “After we destroy your produc-
gets easier and easier to put things tion plant, Dr. Peccary, we’re go-
off until tomorrow — even educa-
ing to kill you. You might as well
tion — until finally it’s put off for- know. It’s the only way to make
ever. There’s only one man living certain that the formula for the Y
who understands that formula.” Homone will never be used again.”
THE I M MORTALS 185
I
Then he smiled. “But take con-
With the plant destroyed
solation.
you’d gradually get old and die
anyway. For the brief period be-
forewe execute you, you might
even regain an appreciation for
life.” He bent suddenly, gripped
Peccary’s wrist and hauled him to
you might
his feet again. “In fact,
have forgotten what life is. I’ll re-
fresh your memory. Come along!”
He dragged Peccary to the
door, opened it and led him out-
side.
Peccary looked around. He
found himself on the level floor of
a canyon whose vertical walls rose
high on either side He recognized
the place at once. Often when he
was a boy he’d come here to camp
overnight. It had been a delight-
ful wilderness with a year-round
stream.

'I ''HE canyon had changed. Some

forty cabins like the one he’d
been in were built in the shade
of the southern cliff, and the can-

yon floor was covered with green

crops and pasture. He heard sing-
ing, laughter. People were at work
in the fields, children were build-
ing rock castles at the base of the
cliff. On a cabin porch two elderly
men sat playing checkers.
“The last of the mortals,” said
the bearded man. “If there are any
other colonies we don’t know of
them. But when you’re gone, Dr.
Peccary, they’ll be the first of a

181
 who survived never recovered. “I see no reason to delay an in-
new race! You asked earlier what cause he knows he’s going to die
Every new mouth to feed was a stant.”
we intended to do with the boy anyway sooner or later, but can’t An extra horse had been pro-
threat. Childbirth practically
we kidnaped. There he is.” And you see the psychological shock vided for Dr. Peccary. He was on
stopped. But that left the remain-
he pointed toward the canyon to the immortals when one of
ing immortals in a very soft posi- the point of being forcibly hoisted
wall. them dies? A man who had the when he was given
into the saddle
tion. For years now they’ve been
Peccary looked and saw Paul potential of living forever, sudden-
existing on the leftovers from civ- a reprieve by a diversion of an-
climbing upward along crevices ly wiped out! It’s like the end of
ilization, finding shelter in the old other kind.
and ledges. The bearded man the world. And so they started
Approaching on the path through
houses, ransacking the attics and
cupped his hands to his mouth and eliminating hazards. Automobiles
closets of the dead for scraps of the center of the canyon, pedaling
shouted. “Paul! How is it?” went first. Then planes and trains.
daring to plant a few his bicycle frantically, came —
clothing,
The boy straightened on a They weren’t needed anyway, be- Staghorn!
crops in areas where they’ll grow
rocky pinnacle and looked back. cause people stopped traveling. To —
with little care. And after that
His face was ecstatic. “I’m climb- travel to court accident. But one
ing!” he crowed. “I’ve never been
so high! I’m climbing all the way
is

precaution breeds another, and be-

to the top!” He waved and clam-
bered on.
“Once in a great while a child
is born to one of the immortals,”
the bearded man said. “If we find
him in time we can save him.”
Peccary watched the boy move
upward along the cliff. ‘Then why
was he so terrified when you cap-
tured him?”
“Because he’d had it pounded
into him that if the Atavars got him
he’d die. He will, too, eventually.
Like any other mortal. But in the
meanwhile — ” He broke off and
turned on Peccary savagely. “You
see, there’s one thing you didn’t
consider at all! The Y Hormone
stops aging and keeps people
healthy, but it can’t protect them
from accidents. The immortals can
still die if they get hit by a train
or fall overboard in the middle of
the ocean. A mortal can accept the
possibility of accidental death be-
fore long people were avoiding all
dangerous occupations. With im-
mortality at stake, even the small-
est risk was too much. Planing
mills, machine shops, mines, smel-
ters — bah! Name me an occupa-
tion that doesn’t
entail some hazard. Even mother-
hood!”
uDUT I anticipated the
for birth control! I
plans all set up.”
“There was birth control all
right, but not the way you planned
it. Ten years after your hormone
went on the market the world had
an extra five billion people. For a
few years they produced a surge
of energy until the older immor-
tals started eliminating the haz-
ards. After that, starvation set in.
Three-fourths of the
died. Your hormone keep
people from starving, either, and
it was a shock from which those
boredom.”
He
thrust an accusing finger at
,
HE rode up to the group and
leapt from his seat, his face
Peccary. “And you dared to use blue from exertion. He’d been
the slogan, ‘Time to achieve per- climbing all the way from town.
fection!’ I tell you, Dr. Peccary, He stood gasping for breath while
the source of man’s courage and he dragged his big gold watch
energy is the knowledge of death! from his pocket and consulted the
Man was meant to be mortal. We time. He managed a groan. “Only
occasionally
strive because we know
the time thirty minutes left. Miles to go!
is short. We
climb mountains, But it’s down hill all the way;
we can make it!” He shoved his
make love, descend to the depths
bicycle forward. “On the handle-
of the sea and reach for the
need
stars because the certainty of death bars, Dr. Peccary, quick!”
had the Peccary would have liked noth-
urges us on. It’s the only certainty
ing better. But his movement
the world had — and you would
toward Staghorn was stopped in-
destroy it!”
stantly by the men who were try-
Peccary quailed before the
ing to put him on his horse.
bearded man’s ferocity. He was
“They’re going to kill me!” he
relieved when his captor’s atten-
cried. “They’re going to blow up
tion was diverted by a party of
horsemen who rode up in neat my factory and kill me!”
order and stopped before their “No, no!” said Staghorn. “That
can’t be. The consequences would
leader. Several horses were loaded
be disastrous.” He turned to the
with explosives.
population
“We’re ready, Sir,” their spokes- bearded leader. “Look, Sir, I have
can’t
man said. no time to explain, and I’m sure
you wouldn’t believe me even if
“Good,” said the bearded man.

