Ahead of Time

by Henry Kuttner

  "You must not use force to solve your problems," Quetzalcoatl said with great firmness. "Force is evil. You will make peace now."

  "Or else you will destroy us," Miguel said. He shrugged again and met Fernandez’ eyes. "Very well, señor. You have an argument I do not care to resist. Al fin, I agree. What must we do?"

  Quetzalcoatl turned to Fernandez.

  "I too, señor," the latter said, with a sigh. "You are, no doubt, right. Let us have peace."

  "You will take hands," Quetzalcoatl said, his eyes gleaming. "You will swear brotherhood."

  Miguel held out his hand. Fernandez took it firmly and the two men grinned at each other.

  "You see?" Quetzalcoatl said, giving them his austere smile. "It is not hard at all. Now you are friends. Stay friends."

  He turned away and walked toward the flying saucer. A door opened smoothly in the sleek hull. On the threshold Quetzalcoatl turned.

  "Remember," he said. "I shall be watching."

  "Without a doubt," Fernandez said. "Adiós, señor."

  "Vaya con Dios," Miguel added.

  The smooth surface of die hull closed after Quetzalcoatl. A moment later the flying saucer lifted smoothly and rose until it was a hundred feet above the ground. Then it shot off to the north like a sudden flash of lightning and was gone.

  "As I thought," Miguel said. "He was from los estados unidos."

  Fernandez shrugged.

  "There was a moment when I thought he might tell us something sensible," he said. "No doubt he had great wisdom. Truly, life is not easy."

  "Oh, it is easy enough for him," Miguel said. "But he does not live in Sonora. We, however, do. Fortunately, I and my family have a good water hole to rely on. For those without one, life is indeed hard."

  "It is a very poor water hole," Fernandez said. "Such as it is, however, it is mine." He was rolling a cigarette as he spoke. He handed it to Miguel and rolled another for himself. The two men smoked for a while in silence. Then, still silent, they parted.

  Miguel went back to the wineskin on the hill. He took a long drink, grunted with pleasure, and looked around him. His knife, machete and rifle were carelessly flung down not far away. He recovered them and made sure he had a full clip. Then he peered cautiously around the rock barricade.

  A bullet splashed on the stone near his face. He returned the shot.

  After that, there was silence for a while. Miguel sat back and took another drink. His eye was caught by a road runner scuttling past, with the tail of a lizard dangling from his beak. It was probably the same road runner as before, and perhaps the same lizard, slowly progressing toward digestion.

  Miguel called softly, "Señor Bird! It is wrong to eat lizards. It is very wrong."

  The road runner cocked a beady eye at him and ran on.

  Miguel raised and aimed his rifle.

  "Stop eating lizards, Señor Bird. Stop, or I must kill you."

  The road runner ran on across the rifle sights.

  "Don't you understand how to stop?" Miguel called gently. "Must I explain how?"

  The road runner paused. The tail of the lizard disappeared completely.

  "Oh, very well," Miguel said. "When I find out how a road runner can stop eating lizards and still live, then I will tell you, amigo. But until then, go with God."

  He turned and aimed the rifle across the valley again.

  Home Is the Hunter

  THERE’S NOBODY I can talk to except myself. I stand here at the head of the great waterfall of marble steps dropping into the reception hall below, and all my wives in all their jewels are waiting, for this is a Hunter's Triumph—my Triumph, Honest Roger Bellamy, Hunter. The light glitters on the glass cases down there with the hundreds of dried heads that I have taken in fair combat, and I’m one of the most powerful men in New York. The heads make me powerful.

  But there’s nobody I can talk to. Except myself? Inside me, listening, is there another Honest Roger Bellamy? I don’t know. Maybe he’s the only real part of me. I go along the best I can, and it doesn’t do any good. Maybe the Bellamy inside of me doesn't like what I do. But I have to do it. I can’t stop. I was born a Head-Hunter. It’s a great heritage to be born to. Who doesn't envy me? Who wouldn't change with me, if they could?

  But it doesn’t do any good at all.

  I’m no good.

