by Jerry
“So then what?” said Marker very mildly.
Fashono miserably clasped his fragile hands, playing his part to the last.
“The porbo-flies unwittingly shall carry gitso-seeds to all areas of the planet. Again our poor world will be covered with these weeds as the porbo-flies flutter madly in their undiminished, growing numbers.”
“And then?” asked Marker in a voice that emerged from a drum of doom.
“Then the porbo-flies retire to their breeding place to lay their eggs.”
“Breeding place?”
Gently Marker grabbed the Lainian’s tenuous shoulders in his knobby hands. He shook Fashono a little. “Where do they lay their eggs?” He shook a little harder.
“In the pibber-tree,” Fashono cried. “Under the bark of the mighty pibber-tree. And how beautiful and stately those trees are, Commander Marker! They rise to the clouds in their kingly beauty! Some are ten thousand years old! Some have ancient rooms carved into their bases—our historic shrines!”
“I see. As I recall, these pibber-trees grow exclusively in your so-called Holy Land.”
“Yes, yes! The park you agreed to protect. But I beg you to ignore this, Commander! How can the people of Earth come to us with their superior culture if you do not destroy these mighty creations of nature? I beg you not to leave our poor people so stupidly content with their miserable lot!” Marker cast him a pale, unnerved smile. “Good-bye, Fashono,” he said, and immediately went to the Apollo-1, Jorey waddling behind him. “Have the hatches closed,” Market told Jorey. “We’re getting out of here before we lose our shirts.”
“We’ve lost them,” observed Jorey. “In fact, I felt chilly the minute we landed.”
Marker was beyond reacting to Jorey’s offstage comments. He got Whitsey on the Leaper, and fully described the new circumstances.
Whitsey said mildly, “So you’ve lost the planet.”
“For good,” said Marker. “You’ve failed at your job, Whitsey. You’re going to be kicked out on your ear. It was your responsibility to see that nothing was loused up. I’m going to tell the Office the story.”
“Nothing was loused up—except by you,” Whitsey said smoothly. “I’ll overlook that, however, if you head on out and find another planet. As for Lain, the planet will be reclaimed. I’ll call a meeting of the Board in a few weeks and have the agreement rescinded and then send a more capable Survey man out to force the Lainians to sign another agreement permitting the destruction of the pibber-trees.”
“The pibber-trees will not be destroyed,” said Marker flatly.
“Why not?” Whitsey sneered. “Identifying again, Marker? Thinking of Earth and Sequoia trees maybe?—when pibber-trees aren’t Sequoias?”
“All right,” said Marker doggedly. “I identify. So will the rest of humanity on all the human-populated worlds. There’s something real sentimental about Sequoias, Co-ordinator. So I’ll publicize those trees to the press. I’ll bring back pictures. I’ll expose Colonial Survey. The press and newscasters will raise a stink about a bunch of money-mongers who are willing to destroy what only God can make etc., etc. What do I care? I’m out of a job—just like you.”
Whitsey bit his lip. “You’re a fool. Fashono planned this reaction too.”
“So he did,” said Marker unhappily. “As Mr. Jorey happened to remark a short time ago to me, ‘The customer kept on saying “yes” until the salesman got sucked up in his own vacuum cleaner.’ That was me. So I’m coming home, Whitsey. The only winners in this deal are the Lainians!”
SEE?
Edward G. Robles, Jr.
Seeing things? Don’t go to an analyst—see the Commission—if it doesn’t find you first!
WELL, there was this song a few years back. You know the one. Phil Harris singing about a thing that you couldn’t get rid of, no matter what you did, a thing so repulsive it made you a social outcast. Never thought I’d see one, though. Dirty Pete found it.
Don’t rush me. I’ll tell you about it.
We’re hobos, understand? Now a hobo is a different breed of cat than you think. Oh, people are getting educated to the idea that a hobo will work and move on, whereas a tramp will mooch and move on, and a bum will mooch and hang around, but you still find folks who are ignorant enough to call us bums.
