Citizen in Space

by Robert Sheckley

  “No rough stuff,” Morrison warned.

  “Of course not. I understand you perfectly, boss.” The fix foreman swung into his jeep and roared to the front of the convoy. The procession of trucks churned dust for half an hour, and then the last of them was gone. Morrison returned to his tent to fill out progress reports.

  But he found he was staring at the radio, waiting for Flynn to report. If only Dengue would do something! Nothing big, just enough to prove he was the man. Then Morrison would have every right to take him apart limb by limb.

  It was two hours before the radio buzzed, and Morrison banged his knee answering it.

  “This is Rivera. We’ve had some trouble, Mr. Morrison.”

  “Go on.”

  “The lead Trailbreaker must have got off course. Don’t ask me how. I thought the chartman knew where he was going. He’s paid enough.”

  “Come on, what happened?” Morrison shouted.

  “Must have been going over a thin crust. Once the convoy was on it, the surface cracked. Mud underneath, super-saturated with water. Lost all but six trucks.”

  “Flynn?”

  “We pontooned a lot of the men out, but Flynn didn’t make it.”

  “All right,” Morrison said heavily. “All right. Sit there. I’m sending the amphibians out for you. And listen. Keep hold of Dengue.”

  “That’ll be sort of difficult,” Rivera said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, you know, he was in that lead Trailbreaker. He never had a chance.”

  The men in the work camp were in a sullen, angry mood after their new losses, and badly in need of something tangible to strike at. They beat up a baker because his bread tasted funny, and almost lynched a water-control man because he was found near the big rigs, where he had no legitimate business. But this didn’t satisfy them, and they began to glance toward the native village.

  The stone-age savages had built a new settlement near the work camp, a cliff village of seers and warlocks assembled to curse the skyland demons. Their drums pounded day and night, and the men talked of blasting them out, just to shut them up.

  Morrison pushed them on. Roads were constructed, and within a week they crumpled. Food seemed to spoil at an alarming rate, and no one would eat the planet’s natural products. During a storm, lightning struck the generator plant, ignoring the lightning rods which Lerner had personally installed. The resulting fire swept half the camp, and when the fire-control team went for water, they found the nearest streams had been mysteriously diverted.

  A second attempt was made to blow up the mountain without a name, but this one succeeded only in jarring loose a few freak landslides. Five men had been holding an unauthorized beer party on a nearby slope, and they were caught beneath falling rock. After that, the explosions men refused to plant charges on the mountain.

  And the Earth office called again.

  “But just exactly what is wrong, Morrison?” Mr. Shotwell asked.

  “I tell you I don’t know,” Morrison said.

  After a moment, Shotwell asked softly, “Is there any possibility of sabotage?”

  “I guess so,” Morrison said. “All this couldn’t be entirely natural. If someone wanted to, they could do a lot of damage—like misguiding a convoy, tampering with charges, lousing up the lightning rods—”

  “Do you suspect anyone?”

  “I have over five thousand men here,” Morrison said slowly.

  “I know that. Now listen carefully. The board of directors has agreed to grant you extraordinary powers in this emergency. You can do anything you like to get the job done. Lock up half the camp, if you wish. Blow the natives out of the hills, if you think that might help. Take any and all measures. No legal responsibility will devolve upon you. We’re even prepared to pay a sizable bonus. But the job must be completed.”

  “I know,” Morrison said.

  “Yes, but you don’t know how important Work Order 35 is. In strictest confidence, the company has received a number of setbacks elsewhere. There have been loss and damage suits, Acts of God uncovered by our insurance. We’ve sunk too much into this planet to abandon it. You simply must carry it off.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Morrison said, and signed off.

  That afternoon there was an explosion in the fuel dump. Ten thousand gallons of D-12 were destroyed, and the fuel-dump guard was killed.

  “You were pretty lucky,” Morrison said, staring somberly at Lerner.

  “I’ll say,” Lerner said, his face still gray and sweat-stained. Quickly he poured himself a drink. “If I had walked through there ten minutes later, I would have been in the soup. That’s too close for comfort.”

