Unidentified Funny Objects 3

by Alex Shvartsman (Ed. )

  Satan shrank inside his filthy overcoat. His beady eyes gleamed, and he looked away. “I heard you, Sammy. Fixed them anyway.” He fidgeted some more, played with his little goatee. “They’re yours. I can’t use them. Last time I did, they got broke pretty bad. Figured you could keep ‘em. Flying is fun. I think I remember it being fun.”

  I tried to force a smile, even if inside I still felt like a soggy bit of toast. “Hey, man. That’s… I mean, I don’t think they’ll let me. You know, when I’m sworn to General Obedience. Probably rules about menials having demonic artifacts and stuff. But… thank you. It was… nice of you.” It really was, I realized. And I was fucking it up because I was in a funk because—

  The stairwell burst open and a half-dozen teachers tumbled out, shouting. Mr. Muesli was in the lead. I think I even saw Zdaxg glowing serenely back in the stairwell, his melodious voice peevish as he tried to get people to move out of his way. Even the Angel of Death drifted over, as if attracted by the commotion. No one else seemed to notice him.

  “There they are!” shouted Mr. Muesli.

  “You guys,” I told them. “Calm down. I’m coming back down already. Jeez.”

  Satan glanced up. “Blasphemy!” he crowed. “Owe me a Coke.” He punched me in the arm.

  “Ow.”

  “Foul demon,” Mr. Muesli intoned, brandishing his sigil at Satan, who leaned back, jostling me and the wing-rack. He smelled like burnt match heads. “Begone from this holy place and leave our souls in peace!” He stepped forward, pendant glowing, and Satan hopped back like he got burned. Got him behind me, like you’d say.

  “Don’t even want your stupid souls,” Satan muttered.

  “And you!” Mr. Muesli rounded on me, still holding the pendant as if it would repel me, which honestly it kind of did. “You are in so much trouble, young man. Disrupting the ceremony. Consorting with devils. I may have to reconsider my recommendation that you graduate.”

  I didn’t actually say “fine with me” but I think I thought it hard enough that he heard me because his face went purple, then white.

  “Come with me immediately, Samuel,” he said, gesturing sharply. He didn’t come get me, though. I don’t know if he was afraid what I’d do if he grabbed me or if he just didn’t want to get within smelling distance of Satan.

  I felt the initial rush of instinctive refusal. Rebelliousness of spirit, they called it. But then I remembered that I wasn’t fighting them anymore, that I’d made up my mind to be an adult about everything, even when it sucked. I closed my mouth and glanced around. Mr. Muesli was getting closer to apoplexy every second. Satan looked hangdog. The teachers all had stern faces on but were mostly enjoying being part of a righteous mob. And the Angel of Death wasn’t just smiling anymore. He was grinning. And starting to move forward, slipping through the crowd like a snake through tree branches.

  And I remembered something.

  Despair is a sin.

  “No,” I said.

  Mr. Muesli kept looking grouchy. “What?”

  “No, fuck this noise. I don’t want it. Who says I have to have it?”

  “I do. We do. They do.” He pointed to Zdaxg, who had made it to the front of the crowd and was staring down his nose at Satan, except he wasn’t even as tall as Satan and so was kind of glaring cross-eyed at Satan’s right elbow.

  “Well, I don’t. I’m not swearing to anyone.” I turned around. Satan was watching me closely. “Not even you, bro.”

  Satan shook his head. “Nah. Dumb idea anyway.”

  “Help me on with these,” I pointed to the wings.

  A couple of teachers tried to move forward, but Satan pulled himself upright and bared his fangs. He even managed a pretty good fireball effect, even if it was more of a burp than a blast. The teachers scrambled backwards. The fire passed around Zdaxg and the Angel of Death without touching them. Zdaxg looked confused. The Angel of Death just watched, face impassive again.

  “You know the lady?” Satan said as he fussed with the straps on my back.

  “Huh?”

  “The old lady.” He tugged something that gave me the mother of all wedgies. “I told her not to die. Command voice. I don’t think it worked very well, though. Probably won’t for long. I dunno how to make her better for good.”

  I laughed, really laughed, for the first time in what felt like years. Maybe in my whole life. “Fuck if I know, either, dude.”

  Satan stepped back, and I flexed the wings. They spread out with a sharp sound, like a battle flag snapping in the wind.

  “Feels cool, dude.” I strode to the edge of the roof. Behind us, the flickering remnants of the fireball were dying down. The teachers were murmuring, working up the courage to tackle the devil again. They were trying to convince Zdaxg to miracle something up, but he was looking dubious.

  I held out a hand to Satan. “Come on. We’ll try to figure something out to help her.” My wings started to beat, slowly but building speed.

  “Your lead.” Satan gripped my wrist. It wasn’t cold at all. “So I swear to you now?”

  “God, no.”

