Collected Stories

by Donald E. Westlake

  "Peace, it's wonderful," the colonel said, then frowned. "At least, I've heard it is."

  Councilman Luthguster made a speech promising wonders in aid and technical assistance to come from Earth. Some archers playfully lofted arrows in his direction, but they were only fooling, and the one flesh wound that resulted was easily patched by Hester with a snippet of stick-on plaster, meant for stemming leaks in boilers.

  "I was beginning to rather like all those babies," Captain Standforth said, a faraway look in his eye. "I wonder how you ... Hmmmm." He went away, to study his taxidermy books.

  "Plague," Ensign Benson said, as Billy was untied from the rack. "You'll never see a living Ben on Gemini again."

  And you took them away," Reverend Hengethorg said "so they couldn't infect us."

  "That's right."

  "You've done wonders,"

  "I know," Ensign Benson said.

  Billy came over, massaging his chafed wrists. He looked taller. "Gosh, Kybee," he said.

  "Well, ta-ta," Ensign Benson told the Anti-bens. "You'll be hearing from Earth. Our job here is finished now."

  "Sir," an aide said to Colonel Alderpee, "there's a dispute among the men."

  The colonel gazed over the new encampment, the tents still being raised, the thud-thud of posts being driven into the virgin ground. "Dispute? Over what?" "Well, some of the men say those people in the fort were from Earth, and some say they weren't."

  "Really? Call a meeting. We're mature adults; we'll discuss it."

  INTERSTELLAR PIGEON

  ______________________

  Why me?

  Watching Captain Gregory Standforth sit at his desk and -- stuff yet another bird -- this one a blue-beaked yellow-backed Latter Sneezer from Degeb IV -- Why me? wondered Ensign Kybee Benson, not for the first time. What flaw is there in me that I don't suspect? Why did they choose ME?

  There was no question why the Galactic Council had chosen Captain Standforth to lead this one-way trip into obscurity. Just look at him now: a tall, skinny, mild-eyed fellow with his nose and fingers jammed up that dead bird's ass, tamping the excelsior in real tight. "Got to get it in real tight," the captain said, "or the wings'll sag." Why me? thought Ensign Benson. I'm no misfit.

  Captain Standforth was, and would be the first to admit it. Were it not for the seven generations of glorious Standforth's preceding him in the Galactic Patrol, he never would have joined up, nor would they have taken him. Taxidermy was the only thing he really cared about, which was why strange stuffed birds from all over the known Universe pervaded the Hopeful like an eighth plague. Everywhere you looked, plastic eyes looked back, surrounded by feathers.

  "Captain," Ensign Benson said, "we really should talk about Casino."

  "In a moment."

  Ensign Benson, a social engineer, an expert in comparative societies, the man whose job it was to define each of the lost colonies once it was found, to study it and describe what it had become in its 500 years of solitude, brimmed to overflowing with facts about Casino, the first colony they were to visit. The name itself, Casino, had been a brave, irony; the colonists had been a group of compulsive gamblers, who had joined to flee the temptations of society. What had they become in the past 500 years? "Captain-"

  "This is the most delicate moment, Ensign Benson." The captain inserted a glittering green eye; balefully, one-eyed, the Latter Sneezer glared at Ensign Benson.

  Why me?

  "There's a spaceship coming!"

  "Six to five it crashes."

  Astrogator Pam Stokes, beautiful, brainy and blind to passion, entered the captain's office to find the captain stuffing yet another bird and Ensign Benson 'hopping tip and down on a nearby chair, rather birdlike himself. "Captain," Pam said, "we're about to land, sir."

  The captain looked up, startled, the one-eyed bird impaled on his right hand. "Land! Why?"

  "Because we're here, sir."

  "Here?" The captain looked at the bird, which looked back.

  "Casino, Captain," Ensign Benson said. "I've been trying to tell you."

  Pam nodded. "That's right, sir. Fourth planet of the star Niobe." Whipping out her ever-present slide rule, she said, "Fifteen sixteenths Earth's size, one point oh oh seven six Earth's density, fifteen point one six--"

  Rising, the captain said, "Yes, yes, yes, Astrogator, thank you very much."

