Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “I couldn’t do it. I’ve always worked alone. I always will. I don’t trust you, Kedre.”

  “I don’t expect you too. But have it your way. Remember this, though—we both want the same thing, successful colonization of the land. Whether you like it or not, we’ll be working toward the same end, down below. And Sam—if after a few years have gone by we find we’re at cross-purposes again, remember, it will be you, not we, who have gone astray.” There was warning in her voice. “When that time comes—and it will—there’s going to be trouble, Sam.”

  He shrugged. He had just taken, though he did not know it, the first definite step toward that isolation of the mind and body which in the end was to mean his downfall.

  “So it’s taken five years,” Ben Crowell said. “Just about what I figured.”

  The man walking beside him—Platoon Commander French—said: “You mean—us?”

  Crowell shrugged noncommittally and waved his hand. He might have been indicating the darkness beyond the rampart on which they walked—the pillbox-dotted, cleared lands in which a man might walk for three days in a straight line in safety. It had taken five years to clear seventy-five miles, a great bite taken out of the jungle with the fort as the focal point.

  Nothing could be seen now. Floodlights, with charged wire-mesh shields to guard against phototropic bugs, showed part of the ground outside the wall, but in the dark beyond the safety area stretched far inland. The fort had changed too. It had expanded till it crouched on the shore like a monstrous armored beast, so huge that if it had been alive, it could never have walked the earth of Venus.

  Curious—earth of Venus. A paradox. Mankind would always carry with him his terrestrial heritage, though he carried his colonies beyond Cygni. The old words, the old thoughts—

  The old motives.

  Platoon Commander French touched Crowell’s arm, and they turned toward a sloping ramp, past the masked muzzle of what seemed to be a strange sort of gun. French indicated it.

  “See?”

  “What about it?”

  “Oh, you’ll find out. Come on.” As always, the courtyards teemed with activity under bright lights.

  Crowell and French walked through the tumult briskly—only furtiveness was suspect and their openness was a good mask. They entered an outbuilding. French took the lead.

  The fort was a labyrinth now. Technically the chamber the two men entered presently was classified as a storeroom, but it served a different purpose at the moment. Nearly fifty men were here, drawn from all levels of colony life. Somebody gave a soft challenge.

  French said, “Hello, Court. This is Ben Crowell. I’ll vouch for him. Sit down over here, Crowell—and listen.”

  He moved to the front of the room, holding up his hand for attention. “All set? Shut the door. Got the guards posted?” °

  A man said, “Step it up, French. Some of us have to be back on duty pretty soon.”

  “This won’t take long. Listen. There’s about a dozen new men here tonight—right? Hold up your hands.”

  Crowell was one of those who raised his arm.

  “All right,” French said. “We’ll be talking mostly for your benefit. You’re all convinced already, or you wouldn’t be here. And you won’t do any talking to the wrong people after you get out of this room—we chose you carefully.”

  He hesitated, looked around. The main thing—is there anybody here who still believes in Reed’s immortality gag? That phony Fountain of Youth?”

  A voice said, “There’s no proof either way, is there, commander?”

  French said, “I came here five years ago. I was twenty then. Island Five had just been cleared. Everybody was talking big—big plans for the future. Immortality for everybody. The treatment was supposed to take six or seven years.”

  “Well, it’s only been five for you, hasn’t it?” the same voice asked.

  “You don’t have to wait a hundred years to be sure. Some of us have been seeing Keep doctors. We’re getting older. All of us. There’s a way of checking—the calcium deposits in the blood vessels, for one thing. Those treatments of Reed’s are fakes. I know I’m five years older than I was when I first hit Plymouth, and the same thing goes for the rest of you. Reed’s crossed us up. Look at his record—yon can’t trust him an inch. Five years I’ve been sweating up here, when I could have been back in my Keep taking it easy.”

  “I kind of like it landside,” Ben Crowell put in, stuffing tobacco into his pipe.