IRS GALAXY THE IMMORTALS' 189

I did. All of you are illusions! “I can’t help that. I’m Stag- And in that instant Staghorn stopped so suddenly that Dr. Pec-
This entire situation is nothing horn!” moved. After all, he was slightly cary was propelled forward and
but a mathematical probability. The bearded man stopped laugh- younger and more agile than his landed on his feet at the mouth
And so I insist that you release ing and thrust his face forward great-grandson. He leapt onto his of an alley. Abandoning the bi-
my friend, Dr. Peccary, at once!” threateningly. “You’re a fraud! bicycle, shouting at Peccary, “Turn cycle, both men charged into it.
The bearded man was so amazed Because it so happens that I’m around!” “The square!” Staghorn gasped.
by this request thathe forgot to Staghorn!” Peccary whirled and sprang in “I’m focused on the square!”. He
take offense. He gaped at Stag- “You? Staghorn?” the air as Staghorn aimed the bi- hauled out his watch as he ran.
horn. “Who are you? I can’t im- “I’m Henry Staghorn, great- cycle between his legs. He landed Only seven minutes remained.
agine an immortal risking himself grandson of the real Dr. Roger neatly on the handlebars, and with
on a bicycle!” Staghorn!” simultaneous kicks sent the men r
T HE
,
deep-throated alarm
“At this moment I’m desperate- “Impossible. I have no intention on either side sprawling. Then he whistle was sounding over the
ly mortal, and so is Dr. Peccary!” of ever getting married!” and Staghorn were off down the town. Its inhabitants must have
“Nonsense. Dr. Peccary is a “Dr. Roger Staghorn married canyon. sighted the approach of the Ata-
hundred and forty-two years old!” when he founded the Atavars, Behind them they could hear vars for they were scurrying into
“I’ve told you this situation has ninety years ago! He saw the need the thundering hoofs as the horse- buildings and basements, leaving
no existence in reality!” of leaving mortal offspring and men started in pursuit. the clear for Peccary and
way
The bearded man stomped the sacrificed himself to that end. And "Go, Staghorn, go!” Peccary Staghorn. They emerged from the
ground. “I’ve been living on this over there.
he’s buried in the cliff shouted. alley and turned left for a block,
planet fifty-five years. I know Furthermore, he became Dr. Pec- The race would have been lost then doubled back as they were
reality when I see it! And what’s cary’s most enemy. If he
bitter at once except for the downhill sighted by the searching horse-
more, I’m beginning to think you were alive today, he’d be tying the grade.But because of it, Peccary’s men.
are one of the immortals. Even knot for Peccary’s neck instead of added weight was a help instead The hue and cry was on again,
an immortal might show some trying to rescue him.” The beard- of a hindrance. Shots rang out; but Peccary’s familiarity with his
courage when he knows he’s going ed man drew a revolver from in- bullets bounced from the rocks on home town served them well until
to be deprived .of the Y Hormone.” side his jacket. “I think I’ll execute either side. they came within sight of the
“If you must know, I’m Dr. you here and now!” They made it out of the can- square. Then they stopped in dis-
Roger Staghorn! I can see that Peccary all but fainted. If Stag- yon’s mouth and the grade in- may and ducked into a doorway.
there’s industry and education in horn were killed all hope was creased on the long straightaway Across the street in the center
this canyon and so it’s possible gone. But Staghorn threw up a toward town. Staghorn’s feet spun of the little park, as though divin-
you’ve heard of me. I have quite commanding hand. as they darted downward, main- ing that it must be their destina-
a record of scientific achievements “Stop, Henry! What you say taining their lead in front of the tion, was Staghorn’s great-grandson
back in the twentieth century.” may be perfectly true from your pursuing horsemen. The town and three of his men. Their posi-
peculiar viewpoint. But I’m still loomed ahead of them, closer and tion enabled them to watch all
A T this announcement the Roger Staghorn! Are you going to closer until at last they sped into four approaches to the square at
bearded man goggled at him, shoot your own great-grand- a street where the buildings gave the same time.
then threw back his head and father?” them protection from bullets. Staghorn tugged out his watch
laughed uproariously. “You couldn’t Staghorn’s tone, rather than his The bicycle slowed. They were again. Two minutes. They had to
have picked a worse masquerade. words, made the bearded man on level ground again. Staghorn be in focus! A second late and
Dr. Roger Staghorn died in 1994!” pause. He turned to a companion. skidded around a corner and they’d be locked forever. He
190 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS 191
watched the second hand creep the street. Four seconds, three, down the master switch. The sadly. It was worth millions. Bil-
around the dial. two. screen went dead as Humanac’s lions.

