The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction: Keith Laumer

by Keith Laumer

  As from a distance, the monitor personality fraction watched the struggle. Kayle had been right. The Gool had waited—and now their moment had come. Even my last impulse of defiance—to place the tape in the machine—had been at the Gool command. They had looked into my mind. They understand psychology as no human analyst ever could; and they had led me in the most effective way possible, by letting me believe I was the master. They had made use of my human ingenuity to carry out their wishes—and Kayle had made it easy for them by evacuating a twenty-mile radius around me, leaving the field clear for the Gool.

  HERE—The Gool voice rang like a bell in my mind: TRANSMIT THE TAPE HERE!

  Even as I fought against the impulse to comply, I felt my arm twitch toward the machine.

  * * * *

  THROW THE SWITCH! the voice thundered.

  I struggled, willed my arm to stay at my side. Only a minute longer, I thought. Only a minute more, and the bomb would save me.…

  LINK UP, MASTERS!

  I WILL NOT LINK. YOU PLOT TO FEED AT MY EXPENSE.

  NO! BY THE MOTHER WORM, I PLEDGE MY GROOVE AT THE EATING TROUGH. FOR US THE MAN WILL GUT THE GREAT VAULT OF HIS NEST WORLD!

  ALREADY YOU BLOAT AT OUR EXPENSE!

  FOOL!! WOULD YOU BICKER NOW? LINK UP!

  * * * *

  The Gool raged—and I grasped for an elusive thought and held it. The bomb, only a few feet away. The waiting machine. And the Gool had given me the co-ordinates of their cavern.…

  With infinite sluggishness, I moved.

  LINK UP, MASTERS: THEN ALL WILL FEED.…

  IT IS A TRICK. I WILL NOT LINK.

  I found the bomb, fumbled for a grip.

  DISASTER, MASTERS! NOW IS THE PRIZE LOST TO US, UNLESS YOU JOIN WITH ME!

  My breath choked off in my throat; a hideous pain coiled outward from my chest. But it was unimportant. Only the bomb mattered. I tottered, groping. There was the table; the transmitter.…

  I lifted the bomb, felt the half-healed skin of my burned arm crackle as I strained.…

  I thrust the case containing the Master Tape out of the field of the transmitter, then pushed, half-rolled the bomb into position. I groped for the switch, found it. I tried to draw breath, felt only a surge of agony. Blackness was closing in.…

  The co-ordinates.…

  From the whirling fog of pain and darkness, I brought the target concept of the Gool cavern into view, clarified it, held it.…

  MASTERS! HOLD THE MAN! DISASTER!

  Then I felt the Gool, their suspicions yielding to the panic in the mind of the Prime Overlord, link their power against me. I stood paralyzed, felt my identity dissolving like water pouring from a smashed pot. I tried to remember—but it was too faint, too far away.

  Then from somewhere a voice seemed to cut in, the calm voice of an emergency reserve personality fraction. “You are under attack. Activate the reserve plan. Level Five. Use Level Five. Act now. Use Level Five.…”

  Through the miasma of Gool pressure, I felt the hairs stiffen on the back of my neck. All around me the Gool voices raged, a swelling symphony of discord. But they were nothing. Level Five.…

  There was no turning back. The compulsions were there, acting even as I drew in a breath to howl my terror—

  Level Five. Down past the shapes of dreams, the intense faces of hallucination; Level Three; Level Four and the silent ranked memories.… And deeper still—

  Into a region of looming gibbering horror, of shadowy moving shapes of evil, of dreaded presences that lurked at the edge of vision.…

  Down amid the clamor of voiceless fears, the mounting hungers, the reaching claws of all that man had feared since the first tailless primate screamed out his terror in a tree-top: the fear of falling, the fear of heights.

  Down to Level Five. Nightmare level.

  * * * *

  I groped outward, found the plane of contact—and hurled the weight of man’s ancient fears at the waiting Gool—and in their black confining caves deep in the rock of a far world, they felt the roaring tide of fear—fear of the dark, and of living burial. The horrors in man’s secret mind confronted the horrors of the Gool Brain Pit. And I felt them break, retreat in blind panic from me—

  All but one. The Prime Overlord reeled back with the rest, but his was a mind of terrible power. I sensed for a moment his bloated immense form, the seething gnawing hungers, insatiable, never to be appeased. Then he rallied—but he was alone now.

