Star Science Fiction 2 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Frederik Pohl

  Just then a fat man in one of those Hollywood shirts came out and sat down on the other side of me. She looked past me at him and said in a low voice: “Why don’t we go up to my room? I don’t want to tell my business to everybody in the world.”

  Well, we went up to her room. She got out a bottle of Scotch and phoned room service for some ice and soda, and we talked about nothing until it came. I helped her mix the drinks, and I thought she let her hand rest on my wrist.

  When we sat down she said: “I’ve been thinking about that Camsol account, and I’m not quite satisfied that either Barton or Solari can handle it properly. Do you think you would like to try it?”

  So it was working. I said: “I certainly would, and I think I could do a good job.”

  She said: “This is more or less a personal matter with me. I got the account myself, and I’m watching over it. You would have to work pretty closely with me all along the line.”

  I said: “I don’t see any objection to that.”

  She took a drink and said: “Anyone really interested in getting a job done ought to be willing to work without paying too much attention to the clock. Even if it’s quite late at night. Even if they’re newly married.”

  That was when I began to get a funny feeling. The only thing I could say was: “I won’t kick about working, and I don’t think Laura would mind.”

  She said: “Finish your drink and have another. I mean people working as closely as we would have to, have to establish a kind of rapport, a really close relationship.” She smiled a cast-iron smile at me and the funny feeling got stronger. I didn’t ...know what to say, and I don’t remember what I said, but she got up and filled the glasses again, and then said: “It’s so hot today, and we’re not outside. Do you mind waiting a minute while I change into something more comfortable?”

  You couldn’t miss it this time.

  I took a big gulp of the second drink and looked at my watch and said I’d promised to meet Laura and got out of there. I could see the point all right. Either the hormones had worked the wrong way, or I had mixed up the bottles, or that clerk had deliberately foxed me.

  Old Beirne is in love with me—and Laura merely consented to marry me.

  I left a note for Laura and took the next train back to New York—it was only an hour and a half—and rushed right up to that drugstore. The clerk I originally saw wasn’t there, but instead there was a long, thin drink of water. I asked about him and described him. “Oh, him,” the man said. “He was only with us two days. Quit after that.”

  “But what about those new hormones?” I asked.

  “Hormones?” he said. “We don’t sell hormones. You have to go to a hospital for them. And there aren’t any new ones I know of.”

  So there you are. That’s what I’m writing to you about. I can have the new job all right, but—

  My question is, what do I do?

  Herb

  <>

  * * * *

  ROBERT SHECKLEY

  When the first Star Science Fiction Stories was published, we presented in it an early story by a young phenomenon of the science-fiction field named Robert Sheckley. It is a measure both of the fast-moving character of the field and of the leaps-and-bounds development of this one individual author within it to be able to say that now, less than a year later, the name “Sheckley” on a magazine cover is a guarantee that readers will be attracted by his well-established talent for fresh and unusual ideas, and brilliantly incisive writing. As a first-class example of this first-class writer’s work, see-

  The Odor of Thought

  Leroy Cleevy’s real trouble started when he was taking Mailship 243 through the uncolonized Seergon Cluster. Before this, he had the usual problems of an interstellar mailman; an old ship, scored tubes, and faulty astrogation. But now, while he was taking line-of-direction readings, he noticed that his ship was growing uncomfortably warm.

  He sighed unhappily, switched on the refrigeration, and contacted the Postmaster at Base. He was at the extreme limit of radio contact, and the Postmaster’s voice floated in on a sea of static.

  “More trouble, Cleevy?” the Postmaster asked, in the ominous voice of a man who writes schedules and believes in them.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Cleevy said brightly. “Aside from the tubes and astrogation and wiring, everything’s fine except for the insulation and refrigeration.”

  “It’s a damned shame,” the Postmaster said, suddenly sympathetic. “I know how you feel.”

  Cleevy switched the refrigeration to FULL, wiped perspiration from his eyes, and decided that the Postmaster onlythought he knew how he felt.