  “It could be all right,” French admitted, “but not under this setup. All we do is work. And for what? For Sam Reed and Robin Hale—building, building, building! Hale’s an Immortal; maybe Reed’s going to live seven hundred years too—I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to get any older. Maybe he did find the Fountain of Youth, but if he did, he’s kept it for himself. Know what that means? We work! We work till we die! Our children work too, when their time comes. And Sam Reed just hangs around and waits a few hundred years till we’ve done his job for him and fixed him up a nice, comfortable setup that’s just what he wants. Well—I don’t see the profit!”

  A new voice said, “You’re right. I agree. But Reed had to get the fort built strong. You were here five years ago; you know what it was like.”

  “He’s in too much of a hurry. Discipline—there’s too much of it. He’s got plans of his own, and we’re not told what they are. Colonizing landside isn’t all of it. Sure, we needed that fort five years ago—and we needed it strong. But what about all this top secret armament work? Nobody’s supposed to know about the new gun emplacements on the walls—the electric-spray blasters, and the gas throwers. But they’re being set up.”

  “The jungle?”

  “Seventy-five miles away now!” French said. “And some of these new weapons—they don’t make sense! Kalendar, you’re a logistics man. Tell ’em.”

  Kalendar stood up, a short, swarthy figure in a neat blue uniform. “They’d be useful for defense against human enemies. They could fight off and smash an onslaught by tanks, for example. But they’re more powerful than we need even against a thunder-lizard. Besides, there are long-range cannon being cast and set up—they’ve got everything from radar calibration to video reactors. They’ll throw a shell five hundred miles away and hit the target. What are they going to be used against? Another battery aimed at the fort? And our new plane construction program—you don’t colonize by plane!”

  “Exactly. What’s Reed expecting?” French asked. “Attack from the Keeps? The Keeps don’t fight. They’re living a life of glory down there, taking it easy, while we work ourselves to death.”

  A low growl of resentment arose. These men didn’t like the people of the Keeps—jealousy, probably. But the sound hinted at something new on Venus, just as this secret meeting foreshadowed a result Sam had not expected. For Sam had always been used to dealing with Keep people, and this was a new breed of men.

  Ben Crowell puffed at his pipe and watched interestedly.

  There was a burst of argument now, violent and angry. The plotters talked a lot—naturally! It was an escape from discipline. They were taking out their emotions in hot argument instead of in action. When they stopped talking, the volcano would probably erupt.

  Ben Crowell settled himself more firmly, his back against a packing case.

  “—whatever Reed’s planning—”

  “—let the Keep people do some work—”

  “—how much more time are we going to give Reed?”

  “How long are we going to sit and take it?”

  French hammered for silence. “We’ve got several plans. But we’ve got to figure well ahead. Suppose we kill Reed—”

  “That wouldn’t be easy. He doesn’t take chances!”

  “He can’t win if most of the colony’s against him! And it will be. We’ve got to spread our organization. Once we get rid of Reed—and Hale—we’ll be on top and able to stay there. We’ll have the fort. And there isn’t a thing on Venus that can smash the fort!�
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  “Hale’s no fool. Neither is Reed. If they get wind of us—”

  French said: “Every man takes a lie-detector test before he leaves one of our meetings. No traitors live.”

  “I haven’t lived a thousand years without figuring out how to fool a lie-detector,” the Logician said to Hale.

  Hale turned away from his light-latticed window that looked down so far on the walls which had once seemed so high to them all. He said coldly, “I know you were at that meeting. I have spies, too.”

  “Did your spy recognize me?”

  “He didn’t recognize anybody. He got there afterwards. But he smelled pipe smoke and that rank tobacco of yours. Anyway—I know a little about what goes on around here.”

  “What, for example?”

  “I know when discipline begins to fail. When men are sloppy about saluting. When they don’t polish their brassards. I learned discipline in the Free Companies. I saw the crack-up start in Mendez’s company before his men killed him. I noticed signs of trouble here months ago. That’s when I put my spies to work. I knew what to expect, and I was right. It’s beginning.”

  “What?”