  “Pretty lucky,” Morrison said thoughtfully.

  “Do you know,” Lerner said, “I think the ground was hot when I walked past the dump? It didn’t strike me until now. Could there be some sort of volcanic activity under the surface?”

  “No,” Morrison said. “Our geologists have charted every inch of this area. We’re perched on solid granite.”

  “Hmm,” Lerner said. “Morrie, I believe you should wipe out the natives.”

  “Why do that?”

  “They’re the only really uncontrolled factor. Everyone in the camp is watching everyone else. It must be the natives! Psi ability has been proved, you know, and it’s been shown more prevalent in primitives.”

  Morrison nodded. “Then you would say that the explosion was caused by poltergeist activity?”

  Lerner frowned, watching Morrison’s face. “Why not? It’s worth looking into.”

  “And if they can polter,” Morrison went on, “they can do anything else, can’t they? Direct an explosion, lead a convoy astray—”

  “I suppose they can, granting the hypothesis.”

  “Then what are they fooling around for?” Morrison asked. “If they can do all that, they could blow us off this planet without any trouble.”

  “They might have certain limitations,” Lerner said.

  “Nuts. Too complicated a theory. It’s much simpler to assume that someone here doesn’t want the job completed. Maybe he’s been offered a million dollars by a rival company. Maybe he’s a crank. But he’d have to be someone who gets around. Someone who checks blast patterns, charts courses, directs work parties—”

  “Now just a minute! If you’re implying—”

  “I’m not implying a thing,” Morrison said. “And if I’m doing you an injustice, I’m sorry.” He stepped outside the tent and called two workmen. “Lock him up somewhere, and make sure he stays locked up.”

  “You’re exceeding your authority,” Lemer said.

  “Sure.”

  “And you’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, Morrie.”

  “In that case, I’m sorry.” He motioned to the men, and they led Lerner out.

  Two days later the avalanches began. The geologists didn’t know why. They theorized that repeated demolition might have caused deep flaws in the bedrock, the flaws expanded, and well, it was anybody’s guess.

  Morrison tried grimly to push the work ahead, but the men were beginning to get out of hand. Some of them were babbling about flying objects, fiery hands in the sky, talking animals and sentient machines. They drew a lot of listeners. It was unsafe to walk around the camp after dark. Self-appointed guards shot at anything that moved, and quite a number of things that didn’t.

  Morrison was not particularly surprised when, late one night, he found the work camp deserted. He had expected the men to make a move. He sat back in his tent and waited.

  After a while Rivera came in and sat down. “Gonna be some trouble,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Whose trouble?”

  “The natives’. The boys are going up to that village.”

  Morrison nodded. “What started them?”

  Rivera leaned back and exhaled smoke. “You know this crazy Charlie? The guy who’s always praying? Well, he swore he saw one of those natives standing beside his tent. He said the nativ
e said, ‘You die, all of you Earthmen die.’ And then the native disappeared.”

  “In a cloud of smoke?” Morrison asked.

  “Yeah,” Rivera said, grinning. “I think there was a cloud of smoke in it.”

  Morrison remembered the man. A perfect hysteric type. A classic case, whose devil spoke conveniently in his own language, and from somewhere near enough to be destroyed.

  “Tell me,” Morrison asked, “are they going up there to destroy witches? Or psi supermen?”

  Rivera thought it over for a while, then said, “Well, Mr. Morrison, I’d say they don’t much care.”

  In the distance they heard a loud, reverberating boom.

  “Did they take explosives?” Morrison asked.

  “Don’t know. I suppose they did.”

  It was ridiculous, he thought. Pure mob behavior. Dengue would grin and say: When in doubt, always kill the shadows. Can’t tell what they’re up to.

  But Morrison found that he was glad his men had made the move. Latent psi powers…You could never tell.

  Half an hour later, the first men straggled in, walking slowly, not talking to each other.

  “Well?” Morrison asked. “Did you get them all?”

