“So no one but I saw the color of the mineral in the cave; you Lhari yourselves don’t know that your fuel looks unlike anything else in the universe. You never cared to find out how your world looked to your Mentorians. So your medics never questioned my memories of an eighth color. To you, it’s just another shade of gray, but under a light strong enough to blind any but Mentorian eyes, it takes on a special color—”
The conference broke up in disorder, the four Lhari clustering together in a furious babble, then hastily leaving the room. Bart stood waiting, feeling empty and cold. Vorongil’s stare baffled him with unreadable emotion.
“You fool, you unspeakable young idiot!” Raynor One groaned. “Why did you blurt it out like that before every news media in the galaxy? Why, we could have had a monopoly on the star-drive—Eight Colors and Vega Interplanet!” As he saw the men of the press approaching with their microphones, lights, cameras and TV equipment, he gripped Bart urgently by the arm.
“We can still salvage something! Don’t talk any more! Refer them to me—say I’m your guardian and your business manager—you can still make something of this—”
“That’s just what I don’t want to do,” Bart replied, and broke away from him to approach the newsmen.
“Yes, certainly, I’ll answer all your questions, gentlemen.”
Raynor One flung up his hands in despair, but over their shoulder he saw the glowing face of Meta, and smiled. She, at least, would understand. So would Raynor Three.
A page boy touched Bart on the arm. “Mr. Steele,” he said, “you are to appear immediately before the World Council!”
He was to be asked one question again and again in the days that followed, but his real answer was to Meta and Raynor Three, looking quietly past Raynor One and speaking to the news cameras that would carry his words all over the galaxy to men and Lhari:
“Why didn’t I keep it for myself? Because there are always men like Montano, who in their mistaken pride will murder and steal for such things. I want this knowledge to be open to all men, to be used for their benefit. There has been too much secrecy already. I want all men to have the stars.”
He had to tell his story again and again to the hastily summoned representatives of the Galactic Federation. At one point the delegate from his home star of Vega actually rose and shouted to him, “This is treason! You betrayed your home world—and the whole human race! Don’t you know the Lhari may fight a war over this?”
Bart remembered Vorongil’s silent, sad confession of the Lhari fears.
“No,” he said gently. “No. There won’t be any war unless we start one. The Lhari won’t start any war. Believe me.”
But inwardly, he sweated. What would the Lhari do?
They had to wait for representatives of the Lhari Council to make the journey from their home galaxy; meanwhile they kept Bart in protective custody. There was, of course, no question of sending him to a “prison planet”; public opinion would have crucified any government that suggested punishment for the man who had discovered a human world with deposits of Catalyst A. Bart could claim an “explorer’s share,” and Raynor One had lost no time in filing that claim on his behalf.
But he was lonely and anxious. They had confined him to a set of rooms high in the building overlooking the spaceport; from the balcony he could see the ships landing and departing. Life went on, ships came and went, and out there in the vast night of space, the suns and colors flamed and rolled, heedless of the little atoms that traveled and intrigued between them.
A night came when the buzzer sounded and he opened the door to Raynor One and Raynor Three.
“Better turn on your vision-screen, Bart. The Elder of the Lhari Council has arrived with their official decision, and he’s going to announce it.”
Bart waited, anxiously, pacing the room, while on the TV screen various dignitaries presented the Elder.
“We are the first race to travel the stars.” A bald head, an ancient Lhari face seamed like glazed pottery, looked at Bart from the screen, and Bart remembered when he had stood before that face, sick with defeat. But now he need not pretend to hold his head erect.
“We have had a long and triumphant time as masters of the stars,” the Lhari said. “But triumph and power will sicken and stagnate the race which holds them too long unchallenged. We reached this point once before. Then a Lhari captain, Rhazon of Nedrun, abandoned the safe ways of caution, and out of his blind leap in the blind dark came many good things. Trade with the human race. Our Mentorian allies. A system of mathematics to take the hazards from our star-travel.
