Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Then what’s wrong with the place?”

  Ferngraum looked embarrassed. “Maybe you heard about it. The government catalogue number is RJC-5. But everyone else calls it Ghost V.”

  Gregor raised an eyebrow. “Ghost” was an odd nickname for a planet, but he had heard odder. After all, you had to call them something. There were thousands of planet-bearing suns within spaceship range, many of them inhabitable, or potentially inhabitable. And there were plenty of people from the civilized worlds who wanted to colonize them. Religious sects, political minorities, philosophic groups—or just plain pioneers, out to make a fresh start.

  “I don’t believe I’ve heard of it,” Gregor said.

  Ferngraum squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “I should have listened to my wife. But no—I was gonna be a big operator. Paid ten times my usual price for Ghost V and now I’m stuck with it.”

  “But what’s wrong with it?” Gregor asked.

  “It seems to be haunted,” Femgraum said in despair.

  FERGRAUM had radar-checked his planet, then leased it to a combine of farmers from Dijon VI. The eight-man advance guard landed and, within a day, began to broadcast garbled reports about demons, ghouls, vampires, dinosaurs and other inimical fauna.

  When a relief ship came for them, all were dead. An autopsy report stated that the gashes, cuts and marks on their bodies could indeed have been made by almost anything, even demons, ghouls, vampires or dinosaurs, if such existed.

  Ferngraum was fined for improper decontamination. The farmers dropped their lease. But he managed to lease it to a group of sun-worshipers from Opal II.

  The sun-worshipers were cautious. They sent their equipment, but only three men accompanied it, to scout out trouble. The men set up camp, unpacked, and declared the place a paradise. They radioed the home group to come at once—then, suddenly, there was a wild scream and radio silence.

  A patrol ship went to Ghost V, buried the three mangled bodies, and departed in five minutes flat.

  “And that did it,” Ferngraum said. “Now no one will touch it at any price. Space crews refuse to land on it. And I still don’t know what happened.”

  He sighed deeply and looked at Gregor. “It’s your baby, if you want it.”

  Gregor and Arnold excused themselves and went into the anteroom. Arnold whooped at once, “We’ve got a job!”

  “Yeah,” Gregor said, “but what a job.”

  “We wanted the tough ones,” Arnold pointed out. “If we lick this, we’re established—to say nothing of the profit we’ll make on a percentage basis.”

  “You seem to forget,” Gregor said. “I’m the one who has to actually land on the planet. All you do is sit here and interpret my data.”

  “That’s the way we set it up,” Arnold reminded him. “I’m the research department—you’re the troubleshooter. Remember?”

  Gregor remembered. Ever since childhood, he had been sticking his neck out, while Arnold stayed home and told him why he was sticking his neck out.

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, we can handle anything else. Faint heart ne’er won fair profit.”

  Gregor shrugged his shoulders. They went back to Femgraum.

  In half an hour, they had worked out their terms—a large percentage of future development profits if they succeeded, a forfeiture clause if they failed.

  Gregor walked to the door with Ferngraum. “By the way, sir,” he asked, “how did you happen to come to us?”

  “No one else would handle it,” Ferngraum said, looking extremely pleased with himself. “Good luck.”

  THREE days later, Gregor was aboard a rickety space freighter, bound for Ghost V. He spent his time studying reports on the two colonization attempts and reading survey after survey on supernatural phenomena.

  They didn’t help at all. No trace of animal life had been found on Ghost V. And no proof of the existence of supernatural creatures had been discovered anywhere in the Galaxy.

  Gregor pondered this, then checked his weapons as the freighter spiraled into the region of Ghost V. He was carrying an arsenal large enough to start a small war and win it.

  It he could find something to shoot at . . .

  The captain of the freighter brought his ship to within several thousand feet of the smiling green surface of the planet, but no closer. Gregor parachuted his equipment to the site of the last two camps, shook hands with the captain and ’chuted himself down.

  He landed safely and looked up. The freighter was streaking into space as though the furies were after it.