  “No sir,” a man said. “We didn’t even get near them.”

  “What happened?” Morrison asked, feeling a touch of panic.

  More of his men arrived. They stood silently, not looking at each other.

  “What happened?” Morrison shouted.

  “We didn’t even get near them,” a man said. “We got about halfway there. Then there was another landslide.”

  “Were any of you hurt?”

  “No sir. It didn’t come near us. But it buried their village.”

  “That’s bad,” Morrison said softly.

  “Yes sir.” The men stood in quiet groups, looking at him.

  “What do we do now, sir?”

  Morrison shut his eyes tightly for a moment, then said, “Get back to your tents and stand by.”

  They melted into the darkness. Rivera looked questioningly at him. Morrison said, “Bring Lerner here.” As soon as Rivera left, he turned to the radio, and began to draw in his outposts.

  He had a suspicion that something was coming, so the tornado that burst over the camp half an hour later didn’t take him completely by surprise. He was able to get most of his men into the ships before their tents blew away.

  Lerner pushed his way into Morrison’s temporary headquarters in the radio room of the flagship What’s up?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you what’s up,” Morrison said. “A range of dead volcanoes ten miles from here are erupting. The weather station reports a tidal wave coming that’ll flood half this continent. We shouldn’t have earthquakes here, but I suppose you felt the first tremor. And that’s only the beginning.”

  “But what is it?” Lerner asked. “What’s doing it?”

  “Haven’t you got Earth yet?” Morrison asked the radio operator.

  “Still trying.”

  Rivera burst in. “Just two more sections to go,” he reported.

  “When everyone’s on a ship, let me know.”

  “What’s going on?” Lerner screamed. “Is this my fault too?”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Morrison said.

  “Got something,” the radioman said. “Hold on…”

  “Morrison!” Lerner screamed. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” Morrison said. “It’s too big for me. But Dengue could tell you.”

  Morrison closed his eyes and imagined Dengue standing in front of him. Dengue was smiling disdainfully, and saying, “Read here the saga of the jellyfish that dreamed it was a god. Upon rising from the ocean beach, the super-jellyfish which called itself Man decided that, because of its convoluted gray brain, it was the superior of all. And having thus decided, the jellyfish slew the fish of the sea and the beasts of the field, slew them prodigiously, to the complete disregard of nature’s intent. And then the jellyfish bored holes in the mountains and pressed heavy cities upon the groaning earth, and hid the green grass under a concrete apron. And then, increasing in numbers past all reason, the spaceborn jellyfish went to other worlds, and there he did destroy mountains, build up plains, shift whole forests, redirect rivers, melt ice caps, mold continents, dig new seas, and in these and other ways did deface the great planets which, next to the stars, are nature’s noblest work. Now nature is old and slow, but very sure. So inevitably there came a time when nature had enough of the presumptuous jellyfish, and his pretension to godhood. And therefore, the time came when a great planet whose skin he pierced rejected him, cast him out, spit him forth. That was the day the jellyfish found, to his amazement, that he had lived all his days in the sufferance of powers past his conception, upon an exact par with the creatures of plain and swamp, no worse than the flowers, no better than the weeds, and that it made no difference to the universe whether he lived or died, and all his vaunted record of works done was no more than the tracks an insect leaves in the sand.”

  “What is it?” Lerner begged.

  “I think the planet didn’t want us any more,” Morrison said. “I think it had enough.”

  “I got Earth!” the radio operator called. “Go ahead, Morrie.”

  “Shotwell? Listen, we can’t stick it out,” Morrison said into the receiver. “I’m getting my men out of here while there’s still time. I can’t explain it to you now—I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to—”

  “The planet can’t be used at all?” Shotwell asked.

  “No. Not a chance. Sir; I hope this doesn’t jeopardize the firm’s standing—”

  “Oh, to hell with the firm’s standing,” Mr. Shotwell said. “It’s just that—you don’t know what’s been going on here, Morrison. You know our Gobi project? In ruins, every bit of it. And it’s not just us. I don’t know, I just don’t know. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not speaking coherently, but ever since Australia sank—”

  “What?”