  “Mutiny. I know a few of the ringleaders—not all.”

  “Does Sam Reed know?”

  “I’ve discussed it with him. But—I think he discounts the danger. He’s been guarding himself so thoroughly he mistakes personal safety for colony safety. I want you to tell me what’s going on. I know you can. If you don’t, I can get the information elsewhere, but I’d like to discuss it with you if you’re willing.”

  “I know you can find out else-where,” Crowell said. “I’ll be glad to talk. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me, hoping you would, because I couldn’t volunteer anything without upsetting the pattern. I got into this passively, you know. Guess I looked like a malcontent. God knows why. No, I do know. Do you?” He squinted at Hale over the hand that cradled his pipe.

  Hale shook his head. “No, I . . . wait. Maybe I do.” He strolled to the window again and looked down at the busy courts. There was much more of a pattern to the activities in Plymouth Colony than there had been five years ago. Discipline had stiffened into iron rigidity. It seemed to the average man that as the need for discipline lessened with their growing conquests of the land, the meaningless forms of it grew more and more inflexible.

  “Sam has his reasons,” Hale said, looking down. “I don’t know what they are, but I can guess. His time’s running out. The balance is going to shift pretty soon. Men are losing faith in immortality and beginning to wonder. Sam knows the balance is tilting already, but I don’t think it’s dawned on him what he’s weighing in the balance. Men. And not Keep men any longer. Men like you and me, who know what independence means. No wonder they spotted you for a malcontent. You’ve lived in a world where every man had to shift for himself or go under. So have I. I suppose the marks of it are plain on us.”

  “Right.” Crowell grinned. “Keep people want their leaders to do their thinking for them. Our men landside have had to think for themselves. Those who didn’t—well, they just don’t survive. It’s the old pioneer feeling come back, son, and I like the feel of it. It means trouble, but I like it.”

  “Trouble is right. Serious trouble, unless we move at the right time.”

  “Now?” Crowell was watching the Free Companion keenly.

  “Not yet,” Hale said, and the Logician’s smile was faint, but satisfied. “No, not quite yet. Partly I want to sound this thing out, see how far it’s going to spread. Like the Man Underground plant, you’ve got to locate the root. And partly—I don’t know, exactly. I’ve got a sort of feeling that something’s working out in these mutinies and plots that shouldn’t be crushed. It’s the pioneer spirit, all right, and I feel the way you do. I like it. Mutiny isn’t the answer, but mutiny’s a good sign, in a way.”

  “You going to let them go ahead, then?”

  “No. I can’t do that. At this point they still need Sam and me, no matter what they think. Let the mutineers take over and they’d wind up down in the Keeps again, sinking back into the old apathy. This is a crucial period. Sam’s got some sort of plan I don’t understand yet, but I’m betting on Sam to come out on top. Sam can take care of himself. His reaction to the mutiny, if he took it seriously, would simply be to stamp it out. And at this point that might mean stamping out the independent spirit of pioneering along with it. I’ll have to think it over, Crowell. No use asking you for suggestions, is it?”

  Crowell peered intently into his pipe, which had gone out. He poked ineffectually at it with a calloused finger. “Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you need much advice, my boy. You’re on the right track. Don’t interfere any more than you’ve got to. There are natural processes at work leveling themselves off and the longer they operate on their own, the better. You know something? I think just living up here landside has done one mighty big service to these people. They’ve discovered Time again. Down below day and night don’t mean much. One season’s pretty much like another. But here, you see time passing. You get the sense of it’s being later than you think. These boys and girls started out with the idea they were going to live forever. They had a long-term view. They were willing to work for a colonization they hoped to enjoy themselves, in person, two-three hundred years from now. But that’s passing. Time’s passing. And they’re suddenly waking up to it. No, I’d let these natural forces level off if I were you. As you say, Sam Reed can take care of himself.”

  “I’m going to let him,” Hale said. “You’ll keep an eye on these meetings, then? I know they’ve got a lot of schemes under way, but nothing’s near completion yet, is it?”