“Yet once again the Lhari had grown cautious and fearful. And a young man named Bartol took a blind leap into unknown darkness, all alone—”
“Not alone,” Bart said as if to himself, “it took two men called Briscoe. And my father. And a couple of Raynors. And even a man called Montano, because without that, I’d never have decided—”
“Like Rhazon of Nedrun, like all pioneers, this young man has been cursed by his own people, the very ones who will one day benefit from his daring. He has found his people a firm footing among the stars. It is too late for the Lhari to regret that we did not sooner extend you the hand of welcome there. You have climbed, unaided, to join us. For good or ill, we must make room for you.
“But there is room for all. Competition is the lifeblood of trade, and we face the future without fear, knowing that life still holds many surprises for the living. I say to you: welcome to the stars.”
Even while Bart stood speechless with the knowledge of success, the door opened again, and Bart, turning, cried out in amazement.
“Tommy! Ringg! Meta!”
“Sure,” Tommy exclaimed, “we’ve got to celebrate,” but Bart stopped, looking past them.
“Captain Vorongil!” he said, and went to greet the old Lhari. “I thought you’d hate me, rieko mori.” The term of respect fell naturally from his lips.
“I did, for a time,” Vorongil said quietly. “But I remembered the day we stood on Lharillis, by the monument. And that you risked—perhaps your life, certainly your eyesight—to save us from death. So when the Elder asked for my estimate of your people, I gave it.”
“I thought it sounded like you.” Bart felt that his happiness was complete.
“And now,” Ringg cried, “let’s celebrate! Meta, you haven’t even told him that he’s free!”
But while the party got rolling, Bart wondered—free for what? And after a little while he went out on the balcony and stood looking down at the spaceport, where the Swiftwing lay in shadow, huge, beloved—renounced.
“What now, Bartol?” Vorongil’s quiet voice asked from his elbow. “You’re famous—notorious. You’re going to be rich, and a celebrity.”
“I was wishing I could get away until the excitement dies down.”
“Well,” said Vorongil, “why don’t you? The Swiftwing ships out tonight, Bartol—for Antares and beyond. It will be a couple of years before your Eight Colors can be made over into an Interstellar line—and as Raynor One has said to me several times, he’ll have to handle all those details, for you’re not of age yet.
“I’ve been thinking. Now that we Lhari must share space with your people, you’ll need experienced men for your ships. Unless we all want the disasters born of trial and error, we Lhari had better help you train your men quickly and well. I want you to go back on the Swiftwing with me. Not an apprentice, but representative of Eight Colors, to act as liaison between men and Lhari—at least until your own affairs claim your attention.”
Behind them on the balcony, Tommy appeared, making signals to Bart: “Say yes! Say yes, Bart! I did!”
Bart’s eyes suddenly filled. Out of defeat he had won success beyond his greatest hopes. But he did not feel all glad; he felt only a heavy responsibility. Whether good or bad came of the gift he had snatched from the stars, would rest in large measure on his own shoulders. He was going back to space—to learn the responsibility that went with it.
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“I accept,” he said gravely.
“Oh, boy!” Tommy dragged Ringg into a sort of war dance of exuberant celebration, pointing at the flaring glow of the spaceport gates. “Here, by grace of the Lhari, stands the doorway to all the stars,” he quoted. “Well, maybe you were here first. But look out—we’re coming!”
A doorway to the stars. Bart had crossed that doorway once, frightened and alone. Dad, if you could only know! The first interstellar ship of Eight Colors was to bear the name Rupert Steele, but that was years in the future.
Now, looking at the Swiftwing, at Ringg and Tommy, at Raynor Three and Vorongil, who would all be his shipmates in the new world they were building, he felt suddenly very lonely again.
“Come in, Bart. It’s your party,” Meta said softly, and he felt her hand lying in his. He looked down at the pretty Mentorian girl. She would be with him, too. And suddenly he knew he would never be lonely again.
His arm around Meta, his friends—man and Lhari—at his shoulder, he went back to the celebration, to plan for the first intergalactic voyage to the stars.
The Crime Therapist
the rigellian named Rhoum murmured sibilantly, “You realize, Mr. Colby, that this operation is illegal?”
