Collected Stories

by Donald E. Westlake

  I studied the two atmosphere suits, at the same time managing to keep a wary eye on Jafe McCann, standing rigid and silent across the room. Which one of those suits contained the body of Ab Karpin?

  The one with the new patch on the chest, of course. As I'd guessed, McCann had shot him, and that's why he had the problem of disposing of the body in the first place.

  I prodded that suit with my toe. "He's in there, isn't he?"

  "You're crazy."

  "Think I should open it up and check? It's been almost a month, you know. I imagine he's pretty ripe by now."

  I reached down to the neck-fastenings on the fishbowl, and McCann finally moved. His arms jerked up, and he cried, "Don't! He's in there, he's in there! For God's sake, don't open it up!"

  I relaxed. Mission accomplished. "Crawl into your suit, little man," I said. "We've got ourselves a trip to make, the three of us."

  Henderson, as usual, was jovial but stern. "You did a fine job up there, Ged," he said, with false familiarity. "Really brilliant work."

  "Thank you very much," I said. I was holding the last piece of news for a minute or two, relishing it.

  "But you brought McCann in over a week ago. I don't see why you had to stay up at Atronics City at all after that, much less ten days."

  I sat back in the chair and negligently crossed my legs. "I just thought I'd take a little vacation," I said carelessly, and lit a cigarette. I flicked ashes in the general direction of the ashtray on Henderson's desk. Some of them made it.

  "A vacation?" he echoed, eyes widening. Henderson was a company man, a real company man. A vacation for him was purgatory, it was separation from a loved one. "I don't believe you have a vacation coming," he said frostily, "for at least six months."

  "That's what you think, Henny," I said.

  All he could do at that was blink.

  I went on, enjoying myself hugely. "I don't like this company," I said. "And I don't like this job. And I don't like you. And from now on, I've decided, it's going to be vacation all the time."

  "Ged," he said, his voice faint, "what's the matter with you? Don't you feel well?"

  "I feel well," I told him. "I feel fine. Now, I'll tell you why I spent an extra ten days at Atronics City. McCann made and registered the big strike, right?"

  Henderson nodded blankly, apparently not trusting himself to speak.

  "Wrong," I said cheerfully. "McCann went to Chemisant City and filled out all the forms required for registering a claim. But every place he was supposed to sign his name he wrote Ab Karpin instead. Jafe McCann never did make a legal registration of his claim."

  Henderson just looked fish-eyed.

  "So," I went on, "as soon as I turned McCann over to the law at Atronics City, I went and registered that claim myself. And then I waited around for ten days until the company finished the paperwork involved in buying that claim from me. And then I came straight back here, just to say goodbye to you. Wasn't that nice?"

  He didn't move.

  "Goodbye," I said.

  THE “STARSHIP HOPE” STORIES

  About the Stories

  In 1981, I have no idea why, I started a series of oddball science fiction short stories; I mean, every once in a while those people warped through my brain again, until, by 1988, I'd done 5 of them. Then I stopped, and again I have no idea why; they'd been fun to write. All 5 were published in Playboy. When I sent in the first one, Alice Turner, the wonderful fiction editor there - one of the best, recently no longer there, which is Playboy's loss - said she'd buy the story if I would send her, in a plain wrapper, whatever I'd been smoking or ingesting while writing it.

  Herewith, "Don't You Know There's A War On?" the first of the starship Hopeful stories.

  “The World’s a Stage”, the fourth of the Starship Hopeful stories, was written in October of 1982, and published in Playboy in July, 1984. By this point, I knew I had a series, and I pretty much knew how it worked. The misfit crew of the Starship Hopeful would visit a new planet in every story, where the ‘civilization’ they’d find would be a distillation of one aspect of human life. Gambling in the first story, war in the second, religion the third, and now – tara-tara! – the-thee-ay-tah!

  Enjoy.

  Donald E. Westlake

  DON’T YOU KNOW…

  THERE’S A WAR GOING ON?

  __________________________

  From the beginning of Time, Man has been on the move, ever outward. First he spread over his own planet, then cross the Solar System, then outward to the Galaxies, all of them dotted, speckled, measled with the colonies of Man.

