He stopped, then moved closer to the doorway. From the Bowl below came the first strains of the music. The tuning up, the preliminary to the concert was over.
“O.K.,” Mackenzie said, “I’ll hurt it some more. Even you are nothing but a plant to me. Just because youve learned some civilized tricks doesn’t make you my equal. It never did. We humans can’t slur off the experiences of the past so easily. It would take thousands of years of association with things like you before we even began to regard you as anything other than a plant, a thing that we used in the past and might use again.”
“Still cabbage soup,” said the Encyclopedia.
“Still cabbage soup,” Mackenzie told him.
The music stopped. Stopped dead still, in the middle of a note.
“See,” said Mackenzie, “even the music fails you.”
Silence rolled at them in engulfing waves and through the stillness came another sound, the clop, clop of heavy, plodding feet.
“NellieI” yelled Mackenzie.
A bulky shadow loomed in the darkness.
“Yeah, chief, it’s me,” said Nellie. “I brung you something.”
She dumped Wade across the doorway.
Wade rolled over and groaned. There were skittering, flapping sounds as two fluttering shapes detached themselves from Wade’s shoulders.
“Nellie,” said Mackenzie harshly, “there was no need to beat him up. You should have brought him back just as he was and let me take care of him.
“Gee, boss,” protested Nellie. “I didn’t beat him up. He was like that when I found him.”
Nicodemus was clawing his way to Mackenzie’s shoulder, while Smith’s life blanket scuttled for the comer where his master lay.
“It was us, boss,” piped Nicodemus. “We laid him out.”
“You laid him out?”
“Sure, there was two of us and only one of him. We fed him poison.”
Nicodemus settled into place on Mackenzie’s shoulders.
“I didn’t like him,” he declared. "He wasn’t nothing like you, boss. I didn't want to change like him. I wanted to stay like you.”
"This poison?” asked Mackenzie. "Nothing fatal, I hope.” "Sure not, pal,” Nicodemus told him. “We only made him sick. He didn’t know what was happening until it was too late to do anything about it. We bargained with him, we did. We told him we'd quit feeding it to him if he took us back. He was on his way here, too, but he'd never have made it if it hadn't been for Nellie.”
"Chief,” pleaded Nellie, "when he gets so he knows what it’s all about, won't you let me have him for about five minutes?”
"No,” said Mackenzie.
"He strung me up,” wailed Nellie. “He hid in the cliff and lassoed me and left me hanging there. It took me hours to get loose. Honest, I wouldn't hurt him much. I'd just kick him around a litle, gentle-like.”
From the cliff top came the rustling of grass as if hundreds of little feet were advancing upon them.
"We got visitors,” said Nicodemus.
The visitors, Mackenzie saw, were the conductors, dozens of little gnomelike figures that moved up and squatted on their haunches, faintly luminous eyes blinking at them.
One of them shambled forward. As he came closer, Mackenzie saw that it was Alder.
"Well?” Mackenzie demanded.
“We came to tell you the deal is off,” Alder squeaked. "Delbert came and told us.”
“Told you what?”
"About what you do to trees.”
"Oh, that.”
"Yes, that.”
"But you made the deal,” Mackenzie told him. "You can’t back out now. Why, Earth is waiting breathless—”
"Don't try to kid me,” snapped Alder. "You don't want us any more than we want you. It was a dirty trick to start with, but it wasn't any of our doing. The Encyclopedia talked us into it. He told us we had a duty. A duty to our race. To act as missionaries to the inferior races of the Galaxy.
"We didn't take to it at first. Music, you see, is our life. We have been creating music for so long that our origin is lost in the dim antiquity of a planet that long ago has passed its zenith of existence. We will be creating music in that far day when the planet falls apart beneath our feet.
You five by a code of accomplishment by action. We live by a code of accomplishment by music. Kadmar’s Red Sun symphony was a greater triumph for us than the discovery of a new planetary system is for you. It pleased us when you liked our music. It will please us if you still like our music, even after what has happened. But we will not allow you to take any of us to Earth.”
“The monopoly on the music still stands?” asked Mackenzie.
