Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Mr. Olson was turning Skag noises on and off, Ross had a switchboard, and Edward the Hermit was disguised as a Scarb. What’s the explanation? Were they all trying to drive me from Coelle?”

  “No,” Arnold said. “Mr. Olson’s part in this was purely accidental. Those underground noises weren’t designed to frighten you. Were they, Mr. Olson?”

  Olson smiled ruefully. “They certainly were not. As a matter of fact, I came here to stop them.”

  “I don’t understand,” Myra said.

  “I’m afraid,” Arnold said, “that Mr. Olson’s company has been engaged in a bit of illegal mining.” He smiled modestly. “Of course I recognized the characteristic sound of a Gens-Wilhem automatic ore-blaster at once.”

  “I told them to install mufflers,” Olson said. “Well, the full explanation is this. Coelle was surveyed seventeen years ago, and an excellent deposit of sligastrium was found. Trans-stellar Mining offered the then owner, James McKinney, a very good price for mineral rights. He refused, but after a short stay left Coelle for good. A company official decided to extract a little ore anyhow, since this planet was so far out, and there were no local observers. You’d be surprised how common a practice that is.”

  “I think it’s despicable,” Myra said.

  “Don’t blame me,” Olson said. “I didn’t set up the operation.”

  “Then those underground noises—” Gregor said.

  “Were merely the sounds of mining apparatus,” Olson told them. “You caught us by surprise, Miss Ryan. We never really expected the planet to be inhabited again. I was sent, post haste, to turn off the machines. Just half an hour ago I had my first opportunity.”

  “What if I hadn’t asked you to stay overnight?” Myra asked.

  “I would have faked a blown gasket or something.” He sighed and sat down. “It was a pretty good operation while it lasted.”

  “That takes care of the noises,” Jameson said. “The rest we know. This hermit came here, hid his spaceship, and disguised himself as a Scarb. He had already threatened Myra. Now he was going to frighten her into leaving Coelle.”

  “That’s not true!” Edward shouted. “I—I was—”

  “Was what?” Gregor asked.

  The hermit clamped his mouth shut and turned away.

  Arnold said, “You found that secret panel, Ross.”

  “Of course I did. You’re not the only one who can detect. I knew there were no such things as Undead Scarbs and Skag ghosts. From what Myra told me, the whole thing sounded like an illusion to me, probably a modulated wave-pattern effect. So I looked around for a control board. I found it this afternoon.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Gregor asked.

  “Because I consider you a pair of incompetents,” Ross said contemptuously. “I came down this evening to catch the culprit in the act. And I did, too. I believe there are prison sentences for this sort of thing.”

  Everyone looked at Edward. The hermit’s face had gone pale under its tan, but still he didn’t speak.

  Arnold walked to the control board and looked at the dials and switches. He pushed a button, and the great nine-foot figure of the Scarb appeared. Myra recognized it, and gave a little gasp. Even now, it was frightening. Arnold turned it off and faced Jameson.

  “You were pretty careless,” Arnold said quietly. “You really shouldn’t have used company equipment for this. Every item here is stamped Jameson Electronics.”

  “That doesn’t prove a thing,” Jameson said. “Anyone can buy that equipment.”

  “Yes. But not everyone can use it.” He turned to the hermit, “Edward, are you an engineer, by any chance.”

  “Of course not,” Edward said sullenly.

  “We have no proof of that,” Jameson said. “Just because he says he isn’t—”

  “We have proof,” Gregor burst in. “The hermit’s book! When his electric blanket broke down, he didn’t know how to fix it. And remember chapter six? It took him over a week to find out how to change a fuse in his auto-cook!”

  Arnold said relentlessly, “The equipment’s got your company’s name on it, Ross. And I’ll bet we find you’ve been absent from your office for considerable periods. The local spaceport will have any record of you taking out an interstellar ship. Or did you manage to hide all that?”