  He was alone on Ghost V.

  After checking his equipment for breakage, he radioed Arnold that he had landed safely. Then, with drawn blaster, he inspected the sun-worshipers’ camp.

  They had set themselves up at the base of a mountain, beside a small, crystal-clear lake. The pre-fabs were in perfect condition.

  No storms had ever damaged them, because Ghost V was blessed with a beautifully even climate. But they looked pathetically lonely.

  Gregor made a careful check of one. Clothes were still neatly packed in cabinets, pictures were hung on the wall and there was even a curtain on one window. In a corner of the room, a case of toys had been opened for the arrival of the main party’s children.

  A water-pistol, a top and a bag of marbles had spilled onto the floor.

  Evening was coming, so Gregor dragged his equipment into the pre-fab and made his preparations. He rigged an alarm system and adjusted it so finely that even a roach would set it off. He put up a radar alarm to scan the immediate area. He unpacked his arsenal, laying the heavy rifles within easy reach, but keeping a hand-blaster in his belt. Then, satisfied, he ate a leisurely supper.

  Outside, the evening drifted into night. The warm and dreamy land grew dark. A gentle breeze ruffled the surface of the lake and rustled silkily in the tall grass.

  It was all very peaceful.

  The settlers must have been hysterical types, he decided. They had probably panicked and killed each other.

  AFTER checking his alarm system one last time, Gregor threw his clothes onto a chair, turned off the lights and climbed into bed. The room was illuminated by starlight, stronger than moonlight on Earth. His blaster was under his pillow. All was well with the world.

  He had just begun to doze off when he became aware that he was not alone in the room.

  That was impossible. His alarm system hadn’t gone off. The radar was still humming peacefully.

  Yet every nerve in his body was shrieking alarm. He eased the blaster out and looked around.

  A man was standing in a corner of the room.

  There was no time to consider how he had come. Gregor aimed the blaster and said, “Okay, raise your hands,” in a quiet, resolute voice.

  The figure didn’t move. Gregor’s finger tightened on the trigger, then suddenly relaxed. He recognized the man. It was his own clothing, heaped on a chair, distorted by starlight and his own imagination.

  He grinned and lowered the blaster. The pile of clothing began to stir faintly. Gregor felt a faint breeze from the window and continued to grin.

  Then the pile of clothing stood up, stretched itself and began to walk toward him purposefully.

  Frozen to his bed, he watched the disembodied clothing, assembled roughly into manlike form, advance on him.

  When it was halfway across the room and its empty sleeves were reaching for him, he began to blast.

  And kept on blasting, for the rags and remnants slithered toward him as if filled with a life of their own: Flaming bits of cloth crowded toward his face and a belt tried to coil around his legs. He had to bum everything to ashes before the attack stopped.

  When it was over, Gregor turned on every light he could find. He brewed a pot of coffee and poured in most of a bottle of brandy. Somehow, he resisted an urge to kick his useless alarm system to pieces. Instead,
he radioed his partner.

  “That’s very interesting,” Arnold said, after Gregor had brought him up to date. “Animation ! Very interesting indeed.”

  “I hoped it would amuse you,” Gregor answered bitterly. After several shots of brandy, he was beginning to feel abandoned and abused.

  “Did anything else happen?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, take care. I’ve got a theory. Have to do some research on it. By the way, some crazy bookie is laying five to one against you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I took a piece of it.”

  “Did you bet for me or against me?” Gregor asked, worried.

  “For you, of course,” Arnold said indignantly. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”

  They signed off and Gregor brewed another pot of coffee. He was not planning on any more sleep that night. It was comforting to know that Arnold had bet on him. But, then, Arnold was a notoriously bad gambler.

  BY daylight, Gregor was able to get a few hours of fitful sleep. In the early afternoon he awoke, found some clothes and began to explore the sun-worshipers’ camp.

  Toward evening, he found something. On the wall of a prefab, the word “Tgasklit” had been hastily scratched. Tgasklit. It meant nothing to him, but he relayed it to Arnold at once.