  LINK UP, MASTERS! THE PRIZE IS LOST. KILL THE MAN! KILL THE MAN!

  I felt a knife at my heart. It fluttered—and stopped. And in that instant, I broke past his control, threw the switch. There was the sharp crack of imploding air. Then I was floating down, ever down, and all sensation was far away.

  MASTERS! KILL TH

  The pain cut off in an instant of profound silence and utter dark.

  Then sound roared in my ears, and I felt the harsh grate of the floor against my face as I fell, and then I knew nothing more.

  * * * *

  “I hope,” General Titus was saying, “that you’ll accept the decoration now, Mr. Granthan. It will be the first time in history that a civilian has been accorded this honor—and you deserve it.”

  I was lying in a clean white bed, propped up by big soft pillows, with a couple of good-looking nurses hovering a few feet away. I was in a mood to tolerate even Titus.

  “Thanks, General,” I said. “I suggest you give the medal to the volunteer who came in to gas me. He knew what he was going up against; I didn’t.”

  “It’s over, now, Granthan,” Kayle said. He attempted to beam, settled for a frosty smile. “You surely understand—”

  “Understanding,” I said. “That’s all we need to turn this planet—and a lot of other ones—into the kind of worlds the human mind needs to expand into.”

  “You’re tired, Granthan,” Kayle said. “You get some rest. In a few weeks you’ll be back on the job, as good as new.”

  “That’s where the key is,” I said. “In our minds; there’s so much there, and we haven’t even scratched the surface. To the mind nothing is impossible. Matter is an illusion, space and time are just convenient fictions—”

  “I’ll leave the medal here, Mr. Granthan. When you feel equal to it, we’ll make the official presentation. Television.…”

  He faded off as I closed my eyes and thought about things that had been clamoring for attention ever since I’d met the Gool, but hadn’t had time to explore. My arm.…

  I felt my way along it—from inside—tracing the area of damage, watching as the bodily defenses worked away, toiling to renew, replace. It was a slow, mindless process. But if I helped a little.…

  It was easy. The pattern was there. I felt the tissues renew themselves, the skin regenerate.

  The bone was more difficult. I searched out the necessary minerals, diverted blood; the broken ends knit.…

  The nurse was bending over me, a bowl of soup in her hand.

  * * * *

  “You’ve been asleep for a long time, sir,” she said, smiling. “How about some nice chicken broth now?”

  I ate the soup and asked for more. A doctor came and peeled back my bandages, did a double-take, and rushed away. I looked. The skin was new and pink, like a baby’s—but it was all there. I flexed my right leg; there was no twinge of pain.

  I listened for a while as the doctors gabbled, clucked, probed and made pronouncements. Then I closed my eyes again. I thought about the matter transmitter. The government was sitting on it, of course. A military secret of the greatest importance, Titus called it. Maybe someday the public would hear about it; in the meantime—

  “How about letting me out of here?” I said suddenly. A pop-eyed doctor with a fringe of gray hair blinked at me, went back to fingering my arm. Kayle hove into view.

 
; “I want out,” I said. “I’m recovered, right? So now just give me my clothes.”

  “Now, now, just relax, Granthan. You know it’s not as simple as that. There are a lot of matters we must go over.”

  “The war’s over,” I said. “You admitted that. I want out.”

  “Sorry.” Kayle shook his head. “That’s out of the question.”

  “Doc,” I said. “Am I well?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Amazing case. You’re as fit as you’ll ever be; I’ve never—”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to resign yourself to being here for a while longer, Granthan,” Kayle said. “After all, we can’t—”

  “Can’t let the secret of matter transmission run around loose, hey? So until you figure out the angles, I’m a prisoner, right?”