  His talons dug in. “Blasphemy. Owe me two Cokes.”

  I looked over my shoulder and met the gaze of the Angel of Death. I pointed at him. “Nobody likes you,” I told him.

  No response.

  “No, really. You’re a fucking asshole. Everyone thinks that.”

  He shrugged. A What-can-you-do? shrug.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said.

  And then I jumped off the roof to see if I could fly.

  ***

  Nathaniel Lee lives somewhat unwillingly in North Carolina, along with his wife, son, and obligatory cat. His fiction has appeared in a variety of venues, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, and previously here at UFO. He also works as the assistant editor (Most Senior Exalted Slush Monkey) at both the Escape Pod and Drabblecast audio fiction magazines. You can find him online at www.mirrorshards.org and @scattercat on Twitter, though no one is particularly clear why you would do so. He has not at present sold his soul to the Devil, but all reasonable offers will be considered.

  Company Store

  Robert Silverberg

  Colonist Roy Wingert gripped his blaster with shaky hands and aimed it at the slimy wormlike creatures wriggling behind his newly deposited pile of crates.

  They told me this planet was uninhabited, he thought. Hah!

  He yanked back the firing stud and a spurt of violet light leaped out. His nostrils caught the smell of roasting alien flesh. Shuddering, Wingert turned away from the mess before him, in time to see four more of the wormlike beings writhing toward him from the rear.

  He ashed those. Two more dangled invitingly from a thick-boled tree at his left. Getting into the spirit of the thing now, Wingert turned the beam on them too. The clearing was beginning to look like the vestibule of an abattoir. Sweat ran down Wingert’s face. His stomach was starting to get queasy, and his skin was cold at the prospect of spending his three-year tour on Quellac doing nothing but fighting off these overgrown night -crawlers.

  Two more of them were wriggling out of a decaying log near his feet. They were nearly six feet long, with saw-edged teeth glistening in Quellac’s bright sunlight. Nothing very dangerous, Wingert thought. He recharged the blaster and roasted the two newcomers.

  Loud noises in back of him persuaded him to turn. Something very much like a large gray toad, seven or eight feet high and mostly mouth, was hopping toward him through the forest. It was about thirty yards away now. It looked very hungry.

  Squaring his shoulders, Wingert prepared to defend himself against this new assault. But just as he started to depress the firing stud, a motion to his far right registered in the corner of his eye. Another of the things—approaching rapidly from the opposite direction.

  “Pardon me, sir,” a sharp crackling voice said suddenly. “You seem to be in serious straits. May I offer you the use of this Duarm Pocket Force-Field Generator in this emergenc
y? The cost is only—”

  Wingert gasped. “Damn the cost! Turn the thing on—those toads are only twenty feet away!”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Wingert heard a click and abruptly a shimmering blue bubble of force sprang up around them. The two onrushing pseudo-toads cracked soundly into it and were thrown back.

  Wingert staggered over to one of the packing cases and sat down limply. He was soaked with sweat from head to foot.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life. But who the hell are you, and where’d you come from?”

  “Permit me to introduce myself. I am XL-ad41, a new-model Vending and Distributing Robot manufactured on Densobol II. I arrived here not long ago, and, perceiving your plight—”

  Wingert saw now that the creature was indeed a robot, roughly humanoid except for a heavy pair of locomotory treads. “Hold on! Let’s go back to the beginning.” The toad-things were eyeing him hungrily from outside the force-field. “You say you’re a new-model what?”

  “Vending and Distributing Robot. It is my function to diffuse through the civilized galaxy the goods and supplies manufactured by my creators, Associated Artisans of Densobol II.” The robot’s rubberized lips split in an oily smile. “I am, you might say, a mechanized traveling salesman. Are you from Terra, perhaps?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I thought as much. By comparing your physical appearance with the phenotype data in my memory banks I reached the conclusion that you were of Terran origin. The confirmation you have just given is most gratifying.”

  “Glad to hear it. Densobol II is in the Magellanic Cluster, isn’t it? Lesser or Greater Cloud?”

  “Lesser. One matter puzzles me, though. In view of your Terran origin, it seems odd that you didn’t respond when I mentioned that I am a traveling salesman.”

  Wingert frowned. “How was I supposed to respond? Clap my hands and wiggle my ears?”

  “You were supposed to show humor-response. According to my files on Terra, mention of traveling salesmen customarily strikes upon a common well of folklore implanted in the subconscious and induces a conscious humor-reaction.”

  “Hmm. Sorry I missed the joke,” Wingert apologized. “I’m afraid I never was too interested in Earth or its jokes, though. That’s why I pulled up stakes and signed on with Planetary Colonization.”

  “Ah, yes. I had just concluded that your failure to show response to standard folklore indicated some fundamental dislocation of your position relative to your cultural gestalt. Again, confirmation is gratifying. As an experimental model, I’m subject to careful monitoring by my makers, and I’m anxious to demonstrate my capability as a salesman.”