  "Just trying to keep you informed, sir. I may say, as astrogator, I had quite some time finding this spot. Celestial drift, you know."

  The captain, removing the bird from his fingers and edging toward the door, said, "Is that right?"

  Absorbed in her slide rule, Pam said, "Given a mean deviation of point oh seven five--"

  "I'll just go supervise the landing," the captain said and left with the bird.

  "Alter for nebular attraction," Pam mumbled, working the math, "on a scale of--"

  Ensign Benson was beside her now. Stroking her smooth, tanned forearm with the tiny golden hairs all along its rounded length, he said, "I know a couple of mean deviations myself."

  "Oh, hello, Kybee," she said, gave him a distracted smile and went away to think about the math.

  On a grassy field not far from town, the spaceship landed, light as a feather (automatic pilot). A dozen citizens of Casino approached the great gleaming sausage and watched in admiration as an oval door in its side slid away to permit a ladder slowly to descend. Down that ladder, smiling heroically in the sunlight, resplendent in his Galactic Patrol uniform, came Lieutenant Billy Shelby, Hopeful's handsome, idealistic second in command. Pausing two steps from the bottom, he raised his hand like a Roman centurion and cried, "Hail, Casinomen! We come in peace!"

  A citizen approached. "Seven to two," he said, "you don't know what day it is."

  Billy's smile went lopsided. He said, "What?"

  "Do we have a bet, stranger?"

  Billy shook his head. When things confused him -- as they frequently did -- he just went on doing what he was supposed to do. "I'm here to find out if you're warlike," he explained.

  The citizen frowned. "What's 'warlike'?"

  "It's OK, Captain," Billy called.

  The captain appeared, birdless, looked at the far horizon and fell down the stairs. Billy helped him pick himself up as Ensign Benson also emerged from the ship, accompanying stout Galactic Councilman Morton Luthguster, who came massively down the ladder as though down a grand staircase to his coronation.

  "So this is Casino," the captain said, dusting himself off, looking around at a tree-studded landscape that looked much like northern Wisconsin in late September.

  The citizen sidled up to him. "Seven to two you don't know what day it is."

  The captain looked at his watch. "It's ten minutes to six in the morning. Greenwich time, on Earth."

  "What day it is."

  With another look at his watch, the captain said, "August seventh, eleven thousand, four hundred and six."

  Of the citizen's patience, not much was left. "Not the date," he said. "the day."

  "The day?" The captain shook his head. "Where?"

  "Here!"

  "Back on Earth, it's Tuesday. Unless my watch stopped."

  Councilman Luthguster, having reached the second step from the bottom, now spread his arms wide and declaimed, "Welcome, Casinomen! Welcome to the bosom of Mother Earth! I am Councilman Morton Luthguster; I am here among you to represent the Supreme Galactic Council, and I have full treaty-making powers."

  A citizen standing beside the ladder said, "Guess your weight."

  Luthguster looked down askance: "I beg your pardon."

  The citizen said. "Ten lukes says I can guess your weight within five-kilograms."

  "I would prefer if you didn't," Luthguster told him. Looking around himself, realizing there was no one responsible here, that these were all layabouts and scalawags, he said, "Take me to your leader."

  It was a normal day in the main plaza of downtown Casino. At benches and tables and grassy patches on the plaz
a itself -- a large round area rather like a roulette wheel -- pairs and small groups contested together, using various kinds of dice, cards, paddles, marbles, game boards, magnets and lengths of string. Some needed no equipment at all: "Bet you two lukes that cloud passes the hill before that cloud." Next to three employment buses, potential fruit pickers, meat packers or assembly-line button pushers played 14-card monte against the employment agents; the winners took their ten Iukes' wages and went elsewhere, while the losers climbed, muttering, aboard the buses, resigned to a six-hour workday for no pay. Through the crowd passed a ragged beggar, limping, rattling something in a tin cup and whining, "Gimme a break, will ya? Gimme a break."

  A prosperous-looking citizen counting out a recent handful of winning's turned toward the beggar his self-confident eye: "What's your proposition?"