“It still stands. Come whenever you want to and record my symphony. When there are others we will let you know. “And the propaganda in the music?”
“From now on,” Alder promised, “the propaganda is out. If, from now on, our music changes you, it will change you through its own power. It may do that, but we will not try to shape your hves.”
“How can we depend on that?”
“Certainly,” said Alder, “there are certain tests you could devise. Not that they will be necessary.”
“We'll devise the tests,” declared Mackenzie. “Sorry, but we can't trust you.”
"Im sorry that you can't," said Alder, and he sounded as if he were.
“I was going to bum you,” Mackenzie said, snapping his words off brutally. “Destroy you. Wipe you out. There was nothing you could have done about it. Nothing you could have done to stop me.”
“You’re still barbarians,” Alder told him. “You have conquered the distances between the stars, you have built a great civilization, but your methods are still ruthless and degenerate.”
“The Encyclopedia calls it a formula of force,” Mackenzie said. “No matter what you call it, it still works. It’s the thing that took us up. I warn you. If you ever again try to trick the human race, there will be hell to pay. A human being will destroy anything to save himself. Remember that—we destroy anything that threatens us.”
Something swished out of the tractor door and Mackenzie whirled about.
“It’s the Encyclopedia!” he yelled. “He’s trying to get awayl Nelliel”
There was a thrashing rustle. “Got him, boss,” said Nellie.
The robot came out of the darkness, dragging the Encyclopedia along by his leafy topknot.
Mackenzie turned back to the composers, but the composers were gone. The grass rustled eerily toward the cliff edge as dozens of tiny feet scurried through it.
“What now?” asked Nellie. “Do we bum the trees?”
Mackenzie shook his head. “No, Nellie. We won’t bum them.”
“We got them scared,” said Nellie. “Scared pink with purple spots.”
“Perhaps we have,” said Mackenzie. “Let’s hope so, at least. But it isn’t only that they re scared. They probably loathe us and that is better yet. Like we’d loathe some form of life that bred and reared men for food—that thought of Man as nothing else than food. All the time they’ve thought of themselves as the greatest intellectual force in the universe. We’ve given them a jolt. We’ve scared them and hurt their pride and shook their confidence. They’ve run up against something that is more than a match for them. Maybe they’ll think twice again before they try any more shenanigans.”
Down in the Bowl the music began again.
Mackenzie went in to look at Smith. The man was sleeping peacefully, his blanket wrapped around him. Wade sat in a comer, head held in his hands.
Outside a rocket murmured and Nellie yelled. Mackenzie spun on his heel and dashed through the door. A ship was swinging over the Bowl, lighting up the area with floods.
Swiftly it swooped down, came to ground a hundred yards away.
Harper, right arm in a sling tumbled out and raced toward them.
“You didn't bum them!” he was yelling. “You didn't bum them I"
Mackenzie shook his head.
&n
bsp; Harper pounded him on the back with his good hand. “Knew you wouldn't. Knew you wouldn't all the time. Just kidding the chief, eh? Having a little fun.”
“Not exactly fun.”
“About them trees," said Harper. “We can't take them back to Earth, after all.”
“I told you that,” Mackenzie said.
“Earth just called me, half an hour ago,” said Harper. “Seems there's a law, passed centuries ago. Against bringing alien plants to Earth. Some lunkhead once brought a bunch of stuff from Mars that just about ruined Earth, so they passed the law. Been there all the time, forgotten.” Mackenzie nodded. “Someone dug it up?”
“That's right,” said Harper. “And slapped an injunction on Galactic. We can't touch those trees.”
“You wouldn't have anyhow,” said Mackenzie. “They wouldn't go.”
“But you made the deal! They were anxious to go—” “That/' Mackenzie told him, “was before they found out we used plants for food—and other things.”
“But . . . but—”
“To them,” said Mackenzie, “we're just a gang of ogres. Something they'll scare the little plants with. Tell them if they don't be quiet the humans will get ’em.”
Nellie came around the comer of the tractor, still hauling the Encyclopedia by his topknot.
“Hey,” yelled Harper, “what goes on here?”