  Then, one day in the year eleven thousand four hundred and six (11,406), an incredible discovery was made in the Master Imperial Computer back on Earth. Nearly 500 years before, a clerical error had erased from the computer's memory more than 1000 colonies, all in Sector F.U.B.A.R.3.

  For half a millennium, those colonies, young and struggling when last heard from, had had no contact with the rest of Humanity. The Galactic Patrol Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Captain Gregory Standforth commanding, was at once dispatched to reestablish contact with the Thousand Lost Colonies and return them to the bosom of Mankind.

  The two armies were massed in terrible array, banners flying, the hosts facing each other across the verdant valley. The tents of the generals were magnificently bedecked, pennons whipping in the breeze. Down below, clergymen in white and black blessed the day and the pounded grass and the generals and the banners and the archers and the horses and those who sweep up behind the horses. Filled with a good breakfast, the soldiers on the slopes stood comfortably, happy to be a part of this historic moment, while the supreme commanders of both forces marched with their aides and their scribes down through their respective armies and out across the green sweep of neutral territory toward the table and the altar set up in the very center of the valley under a yellow flag of truce.

  This was the first time these two supreme commanders had met, and they studied each other with a pardonable curiosity while the various aides exchanged documents and provided signatures. Is he fiercer-looking than me? the supreme commanders wondered as they eyed each other. Is his jaw firmer and leaner? Do his eyes flash more coldly and cruelly? Is his backbone more ramrod-stiff?

  The ministers sprinkled holy water over the papers. The supreme commanders firmly shook hands - very firmly shook hands - and a great cheer went up from the multitudes on the slopes. The ceremony was complete. The name had been changed. The 300 Years' War was now officially the 400 Years' War.

  "Look out!" someone shouted.

  Soldiers gaped. Horses neighed and pawed the ground. Clergy and aides fled with cassocks and tunics flapping, Supreme commanders took to their heels and the great long silver bullet of the spaceship settled slowly, delicately, almost lazily into the very center of the valley, the massive base of the thing gently mashing the main altar into a dinner mat.

  "Remember, Councilman," Ensign Kybee Benson said, pacing the councilman's cabin, "these are intelligent and subtle people, the descendants of philosophers."

  "Hardly a problem," Councilman Morton Luthguster responded. "I'm something of a philosopher myself."

  Ensign Benson and Councilman Luthguster meshed imperfectly. Ensign Benson was almost painfully aware that the reason the councilman had been chosen to represent the Galactic Council on this endless, trivial, boring mission to the universal boondocks was simply that nobody at the Galactic Council could stand the man's porposities anymore. Luthguster didn't realize that; nor did he realize that it was Ensign Benson's sharp-nosed personality that had won him a berth on the Hopeful (neither did Ensign Benson); but he'd certainly noticed that all his conversations with Ensign Benson left him with the sense that his fur had been rubbed the wrong way.

  Ensign Benson's face now wore the expression of a man eating a lemon. "Councilman, would you like to know which particular philosophy these philosophers philosophized about?"

  "You're the social engineer," Luthguster pointed
out, getting a bit prickly himself. "It's your job to background me on these colonies."

  "Dualists," Ensign Benson said. "They were dualists."

  "You mean they fought each other.

  Lieutenant Billy Shelby, the Hopeful's young second in command, knocked on the open door and entered the cabin, saying, "Sir, the ship has landed."

  "Just a second, Billy." Taking a deep breath, displaying his patience, Ensign Benson said, "Not duelists, Councilman, dualists. They believed in the philosophy of dualism. Simply stated, the idea that there are two sides to every story."

  "At the very least," Luthguster said. "Back in the Galactic Coun-"

  "Gemini," Ensign Benson interrupted. "That's what they named their colony, after the twins of the zodiac. They'd originally considered Janus, after the two-faced god, but that suggested a duplicity they didn't intend. Discussion and debate; that's the core of their approach to life."

  "A civilized and cultured people, obviously." Luthguster preened himself, patting his big round belly. "We shall get along famously."