  Listen to me, Bellamy, listen to me, if you're there at all, deep inside my head. You’ve got to listen—you’ve got to understand. You there inside the skull. You can turn up in a glass case in some other Head-Hunter’s reception hall any day now, any day, with the crowds of populi outside pressing against the view-windows and the guests coming in to see and envy and all the wives standing by in satin and jewels.

  Maybe you don’t understand, Bellamy. You should feel fine now. It must be that you don't know this real world I have to go on living in. A hundred years ago, or a thousand, it might have been different. But this is the Twenty-first Century. It’s today, it’s now, and there’s no turning back.

  I don’t think you understand.

  You see, there isn’t any choice. Either you end up in another Head-Hunter’s glass case, along with your whole collection, while your wives and children are turned out to be populi, or else you die naturally (suicide in one way) and your eldest son inherits your collection, and you become immortal, in a plastic monument. You stand forever in transparent plastic on a pedestal along the edge of Central Park, like Renway and old Falconer and Brennan and all the others. Everyone remembers and admires and envies you.

  Will you keep on thinking then, Bellamy, inside the plastic? Will I?

  Falconer was a great Hunter. He never slowed down, and he lived to be fifty-two. For a Head-Hunter, that is a great old age. There are stories that he killed himself. I don’t know. The wonder is that he kept his head on his shoulders for fifty-two years. The competition is growing harder, and there are more and more younger men these days.

  Listen to me, Bellamy, the Bellamy within. Have you ever really understood? Do you still think this is the wonderful young time, the boyhood time when life is easy? Were you ever with me in the long, merciless years while my body and mind learned to be a Head-Hunter? I’m still young and strong. My training has never stopped. But the early years were the hardest.

  Before then, there was the wonderful time. It lasted for six years only, six years of happiness and warmth and love with my mother in the harem, and the foster mothers and the other children. My father was very kind then. But when I was six, it stopped. They shouldn’t have taught us love at all, if it had to end so soon. Is it that you remember, Bellamy within? If it is, it can never come back. You know that. Surely you know it.

  The roots of the training were obedience and discipline. My father was not kind any more. I did not see my mother often, and when I did she was changed, too. Still, there was praise. There were the parades when the populi cheered me and my father. He and the trainers praised me, too, when I showed I had special skill in the duel, or in marksmanship or judo-stalking.

  It was forbidden, but my brothers and I sometimes tried to kill each other. The trainers watched us carefully. I was not the heir, then. But I became the heir when my elder brother's neck was broken in a judo-fall.

  It seemed an accident, but of course it wasn't, and then I had to be more careful than ever. I had to become very skillful.

  All that time, all that painful time, learning to kill. It was natural. They kept telling us how natural it was. We had to learn. And there could be only one heir. . . .

  We lived under a cloud of fear, even then. If my father's head had been taken, we would all have been turned out of the mansion. Oh, we wouldn't have gone hungry or unsheltered. Not in this age of science. But not to be a Head-Hunter! Not to become immortal, in a plastic monument standing by Central Park!

  Sometimes I dream that I am one of the populi. It seems strange, but in the dream I am hungry. And that is impossible. The great power plants supply all the world needs. Machines synt
hesize food and build houses and give us all the necessities of life. I could never be one of the populi, but if I were I would go into a restaurant and take whatever food I wished out of the little glass-fronted cubbyholes. I would eat well—far better than I eat now. And yet, in my dream, I am hungry.

  Perhaps the food I eat does not satisfy you, Bellamy within me. It does not satisfy me, but it is not meant to. It is nutritious. Its taste is unpleasant, but all the necessary proteins and minerals and vitamins are in it to keep my brain and body at their highest pitch. And it should not be pleasant. It is not pleasure that leads a man to immortality in plastic. Pleasure is a weakening and an evil thing.

  Bellamy within—do you hate me?

  My life has not been easy. It isn’t easy now. The stubborn flesh fights against the immortal future, urging a man to be weak. But if you are weak, how long can you hope to keep your head on your shoulders?