“We'll have to build a concentration camp,” said Mackenzie. “Big high fence.” He motioned with his thumb toward the Encyclopedia.
Harper stared. “But he hasn't done anything!”
“Nothing but try to take over the human race,” Mackenzie said.
Harper sighed. “That makes two fences we got to build. That rifle tree back at the post is shooting up the place,” Mackenzie grinned. “Maybe the one fence will do for the both of them.”
THE END
ASSIGNMENT ON PASIK
Murray Leinster
The Snark hit atmosphere, screaming, and Stannard grimly set himself to fight it out with the fins. A half-hour since he'd used what jets remained in action, and the gyros too, past all sane risk. He had a good approach-course now, though—it was a shallow, almost infinitesimal slant toward the planet's surface—but normal landing-procedures were definitely out. He saw seas and land and peninsulas below, so random-landing would be unwise. He had to depend on the fins and the Snark’s streamlining to gain some sort of control from the resistance of the air. He succeeded only in part.
The Snark bounced, and the straps that held him in his chair dug into his flesh, and then the small space-car seemed to throw a fit. It went spinning through some fleecy cirrus clouds a good four miles up, and then straightened out and skidded backwards. The tail went up and Stannard saw jungle below him, straight in front of the control-room ports, and the Snark seemed to decide that this was a good place to smash, and dived down with the evident purpose of splashing itself and Stannard over as much landscape as possible. At least, though, this was land. There was a sea not many miles away.
He caught a fleeting glimpse of foliage rising past the side-ports. Then jets sputtered erratically, he heard the beginassignment on pasik
ning shriek of dry gyro-shafts, there was a crashing, then a violent bump, then a heaving, wrenching explosion, and the control-room split down the middle on either side of him, the whole scrap-heap which was the Snark partly folded on itself like an accordion and partly billowed out like an expanding latex-bubble, —and there was a vast silence.
Stannard hung in the control-seat with an expression of vast amazement on his face. The amazement was because he was alive. He didn’t even seem to have any broken bones. But the Snark was not quite through. He heard a crackling, booming noise. The fuel-store had caught. And it might burn merely brightly, or it might burn with the ravening ferocity of thermit, or it might let go at any instant in a monstrous detonation which would blast everything up to half a mile away.
It was time to get away from there. Stannard broke loose the straps, pitched headlong and without dignity, scrambled through a gap in the plating, and ran like the devil.
He dodged tree-trunks, panting, and came out on a patch of savannah just as the fuel blew. There was a sound like the end of all creation, a blast of air lifted him off his feet and hurtled him forward through the air with his legs still making ridiculous running motions.
Then there was stillness once more. He looked about, and listened. In ancient days there had been tales of castaways. They were very glamorous, exciting stories. But this was something else. Even aside from the absolute failure of the job he’d been on, he was in a bad fix. This was one of the planets of the Bomik star-cluster, and he thought it was Pasik but he was not sure. The whole group had been surveyed, a couple of centuries before, and all the stars were yellow dwarfs, the planets were approximately solar-family types, and the vegetation on this one had been green as seen from space. Green vegetation plus seas meant breathable atmosphere and not too impossible a climate. This could be Pasik, if he’d identified the local sun correctly. But he wasn’t sure even of that. This part of the galaxy wasn’t much visited. Sometimes a hunting party came through to land here and there and gather more or less improbable specimens. There were races of low development on some of the planets, and there was a vague commerce of sorts kept up by occasional traders. But the known facts about the planets were few. Men could live on them, but few did. A castaway could survive, but the odds against being picked up were-so enormous that they were best expressed by zero.
He moved back toward the site of the recent explosion. He came to trees bent outward from the blast. He went through them to stumps of trees snapped off by the explosion and piled in untidy windrows. He wormed through a passable place and saw the crater where the Snark had been. There was literally nothing left but a hole in the ground. On one pile of shattered trees he saw a bit of tom plating. Caught among tree-stumps he saw a crumpled mass of metal. And that was all.
He managed to shrug. No stores, no tools, no food. Hopelessly isolated for all time.