  By Ross’ face they could tell he hadn’t. Myra said, “Oh, Ross.”

  “I did it for you, Myra,” Jameson said. “I love you, but I couldn’t live out here! I’ve got a company to think about, people depend on me . . .”

  “So you tried to scare me off Coelle,” Myra said.

  “Doesn’t that show how much I care for you?”

  “That kind of caring I can live without,” Myra said.

  “But Myra—”

  “And that brings us to Edward the Hermit,” Arnold said.

  The hermit looked up quickly. “Let’s just forget about me,” he said. “I admit I was trying to scare Miss Ryan off her planet. It was stupid of me. I’ll never bother her again in any way. Of course,” he said, looking at Myra, “if you want to press charges—”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I apologize again. I’ll be going.” The hermit stood up and started to the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Arnold said. The expression on his face was painful. He hesitated, sighed fatalistically and said, “Are you going to tell her, or shall I?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward said. “I must leave now—”

  “Not yet. Myra’s entitled to the whole truth,” Arnold said. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  Myra stared at the hermit. Edward’s shoulders drooped hopelessly.

  “What is all this?” she asked.

  Edward looked angrily at Arnold. “I suppose you won’t be satisfied until I’ve made an utter fool of myself. All right, here goes.” He faced Myra. “When you radioed me and said you were going to live on Coelle, I was horrified. Everything started to go to pieces for me.”

  “But I was millions of miles away,” Myra said.

  “Yes. That was the trouble. You were so near—astronomically—and yet so far. You see, I was deathly sick of the whole hermit thing. I could stand it as long as no one was around, but once you came—”

  “If you were tired of being a hermit,” Myra said, “why didn’t you leave?”

  “My agent told me it would be literary suicide,” the hermit said, with a sickly attempt at a cynical grin. “You see, I’m a writer. This whole thing was a publicity stunt. I was to hermit a planet and write a book. Which I did. The book was a best-seller. My agent talked me into doing a second book. I couldn’t leave until it was done. That would have ruined everything. But I was starving for a human face. And then you came.”

  “And you threatened me,” Myra said.

  “Not really. I said I wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences. I was really referring to my sanity. For days after that I thought about you. Suddenly, I realized I had to see you. Absolutely had to! So I came here, hid the ship—”

  “And walked around dressed as a Scarb,” Jameson sneered.

  “Not at first,” Edward said. “After I saw you, I guess . . . Well, I guess I fell in love with you. I knew then, if you stayed on Coelle—practically next door, astronomically—I could find the strength to stay on Kerma and finish my book. But I saw this Jameson fellow was trying to scare you off. So I decided to scare him off.”

  “Well,” Myra said. “I’m glad we finally have met. I enjoyed your book so much.”

  “Did you?” Edward said, his face brightening.

  “Yes. It inspired me to live on Coelle. But I’m sorry to hear it was all a fraud.”

  “It wasn’t!” Edward cried. “The hermit thing was my agent’s idea, but the book was perfectly genuine, and I did have all those experiences, and I did feel all those things. I like being away from civilization, and I especially like having my own planet. The only thing
wrong . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, Kerma would be perfect if only I had one other person with me. Someone who understands, who feels as I do.”

  “I know just how you feel,” Myra said.

  They looked at each other. When Jameson saw that look, he moaned and put his head in his hands.

  “Come on, friend,” Olson said, dropping a sympathetic hand on Jameson’s shoulder. “You’re trumped. I’ll give you a lift back to Earth.”

  Ross nodded vaguely, and started to the door with Olson. Olson said, “Say, I imagine you folks will be only needing one planet before long, huh?”

  Myra blushed crimson. Edward looked embarrassed, then said in a firm voice, “Myra and I are going to get married. That is, if you’ll have me, Myra. Will you marry me, Myra?”

  She said yes in a very small voice.

  “That’s what I thought,” Olson said. “So you won’t be needing two planets. Would one of you care to lease your mineral rights? It’d be a nice little income, you know. Help to set up housekeeping.”