  “Haven’t I asked the government for new ships over and over again?” The Postmaster laughed ruefully. “They seem to feel that I can get the mail through in any old crate.”

  At the moment, Cleevy wasn’t interested in the Postmaster’s troubles. Even with the refrigeration laboring at FULL, the ship was overheating.

  “Hang on a moment,” he said. He went to the rear of the ship, where the heat seemed to be emanating, and found that three of his tanks were filled, not with fuel, but with a bubbling white-hot slag. The fourth tank was rapidly undergoing the same change.

  Cleevy stared for a moment, turned, and sprinted to the radio.

  “No more fuel,” he said. “Catalytic action, I think. I told you we needed new tanks. I’m putting down on the first oxygen planet I can find.”

  He pulled down the Emergency Manual and looked up the Seergon Cluster. There were no colonies in the group, but the oxygen worlds had been charted for future reference. What was on them, aside from oxygen, no one knew. Cleevy expected to find out, if his ship stayed together long enough.

  “I’ll try 3-M-22,” he shouted over the mounting static.

  “Take good care of the mail,” the Postmaster howled back. “I’m sending a ship right out.”

  Cleevy told him what he could do with the mail, all twenty pounds of it. But the Postmaster had signed off by then.

  * * * *

  Cleevy made a good landing on 3-M-22; exceptionally good, taking into consideration the fact that his instruments were too hot to touch, his tubes were warped by heat, and the mail sack strapped to his back hampered his movements. Mailship 243 sailed in like a swan. Twenty feet above the planet’s surface it gave up and dropped like a stone.

  Cleevy held on to consciousness, although he was certain every bone in his body was broken. The sides of the ship were turning a dull red when he stumbled through the escape hatch, the mail sack still firmly strapped to his back. He staggered one hundred yards, eyes closed. Then the ship exploded, and knocked him flat on his face. He stood up, took two more steps, and passed out completely.

  * * * *

  When he recovered consciousness, he was lying on a little hillside, face down in tall grass. He was in a beautiful state of shock. He felt that he was detached from his body, a pure intellect floating in the air. All worries, emotions, fears, remained with his body; he was free.

  He looked around, and saw that a small animal was passing near him. It was about the size of a squirrel, but with dull green fur.

  As it came close, he saw that it had no eyes or ears.

  This didn’t surprise him. On the contrary, it seemed quite fitting. Why in hell should a squirrel have eyes or ears? Squirrels were better off not seeing the pain and torture of the world, not hearing the anguished screams of . . .

  Another animal approached, and this one was the size and shape of a timber wolf, but also colored green. Parallel evolution? It didn’t matter in the total scheme of things, he decided. This one, too, was eyeless and earless. But it had a magnificent set of teeth.

  Cleevy watched with only faint interest. What does a pure intellect care for wolves and squirrels, eyeless or otherwise? He observed that the squirrel had frozen, not more than five feet from the wolf. The wolf approached slowly. Then, not three feet away, he seemed to lose the scent. He shook his head and turned a slow
circle. When he moved forward again, he wasn’t going in the right direction.

  The blind hunt the blind, Cleevy told himself, and it seemed a deep and eternal truth. As he watched, the squirrel quivered; the wolf whirled, pounced, and devoured it in three gulps.

  What large teeth wolves have, Cleevy thought. Instantly the eyeless wolf whirled and faced him.

  Now he’s going to eat me, Cleevy thought. It amused him to realize that he was the first human to be eaten on this planet.

  The wolf was snarling in his face when Cleevy passed out again.

  * * * *

  It was evening when he recovered. Long shadows had formed over the land, and the sun was low in the sky. Cleevy sat up and flexed his arms and legs experimentally. Nothing was broken.

  He got up on one knee, groggy, but in possession of his senses. What had happened? He remembered the crash as though it were a thousand years ago. The ship had burned, he had walked away and fainted. After that he had met a wolf and a squirrel.

  He climbed unsteadily to his feet and looked around. He must have dreamed that last part. If there had been a wolf, he would have been killed.