  He then searched his pre-fab carefully, set up more lights, tested the alarm system and recharged his blaster.

  Everything seemed in order. With regret, he watched the sun go down, hoping he would live to see it rise again. Then he settled himself in a comfortable chair, and tried to do some constructive thinking.

  There was no animal life here—nor were there any walking plants, intelligent rocks or giant brains dwelling in the planet’s core. Ghost V hadn’t even a moon for someone to hide on.

  And he couldn’t believe in ghosts or demons. He knew that supernatural happenings tended to break down, under detailed examination, into eminently natural events. The ones that didn’t break down—stopped. Ghosts just wouldn’t stand still and let a nonbeliever examine them. The phantom of the castle was invariably on vacation when a scientist showed up with cameras and tape recorders.

  That left another possibility. Suppose someone wanted this planet, but wasn’t prepared to pay Ferngraum’s price? Couldn’t this someone hide here, frighten the settlers, kill them if necessary in order to drive down the price?

  That seemed logical. You could even explain the behavior of his clothes that way. Static electricity, correctly used, could—

  SOMETHING was standing in front of him. His alarm system, as before, hadn’t gone off.

  Gregor looked up slowly. The thing in front of him was about ten feet tall and roughly human in shape, except for its crocodile head. It was colored a bright crimson and had purple stripes running lengthwise on its body. In one claw, it was carrying a large brown can.

  “Hello,” it said.

  “Hello,” Gregor gulped. His blaster was on a table, only two feet away. He wondered, would the thing attack if he reached for it?

  “What’s your name?” Gregor asked, with the calmness of deep shock.

  “I’m the Purple-striped Grabber,” the thing said. “I grab things.”

  “How interesting.” Gregor’s hand began to creep toward the blaster.

  “I grab things named Richard Gregor,” the Grabber told him in its bright, ingenuous voice. “And I usually eat them in chocolate sauce.” It held up the brown can and Gregor saw that it was labeled Smig’s Chocolate—An Ideal Sauce to Use with Gregors, Arnolds and Flynns.

  Gregor’s fingers touched the butt of the blaster. He asked, “Were you planning to eat me?”

  “Oh, yes,” the Grabber said.

  Gregor had the gun now. He flipped off the safety catch and fired. The radiant blast cascaded off the Grabber’s chest and singed the floor, the walls and Gregor’s eyebrows.

  “That won’t hurt me,” the Grabber explained. “I’m too tall.”

  The blaster dropped from Gregor’s fingers. The Grabber leaned forward.

  “I’m not going to eat you now,” the Grabber said.

  “No?” Gregor managed to enunciate.

  “No. I can only eat you tomorrow, on May first. Those are the rules. I just came to ask a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  The Grabber smiled winningly. “Would you be a good sport and eat a few apples? They flavor the flesh so wonderfully.”

  And, with that, the striped monster vanished.

  WITH shaking hands, Gregor worked the radio and told Arnold everything that had happened.

  “Hmm,” Arnold said. “Purple-striped Grabber, eh? I think that clinches it. Everything fits.”

  “What fits? What is it?”

  “First, do as I say. I want to make sure.”

  Obeying Arnold’s instructions, Gregor unpacked his chemical equipment and laid out a number of test tubes, retorts and chemicals. He stirred, mixed, added and subtracted as directed and finally put the mixture on the stove to heat.

  “Now,” Gregor said, coming back to the radio, “tell me what’s going on.”

  “Certainly. I looked up the word ‘Tgasklit.’ It’s Opalian. It means many-toothed ghost. The sun-worshipers were from Opal. What does that suggest to you?”

  “They were killed by a hometown ghost,” Gregor replied nastily. “It must have stowed away on their ship. Maybe there was a curse and—”

  “Calm down,” Arnold said. “There aren’t any ghosts in this. Is the solution boiling yet?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me when it does. Now let’s take your animated clothing. Does it remind you of anything?” Gregor thought. “Well,” he said, “when I was a kid—no, that’s ridiculous.”