  Ross Jameson groaned and hurried out the door.

  “Well,” Edward said to Myra, “it isn’t a bad idea. We’ll be living on Kerma, so you might as well—”

  “Just a minute,” Myra said. “We are going to live on Coelle and no other place.”

  “No!” Edward said. “After ail the work I’ve put into Kerma, I will not abandon it.”

  “Coelle has a better climate.”

  “Kerma has a lighter gravity.”

  Olson said, “When you get it figured out, you’ll give Trans-stellar Mining first chance, won’t you? For old time’s sake?”

  They both nodded. Olson shook hands with them and left.

  Arnold said, “I believe that solves the mysteries of the Skag Castle. We’ll be going now, Myra. We’ll return your ship on drone circuit.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Myra said.

  “Perhaps you’ll come to our wedding,” Edward said.

  “We’d be delighted.”

  “It’ll be on Coelle, of course,” Myra said.

  “Kerma!”

  When the partners left, the young couple were glaring angrily at each other.

  VI

  WHEN THEY were at last in space, Terra bound, Gregor said, “That was a very handsome job of detection.”

  “It was nothing,” Arnold said modestly. “You would have figured it out yourself in a few months.”

  “Thanks. And it was very nice of you, speaking up for Edward the way you did.”

  “Well, Myra was a bit strong-minded for me,” Arnold said, “And a trifle provincial. I am, after all, a creature of the great cities.”

  “It was still an extremely decent thing to do.”

  Arnold shrugged his shoulders. “The trouble is, how will Myra and Edward solve this planet problem? Neither seems the type to give in.”

  “Oh, that’s as good as solved,” Gregor said off-handedly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, it’s obvious,” Gregor said. “And it fills the one gaping hole in your otherwise logical reconstruction of events.”

  “What hole? What is it?”

  “Oh, come now,” Gregor said, enjoying his opportunity to the utmost. “It’s obvious

  “I don’t see it. Tell me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out in a few months. Think I’ll take a nap.”

  “Don’t be that way,” Arnold pleaded. “What is it?”

  “All right. How tall was Jameson’s electronic Scarb, the one that frightened Myra?”

  “About nine feet.”

  “And how tall was Edward, disguised as a Scarb?”

  “About six feet tall.”

  “And the Scarb we saw in our bedroom, the one we shot at—”

  “Good lord!” Arnold gasped. “That Scarb was only four feet tall. We have one Scarb left over!”

  “Exactly. One Scarb which no one produced artificially, and which we can’t account for—except by the fact that Coelle actually is haunted.”

  “I see what you mean,” Arnold said thoughtfully. “They’ll have to move to Kerma. But we didn’t really fulfill our contract.”

  “We did enough,” Gregor said. “We decontaminated three distinct species of Skag—produced by Jameson, Olson and Edward. If they want a fourth species taken care of, that’ll be a separate contract.”

  “You’re right,” Arnold said. “It’s about time we became businesslike. And it’s for their own good. Something has to make up their minds for them.” He thought for a moment. “I suppose they’ll leave Coelle to Trans-stellar Mining. Should we tell Olson that tine planet is really haunted?”

  “Certainly not,” Gregor said. “He’d just laugh at us. Have you ever heard of ghosts frightening m automatic mining machine?”

  PROTECTION

  I had the finest bodyguard on any world to protect me . . . but what was it that watched him?

  THERE’LL be an airplane crash in Burma next week, but it shouldn’t affect me here in New York. And the feegs certainly can’t harm me. Not with all my closet doors closed.

  No, the big problem is lesnerizing. I must not lesnerize. Absolutely not. As you can imagine, that hampers me.

  And to top it all, I think I’m catching a really nasty cold.

  The whole thing started on the evening of November seventh. I was walking down Broadway on my way to Baker’s Cafeteria. On my lips was a faint smile, due to having passed a tough physics exam earlier in the day. In my pocket, jingling faintly, were five coins, three keys, and a book of matches.