Then he saw a movement across the clearing the explosion had made. Something glistened blackly among tree-branches. A thing came out of the tumbled, shattered trees. It carried a spear, and it was about five feet high. It had a cylindrical body and glistening, jointed legs which looked mechanical. It had two arms of nearly human size, and two smaller, apparently specialized mandible-like upper arms, and a head which was curiously humanoid without being in the least human. Another similar creature followed it, and another and another. There were thirty of them, altogether. Some carried spears, and others carried other weapons, and several had bags containing mysterious objects slung over their shoulders.
They regarded the crater and made noises among themselves. Stannard froze. A man who stands motionless does not attract attention. This is true on all planets, everywhere. Stannard stood still.
The sticklike men moved forward. They peered into the crater where the fuel had blown a hole all of forty feet across. One of them pointed to the crumpled metal plating. More noises. One of them doubled up suddenly, and then was erect again. Others did the same. They clustered around the crater and gesticulated to one another. Then, suddenly, they began to dance. It was an hilarious, unorganized, utterly gleeful dance. Stannard realized, blinking, that they knew exactly what the plating was, and they knew that a ship had crashed and blown itself to atoms, and that the doublings-up were laughter and the hopping and cavorting was the expression of exuberence that a creation of men had destroyed itself and—of course—apparently killed all the humans in it.
Then one of the stick-men saw Stannard. The dancing stopped instantly. All the stick-men—those with spears included—stared at him. They began to move toward him.
It was preposterous. It was absurd. Stannard felt his flesh crawl as the litter carried him swiftly through a narrow lane in the jungle which seemed to be unending. The litter which carried him had been hastily improvised, but it was comfortable. Stick-men carried him swif
dy, some running with the flexible litter-poles on their shoulders, some running behind, and at least one or two had gone racing on before to carry the news. From time to time the unburdened ones pelted up level with Stannard’s bearers and deftly took their places, while the relieved ones fell back. And the one who spoke English trotted alongside Stannard and babbled as if ecstatic whenever Stannard glanced in his direction.
“Pasiki have master,” he seemed to chortle. “Pasiki have man-master to servel All Pasiki love man-masterl All Pasiki glad to have masterl Oh, master, we are happy to have master to servel”
Stannard kept his face impassive. It did not make sense. That crazy, zestful, rejoicing dance about the scene of the Snark’s explosion, and now this babbling abasement. When the dancers had first seen him they had stopped short in their dance. They had seen a man, alive, and a murmuring arose among them. Spears had shifted. Then a shrill voice had called among the rest as they moved toward him. One had come ahead. Twenty yards away he had gone down on hands and knees. The others stopped. The leader crawled to Stannard's feet, and then abjectly lifted Stannard’s foot and put it on his head. And he spoke—in Englishl It was not speech from a throat, somehow. It was actually the vibration of a diaphragm somewhere near where a mans throat would have been. But it formed English words. Now that same native babbled more English words, trotting swiftly beside the litter the others had made and brought for Stannard to ride in.
“Oh, master, such gladness I Pasiki do not know what to do without man-master 1 Hundreds, thousands Pasiki serve with such gladness I”
Stannard said drily, “How much farther do we go?”
“Not far, master,” chortled the English-speaking one. “We have sent for man-style servants, for man-style food, for man-things man master will want. Oh, such gladness!” Stannard again had a crawling sensation in the back of his neck. If he'd ever seen triumphant hate in his life, it had been the dancing about the crater where the Snark had struck. And surely, if these sticklike, these ant-like men— Pasiki, they called themselves, which would mean that this was the planet Pasik, barely mentioned in the Space Directory as an earth-type planet, friendly inhabitants of grade 2B, type exoskeletal tympannate—surely if these creatures had wanted to kill him, they could have done so with their spears. Stannard reflected vaguely on tales of local dieties to whom sacrifice was made. They did not fit, either. “Where’d you learn man-talk?” he asked abruptly. “Man-master, master,” babbled the Pasiki, skipping in seeming glee as he kept pace with the litter. “Man-master had many Pasiki to serve him. All Pasiki love man-masterl Our man-master died, master. Some Pasiki went to serve woman-master, but they come more gladness to serve man-master.”
Adventures on Other Planets Page 11