  “Out with it,” Arnold insisted. “When I was a kid, I never left clothing on a chair. In the dark, it always looked like a man or a dragon or something. I guess everyone’s had that experience. But it doesn’t explain—”

  “Sure it does! Remember the Purple-striped Grabber now?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Because you invented him! Remember? We must have been eight or nine, you and me and Jimmy Flynn. We invented the most horrible monster you could think of—he was our own personal monster and he only wanted to eat you or me or Jimmy—flavored with chocolate sauce. But only on the first of every month, when the report cards were due. You had to use the magic word to get rid of him.”

  THEN Gregor remembered and wondered how he could ever have forgotten. How many nights had he stayed up in fearful expectation of the Grabber? It had made bad report cards seem very unimportant.

  “Is the solution boiling?” Arnold asked.

  “Yes,” said Gregor, glancing obediently at the stove.

  “What color is it?”

  “A sort of greenish blue. No, it’s more blue than—”

  “Right. You can pour it out. I want to run a few more tests, but I think we’ve got it licked.”

  “Got what licked? Would you do a little explaining?”

  “It’s obvious. The planet has no animal life. There are no ghosts, or, at least, none solid enough to kill off a party of armed men. Hallucination was the answer, so I looked for something that would produce it. I found plenty. Aside from all the drugs on Earth, there are about a dozen hallucination-forming gases in the Catalogue of Alien Trace Elements. There are depressants, stimulants, stuff that’ll make you feel like a genius or an earthworm or an eagle. This particular one corresponds to Longstead 42 in the catalogue. It’s a heavy, transparent, odorless gas, not harmful physically. It’s an imagination stimulant.”

  “You mean I was just having hallucinations? I tell you—”

  “Not quite that simple,” Arnold cut in. “Longstead 42 works directly on the subconscious. It releases your strongest subconscious fears, the childhood terrors you’ve been suppressing. It animates them. And that’s what you’ve been seeing.”

  “Then there’s actually nothing here?” Gregor asked.
/>
  “Nothing physical. But the hallucinations are real enough to whoever is having them.”

  Gregor reached over for another bottle of brandy. This called for a celebration.

  “It won’t be hard to decontaminate Ghost V,” Arnold went on confidently. “We can cancel the Longstead 42 with no difficulty. And then—we’ll be rich, partner!”

  Gregor suggested a toast, then thought of something disturbing. “If they’re just hallucinations, what happened to the settlers?” Arnold was silent for a moment. “Well,” he said finally, “Longstead may have a tendency to stimulate the mortido—the death-instinct. The settlers must have gone crazy. Killed each other.”

  “And no survivors?”

  “Sure, why not? The last ones alive committed suicide or died of wounds. Don’t worry about it. I’m chartering a ship immediately and coming out to run those tests. Relax. I’ll pick you up in a day or two.”

  Gregor signed off. He allowed himself the rest of the bottle of brandy that night. It seemed only fair. The mystery of Ghost V was solved and they were going to be rich. Soon he would be able to hire a man to land on strange planets for him, while he sat home and gave instructions over a radio.

  HE awoke late the next day with a hangover. Arnold’s ship hadn’t arrived yet, so he packed his equipment and waited. By evening, there was still no ship. He sat in the doorway of the pre-fab and watched a gaudy sunset, then went inside and made dinner.

  The problem of the settlers still bothered him, but he determined not to worry about it. Undoubtedly there was a logical answer.

  After dinner, he stretched out on a bed. He had barely closed his eyes when he heard someone cough apologetically.

  “Hello,” said the Purple-striped Grabber.

  His own personal hallucination had returned to eat him. “Hello, old chap,” Gregor said cheerfully, without a bit of fear or worry.

  “Did you eat the apples?”

  “Dreadfully sorry. I forgot.”

  “Oh, well.” The Grabber tried to conceal his disappointment. “I brought the chocolate sauce.” He held up the can.

  Gregor smiled. “You can leave now,” he said. “I know you’re just a figment of my imagination. You can’t hurt me.”