We’re aristocrats, yes sir. If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t enjoy half the little luxuries you do. Oh, don’t believe me—talk to your experts. They know that, without the migratory worker, most of the crops wouldn’t get harvested. And, if I talk highfalutin’ once in a while, don’t blame me. Associating with the Professor improves any man’s vocabulary, in spite of themselves.
THERE was the four of us, see? We’d been kicking around together for longer than I care to think about. There was the Professor and Dirty Pete and Sacks and Eddie. I’m Eddie. Nicknames are funny things. Take the Professor—he was a real professor once, until he began hitting the bottle. Well, he lost his job, his home, his family, and his rep.
One morning, he wakes up on Skid Row without a nickel in his jeans and the great-granddaddy of all hangovers. He comes to a decision. Either he could make a man out of hisself, or he could die. Right then, dying looked like the easiest thing to do, but it took more guts that he had to jump off a bridge, so he went on the Road instead.
After he got over his shakes—and he sure had ’em bad—he decided that, if he never took another drink, it’d be the best thing for him. So he didn’t. He had a kind of dignity, though, and he could really talk, so he and I teamed up during the wheat harvest in South Dakota. We made all the stops and, when we hit the peaches in California we picked up Sacks and Dirty Pete.
Sacks got his monicker because he never wore shoes. He claimed that gunny-sacks, wrapped around his feet and shins, gave as much protection and more freedom, and they were more comfortable, besides costing nix. Since we mostly bought our shoes at the dumps, at four bits a pair, you might say he was stretching a point, but that’s one of the laws of the Road. You don’t step on the other guy’s corns, and he don’t step on yours.
So guess why Dirty Pete was called that. Yeah. He hadn’t taken a bath since ‘forty-six, when he got out of the army, and he didn’t figure on ever takin’ another. He was a damn’ good worker, though, and nobody’d ever try anything with him around. He wasn’t any bigger than a Mack truck. Besides, he was quiet.
Oh, sure. You wanna know why I’m on the Road. Well, it happens I like whiskers. Trouble is, they’re not fashionable, unless you’re some kind of an artist, which I’m not. You know, social disapproval. I didn’t have the guts to face it, so I lit out. Nobody cares on the Road what you do, so I was okay with my belt-length beard.
A beard’s an enjoyable thing, too. There’s a certain kind of thrill you get from stroking it, and feeling its silkiness run through your fingers. And besides, combing it, and keeping it free of burrs, snarls and tangles, sort of keeps your spare moments so full that the devil don’t find any idle time to put your hands to work in. If you ask me, I think that the razor has been the downfall of society. And I’m willing to bet I have plenty of company with the same opinion.
Show me a man who doesn’t let his beard grow once in a while, even if it’s only for a day or so, and you’ve shown me a man who thinks more of social pressure than he does of his own comfort. And show me a man who says he likes to shave, and you’ve shown me a man who is either a liar or is asking for punishment.
THAT’S enough about us. Now to get on with the story. You know, if the Professor hadn’t been around, there would probably have been murder done over the Thing, or at least our little group would’ve split up, ‘cause none of us had the brains to figure it out.
Pete’s an expert scrounger. His eyes are sharp, and he’s always on the lookout for a salable piece of goods, even if he can only get a nickel for it. One night, we’re sitting in a jungle near Sacramento, trying to figure out whether to go north for the grapes, or south for the grapes. They’re all over California,
you know, and they pay pretty well.
Pete, as usual, is out looking, and pretty soon he comes back into camp with this thing in his hand. He handles it like it was hot, but he’s pleased he’s found it, because he hopes to merchandise it. So he walks up to me, and says, “Hey, Eddie. What’ll you gimme for this, huh?”
I say, “Get that to hell away from me! I’ll give you a swift kick in the pants if you don’t.”