  “They’re still blowing off steam. They’ll act, but not for awhile.”

  “Spy away, then. I won’t move until I have to. I’ll wait—that is, unless Sam moves first.

  Sam moved first.

  As usual, he timed himself carefully, integrating every detail, and his action was spectacular, which made a few people wonder what Sam had up his sleeve. But, of course, they couldn’t be sure. Some of them never were sure, even after the fantastic gambit was played. As a gambit it was effective—it was check, though not quite checkmate, and the arena from now on would follow even more closely the imagery of the old poet and his great translator—a checkerboard of nights and days. As for the Opponent—the Unseen Player—not even Sam had penetrated that mysterious symbolism. Who was the Player? The Harkers? Venus? Another part of Sam?

  He knows about it all . . . He knows . . . he knows . . .

  It was a chilling thought, but, Sam realized, there wasn’t anybody who “knew about it all.” Certainly not the future, and even the present was difficult enough to interpret in every detail and trend.

  Still, he was ready; zero hour had struck, since he had got word certain secret arrangements of his own had been completed. He was in one of his private offices in the great tower he reserved for his own vise. Part of that tower was top secret. But this office wasn’t; port windows looked seaward toward the archipelago, now covered with farms and little settlements, though the protective pillboxes remained.

  He avoided Hale’s gaze. He was examining a flat cube on the table before him. It was like a very deep picture frame. But what it held was a siren web, flushing slowly from rose to deep scarlet. Sam opened a silver box on his desk, took out an insect, and fed the siren web through a miniature hinged door. A faint odor of perfume escaped at the same time, and there was a low, rhythmic humming.

  “Put it away,” Hale said. “I’ve smelled that odor too often! What about Crowell?”

  Sara slid the siren web frame aside. “I didn’t know he was working for you. He was one of the mutineers, that’s all. So I had him arrested with the others.”

  “Why did you act without telling me? Why wait till I was forty miles away on an inspection trip?”

  “You got here in half an hour,” Sam said. “Anyway, I had to move fast. I’ve found out that there’s more
to this plot than you ever suspected, from what you’ve been telling me about it. Crowell may be your man, but he’s an inefficient spy.”

  “I want him released.”

  Sam shrugged. “Of course. But his usefulness is over, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “A visor call would have done the trick. You needn’t have rushed back here.”

  Hale said, “I didn’t want any chance of a slip-up. Crowell’s got to be released. Accidents do happen. The wrong order, the wrong interpretation by a guard—”

  “I’ve never seen you so concerned about any one individual. Why is Crowell so important?”

  Hale hesitated. Finally he said. “Well—I trust him.”

  Now it was Sam’s turn to pause. He said softly, “Trust? You mean you’d trust him with a gun behind your back?”

  Hale nodded.

  “Maybe some day I’ll find a man like that,” Sam said wryly. “So far I haven’t. Well, let’s get Crowell released. It’s almost time for the trial.”

  “You’re holding it today?”

  “Yes. I’ve found out so much—unexpectedly—there are dangers. Worse ones than we’d suspected. Our enemies are better armed than we know. Perhaps they’ve got Keep backing. I don’t know. But I haven’t time to tell you now; I’ve arranged for Venus-wide videocasting of the trial, and the Keeps wilt be tuning in in a few minutes.

  Come along. You’ll find out what the setup is.”

  But he paused long enough to feed the siren web another insect. Hale said, with strong distaste, “Where did you get that thing?”

  “Oh, it’s a trophy.”

  “Young one. Going to keep it? It’ll grow—”

  “I expect it to.”

  “It’ll grow dangerous. It’s a siren web, Sam.”

  Sam said, “Still, imagine it twenty feet across. Up on the wall there—”

  “With you walking into its mouth.”

  “I’m not a good hypnosis subject, remember? Anyway, I’ll take precautions when it really gets big. Polarized glass or a stroboscopic attachment, a special filtering tonometer for its siren sound, some gadget to cut the scent to safety level—the trial’s starting. Let’s go.”