Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  Under Scott’s feet the sliding way turned into an escalator, carrying him into the Administration Building. He stepped to another way which took him to a lift, and, a moment or two later, was facing the door-curtain bearing the face of President Dane Crosby of Montana Keep.

  Crosby’s voice said, “Come in, captain,” and Scott brushed through the curtain, finding himself in a medium-sized room with muraled walls and a great window overlooking the city. Crosby, a white-haired, thin figure in blue silks, was at his desk. He looked like a tired old clerk out of Dickens, Scott thought suddenly, entirely undistinguished and ordinary. Yet Crosby was one of the greatest socio-politicians on Venus.

  Cinc Rhys, leader of Doone’s Free Companions, was sitting in a relaxer, the apparent antithesis of Crosby. All the moisture in Rhys’ body seemed to have been sucked out of him years ago by ultraviolet actinic, leaving a mummy of brown leather and whipcord sinew. There was no softness in the man. His smile was a grimace. Muscles lay like wire under the swarthy cheeks.

  Scott saluted. Rhys waved him to a relaxer. The look of subdued eagerness in the cinc’s eyes was significant—an eagle poising himself, smelling blood. Crosby sensed that, and a wry grin showed on his pale face.

  “Every man to his trade,” he remarked, semi-ironically. “I suppose I’d be bored stiff if I had too long a vacation. But you’ll have quite a battle on your hands this time, Cinc Rhys.”

  Scott’s stocky body tensed automatically. Rhys glanced at him. “Virginia Keep is attacking, captain. They’ve hired the Hell-divers—Flynn’s outfit.”

  There was a pause. Both Free Companions were anxious to discuss the angles, but unwilling to do so in the presence of a civilian, even the president of Montana Keep. Crosby rose.

  “The money settlement’s satisfactory, then?”

  Rhys nodded. “Yes, that’s all right. I expect the battle will take place in a couple of days. In the neighborhood of Venus Deep, at a rough guess.”

  “Good. I’ve a favor to ask, so if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll—” He left the sentence unfinished and went out through the door-curtain. Rhys offered Scott a cigarette.

  “You get the implications, captain—the Helldivers?”

  “Yes, sir. Thanks. We can’t do it alone.”

  “Right. We’re short on manpower and armament both. And the Helldivers recently merged with O’Brien’s Legion, after O’Brien was killed in that polar scrap. They’re a strong outfit, plenty strong. Then they’ve got their specialty—submarine attack. I’d say we’ll have to use H-plan 7.”

  Scott closed his eyes, remembering the files. Each Free Company kept up-to-date plans of attack suited to the merits of every other Company of Venus. Frequently revised as new advances were made, as groups merged, and as the balance of power changed on each side, the plans were so detailed that they could be carried into action at literally a moment’s notice. H-plan 7, Scott recalled, involved enlisting the aid of the Mob, a small but well-organized band of Free Companions led by Cinc Tom Mendez.

  “Right,” Scott said. “Can you get him?”

  “I think so. We haven’t agreed yet on the bonus. I’ve been telaudioing him on a tight beam, but he keeps putting me off—waiting till the last moment—when he can dictate his own terms.”

  “What’s he asking, sir?”

  “Fifty thousand cash and a fifty percent cut on the loot.”

  “I’d say thirty percent would be about right.”

  Rhys nodded. “I’ve offered him thirty-five. I may send you to his fort—carte blanche. We can get another Company, but Mendez has got beautiful sub-detectors—which would come in handy against the Helldivers. Maybe I can settle things by audio. If not, you’ll have to fly over to Mendez and buy his services, at less than fifty per if you can.”

  Scott rubbed the old scar on his chin with a calloused forefinger. “Meantime Commander Bienne’s in charge of mobilization. When—”

  “I telaudioed our fort. Air transports are on the way now.”

  “It’ll be quite a scrap,” Scott said, and the eyes of the two men met in perfect understanding. Rhys chuckled dryly.

  “And good profits. Virginia Keep has a big supply of korium . . . dunno how much, but plenty.”