  "No doubt," Ensign Benson said. "Shall we begin?"

  They followed Billy Shelby down to the main hatch, where the ladder had already been extruded, but the door was not yet open. Waiting beside' it was Captain Standforth, tall and thin and vague, his stun gun ready in his hand. Pointing to the weapon, Luthguster said, "We won't be needing that, Captain. These are peaceful scholars."

  "I thought I might shoot some birds," said the captain. "For stuffing." Bird taxidermy was the only thing in life the captain really cared about. Seven generations of Standforths had, unfortunately, made such magnificent careers in the Galactic Patrol that this Standforth had had no choice but to sign up when he'd attained the proper age, but the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, which everybody now knew - and which was why he had been assigned to the Hopeful.

  "Shoot birds later," Luthguster said, somewhat stiffly. "Let us begin peacably. Open the door, Billy."

  Billy pushed the button, the door opened and Luthguster stepped out onto the platform at the head of the ladder. 'Fellow thinkers," he cried out and fell back into the ship with seven arrows stuck in him.

  "Rotten aim," Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw said, wiping her hands on a greasy rag, then dropping it onto the cluster of pulled arrows. "You'll live."

  "At least you could sound happier about it," Luthguster told her. Lying here on the engine-room table, he was so enswathed in bandages that he looked like a gift-wrapped beach ball.

  "It's mostly all that blubber protected you," Hester said unsympathetically. "You're a very inefficient design."

  "Well, thank you very much."

  There was no doctor on the Hopeful, there being room for only five crew members and the councilman. Hester Henshaw, 40ish, blunt of feature and speech and hand and mind, had taken a few first-aid courses before departure, with the attitude that the human body was merely a messier-than-usual kind of machine and that most of its ills could be repaired with a few turns of a screwdriver or taps of a hammer. (Pliers had been useful in the current case, plucking the arrows out of the councilman.) Hester never gave her engines sympathy while banging away at them, so why should she give sympathy to Luthguster? "I'll give you some coffee," she offered grudgingly.

  Luthguster knew Hester's coffee from hearsay. "No, thank you!"

  "Don't worry, you won't leak. I plugged all the holes."

  Luthguster closed his eyes. A moan leaked out.

  Lieutenant Billy Shelby, handsome, romantic, idealistic, bright as a bowling ball, clutched the microphone in his left hand, white flag in his right, and said, "Ready, sir."

  The captain hesitated. "Are you sure, Billy?"

  "He already volunteered, Captain," Ensign Benson pointed out. "Obviously we have to make contact with the Geminoids somehow."

  "I'm sure, Captain," Billy said.

  So the captain pushed the button, the door opened and Billy marched out onto the platform with the white flag high and the loud-speaker microphone to his mouth: "People of-" his voice boomed out over the valley, and a cannon ball ripped through the white flag to carom off the silver hull.

  Billy gaped at the hole in the flag. "Gee whizz," his amplified voice told the sunny day. "Don't you guys believe in a flag of truce?"

  "That ain't no flag of truce!" a voice yelled from upslope. "It's white!"

  "Well, what color do you want?"

  "Yellow! The color of cowards!"

  "Wait right there," Billy told the two encircling armies and went back into the ship. Carom! went a cannon ball in farewell.

  "After dark," Supreme Commander Krraich said, "we'll deploy a patrol to sneak up on the thing and set fire to it."

  "I suspect, sir," said an aide carefully (Krraich was known to dislike correction), "the thing is made of metal."

  Krraich glowered. Sneaking up on things and setting fire to them was one of his favorite sports. "It's a fort, isn't it?" he demanded. "Could be just shiny paint."

  "Sir, uh, cannon balls bounce off."

  "Doesn't mean it's metal. Could be rubber."

  "Rubber won't burn, sir."

  Krraich turned his gaze full upon this pestiferous aide, whose name was Major Invercairnochinchlie. In the bloodshot eye of his mind, Krraich watched Major Invercairnochinchlie burn to the ground - kilt, sporran, gnarled pipe, tam and all. "What do you suggest, Major?"