  Glancing down at his feet, he saw the squirrel’s green tail, and a little farther away, its head.

  He tried desperately to think. So there had been a wolf, and a hungry one. If he expected to survive until the rescue ship came, he had to find out exactly what had happened, and why.

  Neither animal had eyes or ears. How did they track each other? Smell? If so, why did the wolf have so much trouble finding the squirrel?

  He heard a low growl, and turned. There, not fifty feet away, was something that looked like a panther. A yellow-brown, eyeless, earless panther.

  Damned menagerie, Cleevy thought, and crouched down in the tall grass. This planet was rushing him along too fast. He needed time to think. How did these animals operate? Instead of sight, did they have a sense of location?

  The panther began to move away.

  Cleevy breathed a little easier. Perhaps, if he stayed out of sight, the panther . . .

  As soon as he thought the wordpanther, the beast turned in his direction.

  What have I done, Cleevy asked himself, burrowing deeper into the grass. He can’t smell me or see me or hear me. All I did was decide to stay out of his way . . .

  Head high, the panther began to pace toward him.

  That did it. Without eyes or ears, there was only one way the beast could have detected him.

  It had to be telepathic!

  To test this theory, he thought the word panther, identifying it automatically with the animal that was approaching him. The panther roared furiously, and shortened the distance between them.

  In a fraction of a second, Cleevy understood a lot of things. The wolf had been tracking the squirrel by telepathy. The squirrel had frozen—perhaps it had even stopped thinking! The wolf had been thrown off the scent—until the squirrel wasn’t able to keep from thinking any longer.

  In that case, why hadn’t the wolf attacked him while he was unconscious? Perhaps he had stopped thinking—or at least, stopped thinking on a wave length that the wolf could receive. Probably there was more to it than that.

  Right now, his problem was thepanther.

  The beast roared again. It was only thirty feet away, and closing the distance rapidly.

  All he had to do, Cleevy thought, was not to think of— was to think of something else. In that way, perhaps the —well, perhaps it would lose the scent. He started to think about all the girls he had ever known, in painstaking detail.

  The panther stopped and pawed the ground doubtfully.

  Cleevy went on thinking; about girls, and ships, and planets, and girls, and ships, and everything but panthers . . .

  The panther advanced another five feet.

  Damn it, he thought, how do younot think of something? You think furiously about stones and rocks and people and places and things, but your mind always returns to—but you ignore that, and concentrate on your sainted grandmother, your drunken old father, the bruises on your right leg (count them. Eight. Count them again. Still eight.) And now you glance up, casually, seeing, but not really recognizing the—anyhow, it’s still advancing.

  Cleevy found that trying not to think of something is like trying to stop an avalanche with your bare hands. He realized that the human mind couldn’t be inhibited as directly and consciously as all that. It takes time, and practice.

  He had about fifteen feet left in which to learn how not to think of a . . .

  Well, there are also card games to think about, and parties, and dogs, cats, horses, mice, sheep, wolves (move away!) and bruises, battleships, caves, lairs, dens, cubs (watch out) p-paramounts, and tantamounts and gadabouts and roundabouts and roustabouts and ins-and-outs (about eight feet) meals, food, fire, fox, fur, pigs, pokes, prams, and p-p-p-p-...

  The panther was about five feet away now, and crouching for the spring. Cleevy couldn’t hold back the thought any longer. Then, in a burst of inspiration, he thought:

  Pantheress!

  The panther, still crouching, faced him doubtfully.

  Cleevy concentrated on the idea of a pantheress. He was a pantheress, and what did this panther mean by frightening her that way? He thought about his (her, damn it!) cubs, a warm cave, the pleasure of tracking down squirrels ...

  The panther advanced slowly and rubbed against Cleevy. Cleevy thought desperately, what fine weather we’ve been having, and what a fine panther this chap really is, so big, so strong, and with such enormous teeth.

  The panther purred!