  The beggar rattled his cup. "Dice. High number. Two lukes -against a kick in the shin."

  "You're on."

  As they bent over the cup, the Earthmen arrived in the plaza, escorted by several of the citizens who had watched thern land, one of whom pointed across the plaza at a large white wooden structure that looked rather like an old Mississippi riverboat. "That's the chief tout's mansion there."

  "Ah," Luthguster said, nodding his pompous head. "The man I must see. Captain Standforth, you and your men wait here. We don't want to startle the head of government with a show of force."

  "Yes, sir."

  Luthguster waddled off with several citizens toward the chief tout's mansion. Billy Shelby and Ensign Benson gazed around at the citizenry, many of whom gazed back in a rather predatory fashion. Captain Standforth, head back, mouth open, gaped skyward in an abstracted fashion, till all it once he whipped out his stun gun and fired into the air.

  All around the plaza, losers ducked for cover while winners crouched protectively over game boards, card layouts and die tosses. A large, big-bellied bird, with a pink tuft on top of its orange head and a lot of bright scarlet feathers on its behind, fell out of the sky and landed dead at the captain's feet. Admiringly, the captain picked it up by one green claw, while its fleas hurriedly packed their bags, left a note for the milkman and went leaping away. "Wonderful specimen," the captain said, turning his prize this way and that. "Never seen anything like it."

  A cautious citizen approached, saying, "What did you do?"

  "Taxidermy is my passion," the captain explained. "I stuff birds."

  Where do you stuff them?"

  "In the ship."

  The beggar, limping worse than ever, approached the captain, rattling his tin cup. "Gimme a break, sir," he whined. "Gimme a break, will ya?"

  The captain, embarrassed, took a coin from his pocket and dropped it into the cup. "Here you are, my good man." The beggar stared into his cup, dumfounded.

  Billy Shelby said, "Shall I take the bird back to the ship. Captain?"

  "Thank you, Lieutenant, thank you."

  Off went Billy with the bird.

  Another citizen, pointing after the bird, said, "Even money you can't do that again."

  Scratching his wrist, the captain said, "Eh?"

  "Even money's the best I can do," the citizen warned him.

  The captain looked slowly around the plaza, at last registering the human activity here. "Are they," he said, pointing at one pair of dice players, "are they gambling?"

  "They're all gambling," Ensign Benson assured him. "Fascinating, fascinating."

  "My goodness," the captain said.

  "They've turned their weakness into strength," Ensign Benson went on. "Their vice into virtue. Their swords into -- Well, no."

  They strolled together over to a group playing cards around a cement table. "Pardon me," the captain said, "but is this a game of chance?"

  "That depends," said one of the players.

  "I rnean a gambling game."

  Another player -- the prosperous citizen, in fact -- said, "It's a fine game, my friend, and very easy to learn. Care to

  sit in?"

  "No, no. I'll just watch."

  "Then come sit by me," said the citizen, hospitable as a spider. "Name's Scanney. I'll explain it to you as we go."

  In the chief tout's office, the chief tout himself, in appearance a cross between a distinguished politician and a sleazy gambler, sat at a desk playing a board game against himself. It looked something like Monopoly but was much more complex, being spread over several layers of boards, with ramps, elevators and slides. The chief tout held two dice cups. one in each hand, and played one hand against the other. It had been years since anyone -- not even Scanney -- would play against him.

  He looked up from his left hand's predicament as his secretary -- that is, the loser in that day's steno pool -- came in to say, "Three to two you don't know what Earth is."

  "Original Source of mankind," the chief tout immediately responded. '"They brought us here five hundred years ago, said they'd be right back, haven't been heard from since. Why?"

  "'They're back," the disconsolate girl said, counting out three hard-won Iukes onto the chief tout's desk. "There's a fat one ontside."

  "Send him in," the chief tout said, smiling from ear to ear and rubbing his competing hands together.

  A moment later. the fat one himself was ushered in, accompanied by two wolfishly grinning citizens. They'd be demanding a finder's fee later on; the chief tout could tell just by looking at them.