  Invercairnochinchlie swallowed. "Acid, sir?"

  The other aides, also in formal officers' kilts, all snickered and shifted their feet, like a corralful of miniskirted horses; aides liked to see other aides in trouble. But then, Krraich's least favorite and most intelligent aide (the two facts were not unconnected), a colonel named Alderpee, said, "Sir, if I may make a suggestion?"

  "You always do," Krraich said, irritated because the suggestions were usually good.

  "That thing out there is a fort," Aldepee said. "A traveling fort. Think how we could use such a thing."

  Krrairh had no imagination. "Your suggestion?"

  "They're about to send out a party under a flag of truce. We kidnap that party, apply torture and learn how to invade the fort. Then we take it over."

  Krraich was appalled and showed it. "Violate a yellow flag of truce?"

  "Those people aren't a part of our war," Alderpee pointed out. "They're innocent bystanders. The rules of battle don't apply."

  "Ah,"

  "And if we don't do it," Alderpee added, "the Anti-bens will."

  "How do you do? I'm Lieutenant Billy Shelby of the Interstel - Mmf!"

  "There!" Colonel Alderpee cried. "I told you the Anti-bens would do it"

  The chaplain, in his black dress uniform, sprinkled holy water over Billy, who sneezed. "Gesundheit," said the chaplain.

  "Thank you."

  "I am the Right Reverend Beowulf' Hengethorg," the chaplain explained. "I am here to ready you for torture."

  "Torture?" Billy gaped around at all the big, mean-looking, bulgy-armed men lining the periphery of the large, torchlit tent. "Gee whizz," he said, "we're here to be friendly. We came all the way from Earth just to-"

  "Earth?" Wide-eyed, Reverend Hengethorg leaned close. "You wouldn't lie to a reverend, would you?"

  "Oh, no, sir You see, you were lost, and-"

  "And on Earth," the chaplain said, voice tensely trembling, "do they believe in Robert Benchley?"

  "I'm the only possible volunteer. The councilman is wounded, Hester keeps the engines going, Pam Stokes astrogates and you understand the mission. I'm not necessary at all."

  "Well, Captain," Ensign Benson said as they strode doorward together, "I have to admit you're right. All captains are unnecessary; you're one of the rare ones who know it."

  "So I'll try to make peace with the other army," the captain went on, "and ask them to help us rescue Billy."

  "And find out what's going on here."

  "Well, I'll certainly ask," the captain said.

  They had reached the door, where firmly the captain pushe
d the button. "There's no point in carrying any flags," he said. "These people don't seem to respect any color." He stepped outside.

  "Good luck, Captain."

  The captain looked back over his shoulder. "Did you say some-" He dropped from sight. Thump crumple bunkle bong kabingbing thud.

  Ensign Benson leaned out. to gaze down at the captain, all in a heap at the foot of the stairs. "I said, good luck."

  "Another one!" cried Colonel Alderpee. "Men, get that one or we'll be using your heads for cannon balls!"

  "The ultimate proof" the Right Reverend Hengethorg was saying. "This fine young chap here has never even heard of Robert Benchicy, much less read his work."

  Proud of his ignorance, Billy smiled in modest self-satisfaction at Supreme Commander Mangle. "That's right, sir. What I mostly read is The Adventures of Space Cadet Hooper and His Pals Fatso and Chang. They just have the most -"

  Supreme Commander Mangle, a knife of a man - a tall, glinty-eyed, bony, angry knife of a man - growled deep in his throat; a distant early warning. Billy blinked and decided after all not to give the supreme commander a plot summary of Cadet Hooper and His Pals Go to Betelgeuse.

  Mangle turned his laser eyes on Hengethorg. "Reverend," he said. His voice needed oiling. "Explain."

  "The people of Earth are Anti-bens like us," the chaplain explained. "Must be! Not only does that prove the truth of our philosophy but we can ally ourselves with Earth and destroy the Bens, forever!"

  Mangle brooded. Apparently, he was considering the advantages and disadvantages of allying himself with people like Billy Shelby, because when next he asked, "Are there any more at home like you?"