  Cleevy lay down and curled an imaginary tail around him, and decided he was going to sleep. The panther stood by indecisively. He seemed to feel that something was wrong. He growled once, deep in his throat, then turned and loped away.

  The sun had just set, and the entire land was a deep blue. Cleevy found that he was shaking uncontrollably, and on the verge of hysterical laughter. If the panther had stayed another moment . . .

  He controlled himself with an effort. It was time for some serious thinking.

  Probably every animal had its characteristic thought-smell. A squirrel emitted one kind, a wolf another, and a human still another. The all-important question was, could he be traced only when he thought of some animal? Or could his thought-pattern, like an odor, be detected even when he was not thinking of anything in particular?

  Apparently, the panther had scented him only when he thought specifically of it. But that could be due to un-familiarity. His alien thought-smell might have confused the panther—this time.

  He’d just have to wait and see. The panther probably wasn’t stupid. It was just the first time that trick had been played on him.

  Any trick will work—once.

  Cleevy lay back and stared at the sky. He was too tired to move, and his bruised body ached. What would happen now, at night? Did the beasts continue to hunt? Or was there a truce of some sort? He didn’t give a damn.

  To hell with squirrels, wolves, panthers, lions, tigers, and reindeer.

  He slept.

  * * * *

  The next morning, he was surprised to find himself still alive. So far, so good. It might be a good day after all. Cheerfully he walked to his ship.

  All that was left of Mailship 243 was a pile of twisted metal strewn across the scorched earth. Cleevy found a bar of metal, hefted it, and slid it into his belt below the mail sack. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it gave him a certain confidence.

  The ship was a total loss. He left, and began to look for food. In the surrounding countryside there were several fruit-bearing shrubs. He sampled one warily, and found it tart but not unpleasant. He gorged himself on fruit, and washed it down with water from a nearby stream.

  He hadn’t seen any animals, so far. Of course, for all he knew, they could be closing in on him now.

  He avoided the thought and started looking for a place to hide. His best bet was to stay out of sight until the rescue ship came.
He tramped over the gentle rolling hills, looking for a cliff, a tree, a cave. But the amiable landscape presented nothing larger than a six-foot shrub.

  By afternoon he was tired and irritated, and scanning the skies anxiously. Why wasn’t the ship here? It should take no longer than a day or two, he estimated, for a fast emergency ship to reach him.

  If the Postmaster was looking on the right planet.

  There was a movement in the sky. He looked up, his heart racing furiously. There was something there!

  It was a bird. It sailed slowly over him, balancing easily on its gigantic wings. It dipped once, then flew on.

  It looked amazingly like a vulture.

  He continued walking. In another moment, he found himself face to face with four blind wolves.

  That took care of one question. He could be traced by his characteristic thought-smell. Evidently the beasts of this planet had decided he wasn’t too alien to eat.

  The wolves moved cautiously toward him. Cleevy tried the trick he had used the other day. Lifting the metal bar out of his belt, he thought of himself as a female wolf searching for her cubs. Won’t one of you gentlemen help me find them? They were here only a few minutes ago. One was green, one was spotted, and the other . . .

  Perhaps these wolves didn’t have spotted cubs. One of them leaped at Cleevy. Cleevy struck him in mid-air with his bar, and the wolf staggered back.

  Shoulder to shoulder, the four closed in.

  Desperately Cleevy tried to think himself out of existence. No use. The wolves kept on coming.

  Cleevy thought of a panther.He was a panther, a big one, and he was looking forward to a meal of wolf.

  That stopped them. They switched their tails anxiously, but held their ground.

  Cleevy growled, pawed the earth and stalked forward. The wolves retreated, but one started to slip in back of him.

  He moved sideways, trying to keep from being circled. It seemed that they really didn’t believe him. Perhaps he didn’t make a good panther. They had stopped retreating. One was in back of him, and the others stood firm, their tongues lolling out on their wet, open jaws. Cleevy growled ferociously, and swung his club. A wolf darted back, but the one behind him sprang, landed on the mail sack, and knocked him over.