  “I’d hardly call it that, Granthan. Still.…”

  I closed my eyes. The matter transmitter—a strange device. A field, not distorting space, but accentuating certain characteristics of a matter field in space-time, subtly shifting relationships.…

  Just as the mind could compare unrelated data, draw from them new concepts, new parallels.…

  The circuits of the matter transmitter…and the patterns of the mind.…

  The exocosm and the endocosm, like the skin and the orange, everywhere in contact.…

  Somewhere there was a beach of white sand, and dunes with graceful sea-oats that leaned in a gentle wind. There was blue water to the far horizon, and a blue sky, and nowhere were there any generals with medals and television cameras, or flint-eyed bureaucrats with long schemes.…

  And with this gentle folding… thus.…

  And a pressure here… so.…

  I opened my eyes, raised myself on one elbow—and saw the sea. The sun was hot on my body, but not too hot, and the sand was white as sugar. Far away, a seagull tilted, circling.

  A wave rolled in, washed my foot in cool water.

  I lay on my back, and looked up at white clouds in a blue sky, and smiled—then laughed aloud.

  Distantly the seagull’s cry echoed my laughter.

  A BAD DAY FOR VERMIN

  Originally published in Galaxy Magazine, February 1964 (copyright © 1963).

  Judge Carter Gates of the Third Circuit Court finished his chicken salad on whole wheat, thoughtfully crumpled the waxed paper bag and turned to drop it in the waste basket behind his chair—and sat transfixed.

  Through his second-floor office window, he saw a forty-foot flower-petal shape of pale turquoise settling gently between the well-tended petunia beds on the court-house lawn. On the upper, or stem end of the vessel, a translucent pink panel popped up and a slender, graceful form not unlike a large violet caterpillar undulated into view.

  Judge Gates whirled to the telephone. Half an hour later, he put it to the officials gathered with him in a tight group on the lawn.

  “Boys, this thing is intelligent; any fool can see that. It’s putting together what my boy assures me is some kind of talking machine, and any minute now it’s going to start communicating.

  It’s been twenty minutes since I notified Washington on this thing. It won’t be long before somebody back there decides this is top secret and slaps a freeze on us here that will make the Manhattan Project look like a publicity campaign. Now, I say this is the biggest thing that ever happened to Plum County—but if we don’t aim to be put right out of the picture, we’d better move fast.”

  “What you got in mind, Jedge?”

  “I propose we hold an open hearing right here in the court-house, the minute that thing gets its gear to working. We’ll put it on the air—Tom Clembers from the radio station’s already stringing wires, I see. Too bad we’ve got no TV equipment, but Jody Hurd has a movie camera. We’ll put Willow Grove on the map bigger’n Cape Canaveral ever was.”

  “We’re with you on that, Carter!”

  Ten minutes after the melodious voice of the Fianna’s translator had requested escort to the village headman, the visitor was looking over the crowded court-room with an expression reminiscent of a St. Bernard puppy hoping for a romp. The rustle of feet and throat-clearing subsided and the speaker began:

  “People of the Green World, happy the cycle—”

  Heads turned at the clump of feet coming down the side aisle; a heavy-torsoed man of middle age, bald, wearing a khaki shirt and trousers and rimless glasses and with a dark leather holster slapping his hip at each step, cleared the end of the front row of seats, planted himself, feet apart, yanked a heavy nickel-plated .44 revolver from the holster, took aim and fired five shots into the body of the Fianna at a range of ten feet.

  The violet form whipped convulsively, writhed from the bench to the floor with a sound like a wet fire hose being dropped, uttered a gasping twitter, and lay still. The gunman turned, dropped the pistol, threw up his hands, and called:

  “Sheriff Hoskins, I’m puttin’ myself in yer pertective custody.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence; then a rush of spectators for the alien. The sheriff’s three-hundred-and-nine-pound bulk bellied through the shouting mob to take up a stand before the khaki-clad man.

  “I always knew you was a mean one, Cecil Stump,” he said, unlimbering handcuffs, “ever since I seen you makin’ up them ground-glass baits for Joe Potter’s dog. But I never thought I’d see you turn to cold-blooded murder.” He waved at the bystanders.

  “Clear a path through here; I’m takin’ my prisoner over to the jail.”