  The populi sleep with their wives. I have never even kissed any of mine. (Is it you who have sent me dreams?) My children?—yes, they are mine; artificial insemination is the answer. I sleep on a hard bed. Sometimes I wear a hair shirt. I drink only water. My food is tasteless. With my trainers I exercise every day, until I am very tired. The life is hard—but in the end we shall stand forever in a plastic monument, you and I, while the world envies and admires. I shall die a Head-Hunter, and I shall be immortal.

  The proof is in the glass cases down there in my reception hall. The heads, the heads—look, Bellamy, so many heads. Stratton, my first. I killed him in Central Park with a machete. This is the scar on my temple that he gave me that night. I learned to be defter. I had to.

  Each time I went into Central Park, fear and hate helped me. Sometimes it is dreadful in the Park. We go there only at night, and sometimes we stalk for many nights before we take a head. The Park is forbidden, you know, to all but Head-Hunters. It is our hunting ground.

  I have been shrewd and cunning and skillful. I have shown great courage. I have stopped my fears and nursed my hate, there in the Park's shadows, listening, waiting, stalking, never knowing when I might feel sharp steel burning through my throat. There are no rules in the Park. Guns or clubs or knives—once I was caught in a mantrap, all steel and cables and sharp teeth. But I had moved in time, and fast enough, so I kept my right hand free and shot Miller between the eyes when he came to take me. There is Miller's head down there. You would never know a bullet had gone through his forehead. The thanatologists are clever. But usually we try not to spoil the heads.

  What is it that troubles you so, Bellamy within? I am one of the greatest Hunters in New York. But a man must be cunning. He must lay traps and snares a long way in advance, and not only in Central Park. He must keep his spies active and his lines of contact taut in every mansion in the city. He must know who is powerful and who is not worth taking. What good would it do to win against a Hunter with only a dozen heads in his hall?

  I have hundreds. Until yesterday, I stood ahead of every man in my age group. Until yesterday I was the envy of all I knew, the idol of the populi, the acknowledged master of half New York. Half New York! Do you know how much that meant to me? That my rivals loathed me and acknowledged me their better? You do know, Bellamy. It was the breath of life that True Jonathan Hull and Good Ben Griswold ground their teeth when they thought of me, and that Black Bill Lindman and Whistler Cowles counted their trophies and then called me on the TV phone and begged me with tears of hate and fury in their eyes to meet them in the Park and give them the chance they craved.

  I laughed at them. I laughed Black Bill Lindman into a berserker rage and then half-envied him, because I have not been berserker myself for a long while now. I like that wild unloosening of all my awarenesses but one—the killing instinct, blind and without reason. I could forget even you then, Bellamy within.

  But that was yesterday.

  And yesterday night, Good Ben Griswold took a head. Do you remember how we felt when we learned of it, you and I? First I wanted to die, Bellamy. Then I hated Ben as I have never hated anyone before, and I have known much hate. I would not believe he had done it. I would not believe which head he took.

  I said it was a mistake, that he took a head from the populi. But I know I lied. No one takes a common head. They have no value. Then I said to myself, it can’t be the head of True Jonathan Hull. It can’t be. It must not be. For Hull was powerful. His hall held almost as many heads as mine. If Griswold were to have them all he would be far more powerful than I. The thought was a thing I could not endure.

  I put on my status cap, with as many bells on it as the heads I have taken, and I went out to see. It was true, Bellamy.

  The mansion of Jonathan Hull was being emptied. The mob was surging in and out, Hull’s wives and children were leaving in little, quiet groups. The wives did not seem unhappy, but the boys did. (Girls are sent to the populi at birth; they are worthless.) I watched the boys for a while. They were all wretched and angry. One was nearly sixteen, a big, agile lad who must have nearly finished his training. Someday I might meet him in the Park.

  The other boys were all too young. Now that their training had been interrupted, they would never dare enter the Park. That, of course, is why none of the populi ever become Hunters. It takes long years of arduous training to turn a child from a rabbit to a tiger. In Central Park only the tigers survive.

  I looked through True Jonathan’s view-windows. I saw that the glass cases in his reception hall were empty. So it was not a nightmare or a lie. Griswold did have them, I told myself, them and True Jonathan’s head besides. I went into a doorway and clenched my fists and beat my head against the brownstone and groaned with self-contempt.