  Just to complete the picture, let me add that the wind was from the northwest at five miles an hour, Venus was in the ascendancy, and the Moon was decidedly gibbous. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

  I reached the corner of 98th Street and began to cross. As I stepped off the curb, someone yelled at me, “The truck! Watch the truck!”

  I jumped back, looking around wildly. There was nothing in sight. Then, a full second later, a truck cut around the corner on two wheels, ran though the red light, and roared up Broadway. Without the warning, I would have been hit.

  YOU’VE HEARD stories like this, haven’t you? About the strange voice that warned Aunt Minnie to stay out of the elevator, which then crashed to the basement. Or maybe it told Uncle Joe not to sail on the Titanic. That’s where the story usually ends.

  I wish mine ended there.

  “Thanks, friend,” I said and looked around. There was no one there.

  “Can you still hear me?” the voice asked.

  “Sure I can.” I turned a complete circle and stared suspiciously at the closed apartment windows overhead. “But where in the blue blazes are you?”

  “Gronish,” the voice answered. “Is that the referrent? Refraction index. Creature of insubstantiality. The Shadow knows. Did I pick the right one?”

  “You’re invisible?” I hazarded.

  “That’s it!”

  “But what are you?”

  “A validusian derg.”

  “A what?”

  “I am—open your larynx a little wider please. Let me see now. I am the Spirit of Christmas Past. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Bride of Frankenstein. The—”

  “Hold on,” I said. “What are you trying to tell me—that you’re a ghost or a creature from another planet?”

  “Same thing,” the derg replied. “Obviously.”

  That made it all perfectly clear. Any fool could see that the voice belonged to someone from another planet. He was invisible on Earth, but his superior senses had spotted an approaching danger and warned me of it.

  Just a plain, everyday supernormal incident.

  I began to walk hurriedly down Broadway.

  “What is the matter?” the invisible derg asked.

  “Not a thing,” I answered, “except that I seem to be standing in the middle of the street talking to an invisible alien from the farthest reaches of outer space. I sup
pose only I can hear you?”

  “Well, naturally.”

  “Great! You know where this sort of thing will land me?”

  “The concept you are sub-vocalizing is not entirely clear.”

  “The loony bin. Nut house. Bug factory. Psychotic ward. That’s where they put people who talk to invisible aliens. Thanks for the warning, buddy. Good night.”

  FEELING light-headed, I turned east, hoping my invisible friend would continue down Broadway.

  “Won’t you talk with me?” the derg asked.

  I shook my head, a harmless gesture they can’t pick you up for, and kept on walking.

  “But you must,” the derg said with a hint of desperation “A real sub-vocal contact is very rare and astonishingly difficult. Sometimes I can get across a warning, just before a danger moment. But then the connection fades.”

  So there was the explanation for Aunt Minnie’s premonition. But I still wasn’t having any.

  “Conditions might not be right again for a hundred years!” the derg mourned.

  What conditions? Five coins and three keys jingling together when Venus was ascendant? I suppose it’s worthy of investigation—but not by me. You never can prove that supernormal stuff. There are enough people knitting slipcovers for straitjackets without me swelling their ranks.

  “Just leave me alone,” I said. A cop gave me a funny look for that one. I grinned boyishly and hurried on.

  “I appreciate your social situation,” the derg urged, “but this contact is in your own best interests. I want to protect you from the myriad dangers of human existence.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Well,” the derg said, “I can’t force you. I’ll just have to offer my services elsewhere. Good-bye, friend.”

  I nodded pleasantly.

  “One last thing,” he said. “Stay off subways tomorrow between noon and one-fifteen P.M. Good-bye.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Someone will be killed at Columbus Circle, pushed in front of a train by shopping crowds. You, if you are there. Good-by.”

  “Someone will be killed there tomorrow?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course.”