  “Jest a dad-blamed minute, Sheriff.” Stump’s face was pale, his glasses were gone and one khaki shoulder strap dangled—but what was almost a grin twisted one meaty cheek. He hid his hands behind his back, leaned away from the cuffs. “I don’t like that word ‘prisoner’. I ast you fer pertection. And better look out who you go throwin’ that word ‘murder’ off at, too. I ain’t murdered nobody.”

  The sheriff blinked, turned to roar, “How’s the victim, Doc?”

  A small gray head rose from bending over the limp form of the Fianna. “Deader’n a mackerel, Sheriff.”

  “I guess that’s it. Let’s go, Cecil.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “First degree murder.”

  “Who’d I murder?”

  “Why, you killed this here…this stranger.”

  “That ain’t no stranger. That’s a varmint. Murder’s got to do with killin’ humerns, way I understand it. You goin’ to tell me that thing’s humern?”

  Ten people shouted at once:

  “—human as I am!”

  “—intelligent being!”

  “—tell me you can simply kill—”

  “—must be some kind of law—”

  The sheriff raised his hands, his jowls drawn down in a scowl.

  “What about it, Judge Gates? Any law against Cecil Stump killing the…uh…?”

  The judge thrust out his lower lip. “Well, let’s see,” he began.

  “Technically—”

  “Good Lord!” someone blurted. “You mean the laws on murder don’t define what constitutes—I mean, what—”

  “What a humern is?” Stump snorted. “Whatever it says, it sure-bob don’t include no purple worms. That’s a varmint, pure and simple. Ain’t no different killin’ it than any other critter.”

  “Then, by God, we’ll get him for malicious damage,” a man called. “Or hunting without a license—out of season!”

  “—carrying concealed weapons!”

  Stump went for his hip pocket, fumbled out a fat, shapeless wallet, extracted a thumbed rectangle of folded paper, offered it.

  “I’m a licensed exterminator. Got a permit to carry the gun, too. I ain’t broken no law.” He grinned openly now. “Jest doin’ my job, Sheriff. And at no charge to the county.”

  A smaller man with bristly red hair flared his nostr
ils at Stump. “You blood-thirsty idiot!” He raised a fist and shook it. “We’ll be a national disgrace—worse than Little Rock! Lynching’s too good for you!”

  “Hold on there, Weinstein,” the sheriff cut in. “Let’s not go gettin’ no lynch talk started.”

  “Lynch, is it!” Cecil Stump bellowed, his face suddenly red. “Why, I done a favor for every man here! Now you listen to me! What is that thing over there?” He jerked a blunt thumb toward the judicial bench. “It’s some kind of critter from Mars or someplace—you know that as well as me! And what’s it here for? It ain’t for the good of the likes of you and me, I can tell you that. It’s them or us. And this time, by God, we got in the first lick!”

  “Why you…you…hate-monger!”

  “Now, hold on right there. I’m as liberal-minded as the next feller. Hell, I can’t hardly tell a Jew from a white man. But when it comes to takin’ in a damned purple worm and callin’ it humern—that’s where I draw the line.”

  Sheriff Hoskins pushed between Stump and the surging front rank of the crowd. “Stay back there! I want you to disperse, peaceably, and let the law handle this.”

  “I reckon I’ll push off now, Sheriff,” Stump hitched up his belt. “I figgered you might have to calm ’em down right at first, but now they’ve had a chance to think it over and see I ain’t broken no law, ain’t none of these law-abiding folks going to do anything illegal—like tryin’ to get rough with a licensed exterminator just doin’ his job.” He stooped, retrieved his gun.

  “Here, I’ll take that,” Sheriff Hoskins said. “You can consider your gun license canceled—and your exterminatin’ license, too.”

  Stump grinned again, handed the revolver over.

  “Sure. I’m cooperative, Sheriff. Anything you say. Send it around to my place when you’re done with it.” He pushed his way through the crowd to the corridor door.

  “The rest of you stay put!” a portly man with a head of bushy white hair pushed his way through to the bench. “I’m calling an emergency Town Meeting to order here and now!”

  He banged the gavel on the scarred bench top, glanced down at the body of the dead alien, now covered by a flag.