  I was no good at all. I hated myself, and I hated Griswold too. Presently it was only that second hate that remained. So I knew what I had to do. Today, I thought, he stands where I stood yesterday. Desperate men will be talking to him, begging him, challenging him, trying every means they know to get him into the Park tonight.

  But I am crafty. I make my plans far ahead. I have networks that stretch into the mansions of every Hunter in the city, crossing their own webs.

  One of my wives, Nelda, was the key here. Long ago I realized that she was beginning to dislike me. I never knew why. I fostered that dislike until it became hate. I saw to it that Griswold would learn the story. It is by stratagems like this that I became as powerful as I was then—and will be again, will surely be again.

  I put a special glove on my hand (you could not tell it was a glove) and I went to my TV phone and called Good Ben Griswold. He came grinning to the screen.

  "I challenge you, Ben," I said. "Tonight at nine, in the Park, by the carousel site."

  He laughed at me. He was a tall, heavily muscled man with a thick neck. I looked at his neck.

  "I was waiting to hear from you, Roger," he said.

  "Tonight at nine," I repeated.

  He laughed again. "Oh no, Roger," he said. "Why should I risk my head?"

  "You’re a coward."

  "Certainly I’m a coward," he said, still grinning, "when there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose. Was I a coward last night, when I took Hull’s head? I've had my eye on him a long time, Roger. I'll admit I was afraid you'd get him first. Why didn't you, anyway?"

  "It’s your head I’m after, Ben."

  "Not tonight," he said. "Not for quite a while. I’m not going back to the Park for a long time. I’ll be too busy. You’re out of the running now, Roger, anyhow. How many heads have you?"

  He knew, God damn him, how far in advance of me he was—now. I let the hate show in my face.

  "The Park at nine tonight," I said. "The carousel site. Or else I’ll know you’re afraid."

  "Eat your heart out, Roger," he mocked me. "Tonight I lead a parade. Watch me. Or don’t—but you’ll be thinking about me. You can’t help that."

  "You swine, you rotten cowardly swine."

  He laughed; he derided me, he goaded me, as I had done so many times t
o others. I did not have to pretend anger. I wanted to reach into the screen and sink my fingers in his throat. The furious rage was good to feel. It was very good. I let it build until it seemed high enough. I let him laugh and enjoy it.

  Then at last I did what I had been planning. At the right moment, when it looked convincing, I let myself lose all control and I smashed my fist into the TV screen. It shattered. Griswold's face flew apart; I liked that.

  The connection was broken, of course. But I knew he would check quickly back. I slipped the protective glove from my right hand and called a servant I knew I could trust. (He is a criminal; I protect him. If I die he will die and he knows it.) He bandaged my unharmed right hand and I told him what to say to the other servants. I knew the word would reach Nelda quickly, in the harem, and I knew that Griswold would hear within an hour.

  I fed my anger. All day, in the gymnasium I practiced with my trainers, machete and pistol in my left hand only. I made it seem that I was approaching the berserker stage, the killing madness that overcomes us when we feel we have failed too greatly.

  That kind of failure can have one of two results only. Suicide is the other. You risk nothing then, and you know your body will stand by the Park in its plastic monument. But sometimes the hate turns outward and there is no fear left. Then the Hunter is berserker, and while this makes him very dangerous, he is also good quarry then—he forgets his cunning.

  It was dangerous to me, too, for that kind of forgetfulness is very tempting. The next best thing to oblivion itself.

  Well, I had set the lure for Griswold. But it would take more than a lure to bring him out when he thought he had nothing to gain by such a risk. So I set rumors loose. They were very plausible rumors. I let it be whispered that Black Bill Lindman and Whistler Cowles, as desperate as I at Griswold’s triumph over us all, had challenged each other to a meeting in the Park that night. Only one could come out alive, but that one would be master of New York so far as our age group counted power. (There was, of course, Old Murdoch with his fabulous collection accumulated over a lifetime. It was only among ourselves that the rivalry ran so high.)