He looks real surprised. He says, “Huh, I thought maybe you could use it.”
I get up on my feet. I say, real low and careful, because maybe he’s joking, “Look, Pete—you oughtta know by this time, I like my beard. Now will you go away?”
He mooches off, looking like I’d kicked him, and goes over to the Professor. I figure maybe the Professor could use it, so I listen. The Prof looks like he was being offered a live rattlesnake.
“No, thanks, really, Pete. I have resolved never to touch it again. I hope you don’t mind.”
Well, for some reason Pete don’t look pleased, and he’s real unhappy by this time, but he tries again.
“Hey, Sacks, what’ll you gimme for—”
He don’t get a chance to finish. I’m only listening with half an ear, but I’m so surprised I stand up like I been stuck with a pin. Sacks says, “Whatinell would I do with a left shoe? You know I don’t use ’em.”
Pete looks at the thing in his hand, and the Prof and I go over there.
The Professor looks at the thing real carefully and speaks up. “Say, Pete, look at that thing and tell me what it is.”
“Why, it’s a brand new bar of soap, of course. I don’t use it, but one of you might want to. What’s all the beef about?”
“Soap?” I say. “Why, you poor fish, something must have happened to your eyes. When you offered me that straight razor, I thought you’d gone off your nut. Now I know it.”
The Professor interrupts. He looks excited. “Wait a minute, Eddie. To me that item looks exactly like a full fifth of Old Harvester, 100 proof. Used to be my favorite, before I became an abstainer. To Pete, it looks like soap. To you, it looks like a straight razor while, to Sacks, it resembles a shoe. Does that give you any ideas?”
“Means we’re all having hallucinations,” I grunts.
“Exactly. Pete, was there anything else in the location where you found this thing?”
“Nothing but some scrap tin.”
“Show us.”
SO, the four of us wanders across the field and, sure enough, there was this silly-looking object lying there. It was about eighteen or twenty feet across, and two feet thick, and I nearly made a fool of myself. I almost screamed when I saw six straight razors crawling out of a hole in its side.
The Professor whistled. “Grab them, boys. We want them.”
Well, Sacks sacrifices one of his sacks, and we rounded up fifteen of the useless things. We went back to the jungle, where the Prof explained it.
“Look, fellows, suppose you were a being from another planet that wanted to take over here. Suppose, further, that you were rather small and relatively defenseless. To finish the suppositions, suppose you were a positive telepath, with not only the ability to read minds, but also the ability to create visual and tactile hallucinations. How would you protect yourself?”
A light began to dawn, but I didn’t say a word about it.
The Professor continued. “If you could do all this, you’d make yourself look just as useless as possible. To Pete, you’d look like a bar of soap, because he never uses the stuff. To Sacks, you’d look like a shoe, because his dislike for shoes is evident in his mind. To Eddie, who is proud of his beard, you’d look like a razor, while to me, you’d look like a bottle of booze, because I dislike its effects intensely. In other words, you would assume an imposture that would assure you’d never be picked up, except by someone like Pete, who would see in you a salable item, even though not a usable one. It may be, Pete, that you have saved the world.”
So, that’s the story. We’re all still on the Road, of course, but now we are the “Commission for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Invasion.” Congress named us as that, when we got the data to them.
Now, Mr. Mayor, you see our problem. Have your citizens seen anything around that they don’t want? If they have, we want to look at it.
THE DEADLY ONES
F.L. Wallace
He preyed on the nightmare fears of mankind, and the dread food he craved was his in abundance. Why, why did he have to go exploring?
F.L. Wallace is one of the bright new stars of science fiction. He is also a practicing engineer who has designed hydraulic presses, and gyro instruments. Be warned! When he starts weaving sound science into the homespun geography of his native Illinois you may find yourself caught up in a spatial drive which will carry you clear across the great curve of the universe—on a journey guaranteed to chill and surprise you!