Colby furtively mopped his brow. “Yes. I thought we’d been all over that before.”
It seemed incredible that this place actually existed, here on a modern Earth, where you could have shrimp in California and twenty minutes later, for a fifty-cent traffic-token, have coffee in Boston; where two weeks passage on a dionite-drive spaceship would take you to Theta Centaurus, and two months to the fourth planet of Antares. Here, where children were carefully conditioned for social adjustment, and crime simply was not.
Yet, that this office was here. The sign on the door said simply:
Dr. Rhoum (Ex—T.), M.D. Licensed Crime Therapist.
“I just wanted it to be understood, completely,” the little Extra-terrestrial breathed hissily, and looked at the puny man in the relaxit. “Unfortunately, your psychotherapeutic authorities do not yet recognize the criminal impulses to be a form of insanity as normal, if I may make a minor paradox, as any other. They treat criminals as socially maladjusted individuals, not as psychoneurotics. And they fail to realize that, in the one type of individual, these impulses cannot be discharged by ordinary rehabilitation methods. Nor can they be sublimated; they need satisfaction.”
Rhoum paused. Colby leaned forward, sweating a little with anticipation.
Rhoum continued smoothly, “I had a patient, several weeks ago, who was an arsonist. Or rather, he should have been an arsonist. Most unfortunately, your compulsory childhood social conditioning had sent him into a state of continual sublimation and frustration. Conditioning told him, and he believed it consciously, that arson was an antisocial impulse, besides, most houses today are flameproof. He was on the verge of total breakdown; fortunately, he was referred to us for treatment—in time.”
“I thought you said you weren’t legal,” growled Colby.
“We are not inside Terran law,” Rhoum smiled. “The Terran Empire provisions permit us to carry on our business. It is illegal for citizens of Earth to patronize our therapies. But,” he smiled, again, “it is to our client’s best advantage not to talk. And—the word gets around. Oh, yes; it gets around.”
A brief pause, then Rhoum continued, “But I was telling you about my client. At our therapy center, we erected a large building of highly-inflammable material. At his leisure,
he burned it down. It made a beautiful blaze—beautiful. Very successful therapy.”
“. . . Where is he now?” Colby asked, his small, close-set eyes gleaming with excitement.
Rhoum drew his smooth brows together in a little frown. “Well, the case was a peculiar one, Mr. Colby. As a direct result, he contracted severe burns and died. But he died sane—and happy, Mr. Colby.”
Colby rubbed his scrawny hands. “I see,” he murmured, chuckling. “The operation was a success, but the patient died.”
Rhoum concealed a look of violent dislike. “You might put it that way, sir.”
Colby suddenly sat bolt upright in the relaxit, pushing his feet to the pneumatic carpet. His tongue slid over thin lips. “That—there wouldn’t be any—any danger of anything like that, happening to me, would there?” he whispered, looking around furtively.
“Oh, dear me, no, sir! The nature of your ailment is altogether different, if you will allow me to say so. I understand quite well. Arsonists are fanatics; murderers are really a relatively mild form of psychotic, you might say. The arsonist— or pyromaniac, you might say—committed suicide, in an elaborate way. He really wanted to die, you see; his antisocial neurosis built itself up to a self-destruction complex. In immolating the building, he really immolated himself.”
“I see.” Colby was bored now; he tapped his foot impatiently. “Er—do you handle murderers very often?”
“Oh, yes. Homicidal mania is very common—especially since it has been possible to construct such lifelike android robots within a period of three to four weeks. Until the previous decade, you know, it often took several months to make a single model, and the results were often uncertain. The new Centaurian process is most effective. Before, when we had to wait so long for the delivery of androids, the— well, the delay in therapy—was often disastrous to the patient. In a case of murder, you see, immediate therapy is often imperative. Why, just last week—but I am boring you now, Mr. Colby.”
Colby leaned forward, the small eyes glowing expectantly. “Oh, no, really I’m not bored, Doctor Rhoum. Really. Please go on,” he murmured emphatically. Rhoum’s cool, nonhuman eyes surveyed him quizzically.