  “What started the fracas this time?”

  “The usual thing, I suppose,” Rhys said disinterestedly. “Imperialism. Somebody in Virginia Keep worked out a new plan for annexing the rest of the Keeps. Same as usual.”

  They stood up as the door-curtain swung back, admitting President Crosby, another man, and a girl. The man looked young, his boyish face not yet toughened under actinic burn. The girl was lovely in the manner of a plastic figurine, lit from within by vibrant life. Her blond hair was cropped in the prevalent mode, and her eyes, Scott saw, were an unusual shade of green. She was more than merely pretty—she was instantly exciting.

  Crosby said, “My niece, Ilene Kane—and my nephew, Norman Kane.” He performed introductions, and they found seats.

  “What about drinks?” Ilene suggested. “This is rather revoltingly formal. The fight hasn’t started yet, after all.”

  Crosby shook his head at her. “You weren’t invited here anyway. Don’t try to turn this into a party—there isn’t too much time, under the circumstances.”

  “O.K.,” Ilene murmured. “I can wait.” She eyed Scott interestedly.

  Norman Kane broke in. “I’d like to join Doone’s Free Companions, sir. I’ve already applied, but now that there’s a battle coming up, I hate to wait till my application’s approved. So I thought—” Crosby looked at Cinc Rhys. “A personal favor, but the decision’s up to you. My nephew’s a misfit—a romanticist. Never liked the life of a Keep. A year ago he went off and joined Starling’s outfit.”

  Rhys raised an eyebrow. “That gang? It’s not a recommendation, Kane. They’re not even classed as Free Companions. More like a band of guerrillas, and entirely without ethics. There’ve even been rumors they’re messing around with atomic power.” Crosby looked startled. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “It’s no more than a rumor. If it’s ever proved, the Free Companions—all of them—will get together and smash Starling in a hurry.”

  Norman Kane looked slightly uncomfortable. “I suppose I was rather a fool. But I wanted to get in the fighting game, and Starling’s group appealed to me—”

  The cinc made a sound in his throat. “They would. Swashbuckling romantics, with no idea of what war means. They’ve not more than a dozen technicians. And they’ve no discipline—it’s like a pirate outfit. War today, Kane, isn’t won by romantic animals dashing at forlorn hopes. The modern soldier is a tactician who knows how to think, integrate, and obey. If you join our Company, you’ll have to forget what you learned with Starling.”

  “Will you take me, sir?”

  “I think it would be unwise. You need the training course.”

  “I’ve had experience—”

  Crosby said, “It would be a favor, Cinc Rhys, if you’d skip the red tape. I’d appreciate it. Since my nephew wants to be a soldier, I’d much prefer to see him with the Doones.”

  Rhys shrugged. “Very well. Captain Scott will give you your orders, Kane. Remember that discipline is vitally important with us.”

  The boy tried to force back a delighted grin. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Captain—”

  Scott rose and nodded to Kane. They went out together. In the anteroom was a telaudio set, and Scott called the Doone’s local headquarters in Montana Keep. An integrator answered, his face looking inquiringly from the screen.

  “Captain Scott calling, subject induction.”

  “Yes, sir. Ready to record.”

  Scott drew Kane forward. “Photosnap this man. He’ll report to headquarters immediately. Name, Norman Kane. Enlist him without training course—special orders from Cinc Rhys.”

  “Acknowledged, sir.”

  Scott broke the connection. Kane couldn’t quite repress his grin.

&n
bsp; “All right,” the captain grunted, a sympathetic gleam in his eyes. “That fixes it. They’ll put you in my command. What’s your specialty?”

  “Flitterboats, sir.”

  “Good. One more thing. Don’t forget what Cinc Rhys said, Kane. Discipline is damned important, and you may not have realized that yet. This isn’t a cloak-and-sword war. There are no Charges of Light Brigades. No grandstand plays—that stuff went out with the Crusades. Just obey orders, and you’ll have no trouble. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Kane saluted and strode out with a perceptible swagger. Scott grinned. The kid would have that knocked out of him pretty soon.