“We have to chance it,” he said. They were over the park power was shut off. Then slowly he moved to a
‘When I start running, run with and onto the grass. A bullet Some twenty minutes later he laboratory sink and poured the
me!” crashed into Staghorn’s leg and he had finished draining Dr. Peccary’s contents of the bottle down the
The second hand crept on. A fell, diving forward. sample of the Y Hormone from drain.
minute left. Staghorn judged the “Got him!” cried his great- Humanac’s analyzer and had thor- “I can’t help wondering,” mused
distance from their hiding place grandson. “Now get Peccary!” oughly cleansed the computer of Staghorn, “of whose computer
to the grassy plot where the any last traces of it. He handed we’re a part right now slight —
bearded man was standing. About npHREE shots rang out as one. the little bottle of the hormone factors in the chain of causation
seventy-five yards. Could he do But at some point in the bul- back to Dr. Peccary. that started God knows when and
seventy-five yards in ten seconds? lets’ flight toward Peccary and “There,” he said. “As far as Hu- will end . .
.”

Could Peccary? Thirty seconds Staghorn, the square and every- manac is concerned, it’s as though “When someone pulls the
left . twenty-five twenty. thing in it vanished. it never was. as Do you wish.” switch,” said Dr. Peccary.
— DAVID DUNCAN
. . . . .

He’d never gone through such a Staghorn found himself sitting Dr. Peccary looked at the bottle
painful count-down fifteen . . in Humanac’s transmitter unit.
seconds The timeclock had functioned.
“Ready, Dr. Peccary. It’s now He was disengaged.
or never.” He lifted the helmet from his FORECAST
Thirteen tweleve eleven head and stumbled from the cell,
The next issue, like this one you have in your hands, looks like a
. . . . . .

. . “Go!”
. drawing a trouser leg up to ex-
amine his leg. It seemed that he
peach, a pip, a corker, a —
how about leaving the superlatives to Mad Ave
Staghorn burst from his hiding and saying it's another darned good issue?
place with Peccary at his heels. could detect a scar. Then he Among the novelets are:
They dashed for the square. They turned and helped Dr. Peccary FIGHTING SPIRIT by Daniel F. Galouye, who has never left the field
were over the curb and into the from the other transmitter. Both and we hope never will. Blurb: "Space combat was what I'd been trained for.
street before the men in the park men stepped toward the console had wangled the job. Now all had to do was find out what was supposed
saw their approach and let out to look at Humanac’s screen.
I I

to combat." No superlatives, remember, but it's not easy the story behind — I

cries of triumph. It was still focused on the little

that blurb is really taut.

“Dip and weave, Dr. Peccary! park.The bearded man and his Then there's THE WRONG
WORLD by J. T. McIntosh, who also hasn't
been a stray. Say "Oops, sorry" to a planet that has been conquered by
Dip and weave!”
They dipped and wove, while
companions were now exchanging
glances of consternation. After a
mistake? No, find a diplomatic formula —
meaning justify conquest or else! —
And H. B. Fyfe, who has been away far too long, returns with ROUND-
bullets ripped at their clothing. moment the bearded man wet his
AND-ROUND James Thurber kind of story, as can be noted from the
TRIP, a
They were running right into the lips. “Maybe he was right,” he
following: “All he wanted to do was go from here to there but somehow —
fire, making better targets at every said in awed tones. “No one but the entire Milky Way had been converted into a squirrel cage."
stride.Staghorn ran with his watch my great-grandfather could ever
Short stories, certainly, and possibly another novelet, perhaps a short-
in his hand, and never had time do a trick like that. And maybe short . . .

and distance diminished so slow- what he said is true. It’s all illu- And Willy Ley adds THE MOON WORM
to our regular features. It's a
ly- sion. We’re nothing but mathe- weird one, right enough. Downright hard to believe, but true, every word
Seven seconds, six, five, and matical probabilities!” of it.

they were still alive and across At this point Staghorn hauled See you next issue?
192 GALAXY THE IMMORTALS 193
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