“Very well. You—we had a patient, last week, a confirmed sadist, and psychiatric examination showed that beneath his conditioning he was a seriously-frustrated potential murderer. Fortunately, another client had just cancelled his appointment for mayhem therapy—oh, yes, we sometimes have spontaneous cures where therapy becomes unnecessary—and we had six young-girl androids on hand, quite perfect models—a few of them had been made for assault therapy. Only one was a standard murder model. They were quite expensive, too—not these assembly-line robot affairs which are just one notch better than the old steeloid frame jobs. They were genuine female androids, with all the details complete—you follow me?”
Colby smirked. “Nice work!”
Rhoum’s professionally lifted eyebrow cut him off. “Within a week of therapy, Mr. Colby, he had murdered them all. His methods—but I fear I must spare you the details.” The Rigellian ignored Colby’s disappointed frown. “Professional ethics, you will understand.”
“What—what happened to him?”
“He was discharged yesterday morning, completely sane, my dear sir. Completely sane.”
Colby could not keep back a sigh of relieved satisfaction. “Of course,” he said, smirking again, “I’m not really insane, Dr. Rhoum, you understand. But I feel it would be better to get it out of my system. These minor frustrations, you know; they take it out of my nerves.”
“Ah, yes,” Rhoum was professional and serene. “Now, in your case, sir. A serious hate complex—”
“Oh, hardly serious—” protested Colby deprecatingly.
Rhoum only smiled. “I understand, Mr. Colby, that you want to kill your wife.”
“Well, er, yes. She—you see, she’s such a sloppy dresser. And she wears those old fashioned neonylon housecoats. Then, she will wear an earring-alarm to bed, and five times in the past month, it’s gone off and waked me before ten o’clock. Then when I slapped her—just a little knock—she threatened to leave me. We have only a five-year marriage, you see. But it isn’t fair. And, er, well, I understand that after—after this, you make arrangements so I don’t have to meet her again. And, er, there’s this girl at the Sky Harbor Hotel—”
“I quite understand,” Rhoum murmured in his hissing voice. “But why murder, Mr. Colby? Surely that is drastic treatment.
A little mayhem therapy—slapping around one of our substitutes for a few hours every day for a week or so—or you could simply apply for a divorce—”
“Well, er, you see,” Colby smirked again, “well, I’m not really insane, but I feel frustrated over it. Besides, I’ve tried to choke her once or twice, and—well, she made me promise to come here. So I decided, if I was going to do the thing at all, I’d do it up right, and kill her properly!” He glared at Rhoum, then suddenly shouted, “Blast it, what do you care? I’ve got the money! If I want to kill my wife, what business is it of yours? You don’t have to try to reform me, do you?”
Rhoum said calmly, “Of course not. But we dislike employing drastic therapy, if a cure can be carried out with milder treatment. It is my professional duty to try to persuade you to employ the simplest therapy. But if you feel you must kill your wife, well—”
“It’s the only thing that will make me a sane man again!” Colby said dramatically.
Rhoum’s sharp eyes glanced at him, blinking back. “I fear you are right,” he murmured. “I can see you are in a serious condition. Of course. We can arrange it at once.” He paused to consult a calendar, and asked, “Will the third of Einstein suit you? This is only the fifth of Freud, but Einstein third is only five weeks from now. You can wait five weeks, can’t you?”
“Oh, I think so,” Colby murmured.
“Well, we might be able to squeeze you in toward the end of this month, but these hurry-up jobs never effect a complete cure. Of course, if you decide to change your mind, and take it out in a simple mayhem therapy, it would only be three or four days—”
Modestly, Colby waved the suggestion away.
Rhoum nodded gravely. “Do you have a recent three-dim photograph of your wife?”
Colby tugged it out of his pocket. “As a matter of fact—”
“Hmmm, yes, she’s very pretty. Well, Mr. Colby, you understand that until your appointment you must be a guest at our therapy center. That is to prevent a—well, a normal and a pleasant anticipation from getting uncontrollable.”
Marion Zimmer Bradley Super Pack Page 54