  A voice at his side made him turn quickly. Ilene Kane was standing there, slim and lovely in her celoflex gown.

  “You seem pretty human after all, captain,” she said. “I heard what you told Norman.”

  Scott shrugged. “I did that for his own good—and the good of the Company. One man off the beam can cause plenty of trouble, Mistress Kane.”

  “I envy Norman,” she said. “It must be a fascinating life you lead. I’d like it—for a while. Not for long. I’m one of the useless offshoots of this civilization, not much good for anything. So I’ve perfected one talent.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, hedonism, I suppose you’d call it. I enjoy myself. It’s not often too boring. But I’m a bit bored now. I’d like to talk to you, captain.”

  “Well, I’m listening,” Scott said.

  Ilene Kane made a small grimace. “Wrong semantic term. I’d like to get inside of you psychologically. But painlessly. Dinner and dancing. Can do?”

  “There’s no time,” Scott told her. “We may get our orders any moment.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to go out with this girl of the Keeps, though there was definitely a subtle fascination for him, an appeal he could not analyze. She typified the most pleasurable part of a world he did not know. The other facets of that world could not impinge on him; geopolitics or nonmilitary science held no appeal, were too alien. But all worlds touch at one point—pleasure. Scott could understand the relaxations of the undersea groups, as he could not understand or feel sympathy for their work or their social impulses.

  Cinc Rhys came through the door-curtain, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve some telaudioing to do, captain,” he said. Scott knew what implications the words held: the incipient bargain with Cinc Mendez. He nodded.

  “Yes, sir. Shall I report to headquarters?”

  Rhys’ harsh face seemed to relax suddenly as he looked from Ilene to Scott. “You’re free till dawn. I won’t need you till then, but report to me at six a.m. No doubt you’ve a few details to clean up.”

  “Very well, sir.” Scott watched Rhys go out. The cinc had meant Jeana, of course. But Ilene did not know that.

  “So?” she asked. “Do I get a turn-down? You might buy me a drink, anyway.”

  There was plenty of time. Scott said, “It’ll be a pleasure,” and Ilene linked her arm with his. They took the dropper to ground-level.

  As they came out on one of the ways, Ilene turned her head and caught Scott’s glance. “I forgot something, captain. You may have a previous engagement. I didn’t realize—”

  “There’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing important.”

  It was true; he felt a mild gratitude toward Jeana at the realization. His relationship with her was the peculiar one rendered advisable by his career. Free-marriage was the word for it; Jeana was neither his wife nor his mistress, but something midway between. The Free Companions had no firmly grounded foundation for social life; in the Keeps they were visitors, and in their coastal forts they were—well, soldiers. One would no more bring a woman to a fort than aboard a ship of the line. So the women of the Free Companions lived in the Keeps, moving from one to another as their men did; and because of the ever-present shadow of death, ties were purposely left loose. Jeana and Scott had been free-married for five years now. Neither made demands on the other. No one expected fidelity of a Free Companion. Soldiers lived under such iron disciplines that when they were released, during the brief peacetimes, the pendulum often swung far in the opposite direction.

  To Scott, Ilene Kane was a key that might unlock the doors of the Keep—doors that opened to a world of which he was not a part, and which he could not quite understand.

  II.

  I, a stranger and afraid

  In a world I never made.

  —Housman

  There were nuances, Scott found, which he had never known existed. A hedonist like Ilene devoted her life to such nuances; they were her career. Such minor matters as making the powerful, insipid Moonflower Cocktails more palatable by filtering them through lime-soaked sugar held between the teeth. Scott was a uisqueplus man, having the average soldier’s contempt for what he termed hydroponic drinks, but the cocktails Ilene suggested were quite as effective as acrid, burning amber uisqueplus. She taught him, that night, such tricks as pausing between glasses to sniff lightly at happy-gas, to mingle sensual excitement with mental by trying the amusement rides designed to give one the violent physical intoxication of breathless speed. Nuances all, which only a girl with Ilene’s background could know. She was not representative of Keep life. As she had said, she was an offshoot, a casual and useless flower on the great vine that struck up inexorably to the skies, its strength in its tough, reaching tendrils—scientists and technicians and socio-politicians. She was doomed in her own way, as Scott was in his. The undersea folk served Minerva; Scott served Mars; and Ilene served Aphrodite—not purely the sexual goddess, but the patron of arts and pleasure. Between Scott and Ilene was the difference between Wagner and Strauss; the difference between crashing chords and tinkling arpeggios. In both was a muted bittersweet sadness, seldom realized by either. But that undertone was brought out by their contact. The sense of dim hopelessness in each responded to the other.