  Meanwhile, the fat one was in voice: "I am, Your Honor, proud to announce that I am Councilman Morton Luthguster, representative plenipotentiary from the Supreme Galactic Council, and it is my esteemed pleasure to welcome you back to the Confederation of Earth."

  "Haven't heard from you people In quite a while," the chief tout said.

  . "I am empowered," Luthguster said, puffing himself up, "to negotiate with you on several fronts. Mutual defense, for instance. Trade agreements, technical advisory personnel. Earth can do much for you now that you're back in the Confederation."

  "Trade agreements, eh?" Gesturing toward the game board, the chief tout said, "That's what this game's all about, in a way. Familiar with it?"

  Luthguster gave the board a suspicious look. "Uh, no," he said. "I don't believe so."

  "Sit down here," the chief tout said making room for a chair beside himself. "I'll show you how it works."

  "I'm going to take a stroll around town," Ensign Benson said. "You'll be all right here, Captain?"

  The captain nodded in a distracted way; most of his attention was on his new friend Scanney's explanation of this fascinating card game. "I'm fine, Ensign Benson; you go ahead.

  "Now, if you get two alike," Scanney was saying, "that's good. But three alike is even better."

  Vaguely worried, Ensign Benson said, You won't play or anything, will you, Captain?"

  "No, no, no, I'm just observing. Now, Mr. Scanney, what are those cards with the nooses?"

  In the main corridor of the Hopeful. Billy Shelby passed Astrogator Pam Stokes, still too involved with her slide rule to notice either him or the bird he carried. He said, nevertheless, believing it good manners -- and good for morale -- to greet crew members when spotted. Unanswered, he went on to dump the dead bird in the captain's office, then to make a quick round of the interior, reassuring himself that everything was spaceshipshape. In the main engine room. He found Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw whamming away at a pipe with a hammer. The sound was awful. "Hester? Something the matter?"

  "No," Hester said. "I'm just keeping my arm loose," Fortyish, stocky and blunt-featured, Hester was blunt in manner and personality and rather blunt in brain as well.

  "Our very lives," Billy reminded her, "depend upon those engines."

  "Is that right?" Hester hammered some more, flailing away.

  Billy blinked at every bang. "Hester, is it serious?"

  Hester put down her hammer and turned to frown at Billy. "You tell me," she said. Picking up a white plastic china coffee mug, she turned a spigot, filled the mug with black liquid and handed it
to Billy. "Give that a taste."

  Doubtful, Billy said, "Taste?"

  "Go on, go on."

  So Billy took a tiny sip, and his face wrinkled up like a cheap shirt. "Oogl" he said.

  "You call that coffee?" Hester demanded.

  "No! Is it supposed to be?"

  "Yes, it's supposed to --" Struck with sudden doubt, Hester took back the mug and sniffed it, "No, you're right; that's crankcase oil. Wait a minute, now."

  Turning away, Hester began following pipes with a pointing finger. Billy, making bad-mouth faces, headed for the door, but before he got there, Ensign Benson walked in, saying. "Bad news."

  "Don't drink the coffee," Billy said.

  "What? No, this is worse. 'The captain got into a game."

  Hester looked away from her maze of pipes. "He what?"

  "He lost the ship."

  "Oh, Captain. my, Captain," Billy said. "Whatever made you do it?"

  "I had a hunch," the Captain said. He looked dazed.

  A citizen passing with an armchair on his head -- Scanney, the new owner, was moving into the Hopeful -- paused to say, "You should never draw to an inside quork."

  The captain sat on his suitcase, far across the large field from his former ship. About him were his possessions, his birds and his crew: Lieutenant Billy Shelby, Ensign Kybee Benson, Astrogator Pam Stokes and Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw. "Oh my", the Captain said. "What will I tell Councilman Luthguster?"

  Luthguster rolled the four dice, turned over a card, moved a tiny pyramid three spaces to the left and groaned with disgust. "I don't believe such dreadful luck!"

  "Easy come, easy go." the chief tout told him cheerfully. "That's the motto on our money," Presenting a document made ready by his now-grinning secretary, he said, "Now, Councilman, if you'll just sign here and here and initial over here."