RATHSDEN. I’m sure the name means nothing to you. There are legends, of course—from old Germany and the greater Reich, colonial America even. But you can’t prove anything very damaging or concrete with legends. And even when the story is otherwise correct, I’ve been careful to keep my name out of it. A clever person shuns publicity, though it may involve tampering with history. For all practical purposes the name Rathsden is unknown. I want it kept that way.
I can’t remember when the inspiration came. Probably it had lain for a long time dormant in the back of my mind, like a mole hibernating in mid-winter. Warmed by the proper circumstances, it emerged at last in its full vigor to claim my attention.
I’ve always worked hard, but lately what I got out of my efforts you couldn’t call a living. The Red Cross was largely responsible. You could never get me to say a good word for that agency—never.
Still, I have made use of them, and in this case they made their contribution, though it was an unwitting one.
I gave the idea careful thought. From the beginning I knew I needed help. I’m not superhuman, not in the strict sense, though I suppose I could give a good account of myself against Well’s Invisible Man, Homo Superior, or the new crop of mutants that will spring up some day soon.
I needed help, and I carried the problem to a council of my fellows. We discussed it thoroughly, and in the end, though they didn’t give me their blessing, they consented to aid me.
The problem was flying saucers, or rather how to force one to land. We debated the matter for a long time, but there didn’t seem to be any way to do it. No jet could keep up with a saucer and present rockets were equally inadequate. Besides, we didn’t have access to any of these machines.
Someone in the back of the council, whose name I didn’t catch suggested that, if we couldn’t force one to land, perhaps we could lure one down. It didn’t matter how, as long as it remained on the ground for an hour or so, with its ports open. The rest would be up to me.
“Fine,” I said. “What do you propose?”
“They’re investigating, you know,” he said, “in the western part of the country. Rocket bases, atom bomb sites, anything that indicates advanced technology.
Let’s give them another menace.”
“Sounds good. What are they interested in?” He was a hard fellow to locate and I didn’t try to visualize his face. He came from Ireland I believe.
“A spaceship,” he said. “A very formidable creation, with an incredible drive.”
There was nothing wrong with the basic concept. The ship wouldn’t be real of course. It would merely seem real from the air. We could accomplish that.
As for the drive, we could manage that too. In a little investigated part of the spectrum we could create a low and steady output, suggesting that the drive was idling, ready for instant takeoff.
None of this was impossible for us.
We? Have I said that we’re not human? We’ve existed for a long time on earth beside Homo Sapiens, and he has only dimly guessed that we are here. The ordinary limitations of men don’t apply to us.
A few
of us working together could create an illusionary spaceship, and an intriguing drive to go with it. This was something flying saucers couldn’t resist. They’d come down when they found they couldn’t investigate from their customary high level flights.
I nodded at the fellow I couldn’t see. “Excellent. However, when the saucer lands you’ll have to maintain the illusion. Logistics are involved too.”
“That’s easy,” he said. “But what if it isn’t manned by robots as you’ve assumed? You can get inside all right, but a living creature will discover you.”
I looked at the blank spot where I thought he might be. “Really now. It has to be a robot. No living creature, except us, can stand the accelerations we’ve observed.”
“But what if we’re wrong?” he persisted.
“In that case we’ll have time for one quick look,” I said. “If it is living and we’re no match for it, we’ll run like hell.”
There was general laughter and the fellow raised no further objections. For all I know, he went home. The meeting broke up and everyone except a few volunteers left. We continued to discuss ways and means.
When the plans seemed foolproof, I got up. “Just a minute.” Another fellow I didn’t recognize interposed. “Suppose everything works the way you say it will. The saucer lands, and you succeed in getting inside. What makes you think it will go back to the home planet?”
“Don’t overlook our fake spaceship,” I said. “If the robot investigator from the saucer found a real spaceship, that would be important information. It would be important enough to warrant a quick trip back to the local base, wherever that may be situated.