  “Yes, sank, sank I tell you. Perhaps we should have suspected something with the hurricanes. But then the earthquakes—but we just don’t know any more.”

  “But Mars? Venus? Alpha Centauri?”

  “The same everywhere. But we can’t be through, can we, Morrison? I mean, Mankind—”

  “Hello, hello,” Morrison called. “What happened?” he asked the operator.

  “They conked out,” the operator said. “I’ll try again.”

  “Don’t bother,” Morrison said. Just then Rivera dashed in.

  “Got every last man on board,” he said. “The ports are sealed. We’re all set to go, Mr. Morrison.”

  They were all looking at him. Morrison slumped back in his chair and grinned helplessly.

  “We’re all set,” he said. “But where shall we go?”

  The Accountant

  Mr. Dee was seated in the big armchair, his belt loosened, the evening papers strewn around his knees. Peacefully he smoked his pipe, and considered how wonderful the world was. Today he had sold two amulets and a philter; his wife was bustling around the kitchen, preparing a delicious meal; and his pipe was drawing well. With a sigh of contentment, Mr. Dee yawned and stretched.

  Morton, his nine-year-old son, hurried across the living room, laden down with books.

  “How’d school go today?” Mr. Dee called.

  “Okay,” the boy said, slowing down, but still moving toward his room.

  “What have you got there?” Mr. Dee asked, gesturing at his son’s tall pile of books.

  “Just some more accounting stuff,” Morton said, not looking at his father. He hurried into his room.

  Mr. Dee shook his head. Somewhere, the lad had picked up the notion that he wanted to be an accountant An accountant! True, Morton was quick with figures; but he would have to forget this nonsense. Bigger things were in store for him.

  The doorbell rang.

  Mr. Dee tightened his belt, hastily stuffed in his s
hirt and opened the front door. There stood Miss Greeb, his son’s fourth-grade teacher.

  “Come in, Miss Greeb,” said Dee. “Can I offer you something?”

  “I have no time,” said Miss Greeb. She stood in the doorway, her arms akimbo. With her gray, tangled hair, her thin, long-nosed face and red runny eyes, she looked exactly like a witch. And this was as it should be, for Miss Greeb was a witch.

  “I’ve come to speak to you about your son,” she said.

  At this moment Mrs. Dee hurried out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “I hope he hasn’t been naughty,” Mrs. Dee said anxiously.

  Miss Greeb sniffed ominously. “Today I gave the yearly tests. Your son failed miserably.”

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Dee said. “It’s Spring. Perhaps—”

  “Spring has nothing to do with it,” said Miss Greeb. “Last week I assigned the Greater Spells of Cordus, section one. You know how easy they are. He didn’t learn a single one.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Dee succinctly.

  “In Biology, he doesn’t have the slightest notion which are the basic conjuring herbs. Not the slightest.”

  “This is unthinkable,” said Mr. Dee.

  Miss Greeb laughed sourly. “Moreover, he has forgotten all the Secret Alphabet which he learned in third grade. He has forgotten the Protective Formula, forgotten the names of the 99 lesser imps of the Third Circle, forgotten what little he knew of the Geography of Greater Hell. And what’s more, he doesn’t want to learn.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Dee looked at each other silently. This was very serious indeed. A certain amount of boyish inattentiveness was allowable; encouraged, even, for it showed spirit. But a child had to learn the basics, if he ever hoped to become a full-fledged wizard.

  “I can tell you right here and now,” said Miss Greeb, “if this were the old days, I’d flunk him without another thought. But there are so few of us left.”

  Mr. Dee nodded sadly. Witchcraft had been steadily declining over the centuries. The old families died out, or were snatched by demonic forces, or became scientists. And the fickle public showed no interest whatsoever in the charms and enchantments of ancient days.

  Now, only a scattered handful possessed the Old Lore, guarding it, teaching it in places like Miss Greeb’s private school for the children of wizards. It was a heritage, a sacred trust.