  It was carnival, but neither Ilene nor Scott wore masks. Their faces were masks enough, and both had been trained to reserve, though in different ways. Scott’s hard mouth kept its tight grimness even when he smiled. And Ilene’s smiles came so often that they were meaningless.

  Through her, Scott was able to understand more of the undersea life than he had ever done before. She was for him a catalyst. A tacit understanding grew between them, not needing words. Both realized that, in the course of progress, they would eventually die out. Mankind tolerated them because that was necessary for a little time. Each responded differently. Scott served Mars;

  he served actively; and the girl, who was passive, was attracted by the antithesis.

  Scott’s drunkenness struck psychically deep. He did not show it. His stiff silver-brown hair was not disarranged, and his hard, burned face was impassive as ever. But when his brown eyes met Ilene’s green ones a spark of—something—met between them.

  Color and light and sound. They began to form a pattern now, were not quite meaningless to Scott. They were, long past midnight, sitting in an Olympus, which was a private cosmos. The walls of the room in which they were seemed nonexistent. The gusty tides of gray, faintly luminous clouds seemed to drive chaotically past them, and, dimly, they could hear the muffled screaming of an artificial wind. They had the isolation of the gods.

  And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep—That was, of course, the theory of the Olympus room. No one existed, no world existed, outside of the chamber; values automatically shifted, and inhibitions seemed absurd.

  Scott relaxed on a translucent cushion like a cloud. Beside him, Ilene lifted the bit of a happy-gas tube to his nostrils. He shook his head.

  “Not now, Ilene.”

  She let the tube slide back into its reel. “Nor I. Too much of anything is unsatisfactory, Brian. There should always be something untasted, some anticipation left—You have that. I haven’t.”

  “How?”

  “Pleasures—well, there’s a limit. There’s a limit to human endurance. And eventually I build
up a resistance psychically, as I do physically, to everything. With you, there’s always the last adventure. You never know when death will come. You can’t plan. Plans are dull; it’s the unexpected that’s important.”

  Scott shook his head slightly. “Death isn’t important either. It’s an automatic cancellation of values. Or, rather—” He hesitated, seeking words. “In this life you can plan, you can work out values, because they’re all based on certain conditions. On—let’s say—arithmetic. Death is a change to a different plane of conditions, quite unknown. Arithmetical rules don’t apply as such to geometry.”

  “You think death has its rules?”

  “It may be a lack of rules, Ilene. One lives realizing that life is subject to death; civilization is based on that. That’s why civilization concentrates on the race instead of the individual. Social self-preservation.”

  She looked at him gravely. “I didn’t think a Free Companion could theorize that way.”

  Scott closed his eyes, relaxing. “The Keeps know nothing about Free Companions. They don’t want to. We’re men. Intelligent men. Our technicians are as great as the scientists under the Domes.”

  “But they work for war.”

  “War’s necessary,” Scott said. “Now, anyway.”

  “How did you get into it? Should I ask?”

  He laughed a little at that. “Oh, I’ve no dark secrets in my past. I’m not a runaway murderer. One—drifts. I was born in Australia Keep. My father was a tech, but my grandfather had been a soldier. I guess it was in my blood. I tried various trades and professions. Meaningless. I wanted something that. . . hell, I don’t know. Something, maybe, that needs all of a man. Fighting does. It’s like a religion. Those cultists—Men of the New Judgment—they’re fanatics, but you can see that their religion is the only thing that matters to them.”