  Wingert had almost completely recovered from his earlier exertions. He eyed the two toad-beings uneasily and said, “That force-field generator—that one of the things you sell?”

  “The Duarm Generator is one of our finest products. It’s strictly one-way, you know. They can’t get in, but you can still fire at them.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me that long ago?” Wingert drew his blaster and disposed of the toad-creatures with two well-placed shots.

  “That’s that,” he said. “I guess I sit inside this force-field and wait for the next ones now.”

  “Oh, they won’t be along for a while,” the robot said lightly. “The creatures that attacked you are native to the next continent. They’re not found here at all.”

  “Then how’d they get here?”

  “I brought them,” the robot said. “I collected the most hostile creatures I could find on this world and left them in your vicinity in order to demonstrate the necessity for the Duarm Force-Field Generat—”

  “You brought them?” Wingert rose and advanced on the robot menacingly. “Deliberately, as a sales stunt?” They could have killed and eaten me.”

  “On the contrary. I was controlling the situation, as you saw. When matters became serious I intervened.”

  “Get out of here!” Wingert raged. “Go on, you crazy robot! I have to unpack, set up my bubble. Go!”

  “But you owe me—”

  “We’ll settle up later. Get going, fast!”

  ###

  The robot got. Wingert watched it scuttle off into the underbrush and tried to control his rage. Angry as he was, he felt a certain amusement at the robot’s crude sales tactics. It was clever, in a coarse way, to assemble a collection of menacing aliens and arrive at the last minute to supply the force-field. But when you poison a man in order to sell him the antidote, you don’t boast about it afterward to the victim!

  He glanced speculatively at the forest, hoping the robot had told the truth. He didn’t care to spend his entire tour on Quellac fighting off dangerous beasts.

  The generator was still operating; Wingert studied it and found a cam that widened the field. He expanded it to a thirty-yard radius and left it that way. The clearing was littered with alien corpses. Wingert shuddered.

  Well, now that that amusement was over, it was time to get down to business. He had been on Quellac for just an hour, and had spent most of that time fighting for his life.

  The Colonists’ Manual said, “The first step for a newly arrived colonist is to install his Matter-Transmitter.” Wingert closed the book and peered at the scattered pile of crates that were his possessions until he spied the large yellow box labeled MATTER-TRANSMITTER, HANDLE WITH CARE.

  From the box marked TOOLS he took a crowbar and delicately pried a couple of planks out of the packing crate. A silvery metallic object was visible within. Wingert hoped the Matter-Transmitter was in working order; it was his most important possession, his sole link to far-off Terra.

  The manual said, “All necessities of life will be sent via Matter-Transmitter without cost.” Wingert smiled. Necessities of life? He could have magneboots, cigars, sensotapes, low-power short-range matter-transmitters, dream pellets, bottled Martinis, and nuclear fizzes, simply by requisitioning them. All the comforts of home. They had told him working for Planetary Colonization was rugged, but it was hardly that. Not with the Matter-Transmitter to take the sting out of pioneering.

  Unless, Wingert thought gloomily, that lunatic robot brings some more giant toads over from the next continent.

  Wingert opened the packing crate and bared the Matter-Transmitter. It looked, he thought, like an office desk with elephantiasis of the side drawers; they bulged grotesquely, aproning out into shovel-shaped platforms, one labeled SEND and the other RECEIVE.

  An imposing-looking array of dials and meters completed the machine’s face. Wingert located the red activator stud along the north perimeter and jammed it down. The Matter-Transmitter came quivering to life.

  Dials clicked; meters registered. The squarish device seemed to have taken on an existence of its own. The viewscreen flickered polychromatically, then cleared. A mild, pudgy face stared out at Wingert.

  “Hello. I’m Smathers, from the Earth Office. I’m the Company contact man for Transmitters AZ-1061 through BF-80. Can I have your name, registry number, and coordinates?”

  “Roy Wingert, Number 76-032-10f3. The name of this planet is Quellac, and I don’t know the coordinates offhand. If you’ll give me a minute to check my Contract—”

  “No need of that,” Smathers said. “Just let me have the serial number of your Matter-Transmitter. It’s inscribed on the plate along the west perimeter.”

  Wingert found it after a moment’s search. “AZ-1142.”

  “That checks. Well, welcome to the Company, Colonist Wingert. How’s your planet?”

  “Not so good,” Wingert said.

  “How so?”

  “It’s inhabited. By hostile aliens. And my Contract said I was being sent to an uninhabited world.”

  “Read it again, Colonist Wingert. As I recall, it simply said you would meet no hostile creatures where you were. Our survey team reported some difficulties on the wild continent to your west, but—”

  “You see these dead things here?”

>   “Yes.”

  “I killed them. To save my own neck. They attacked me about a minute after the Company ship dropped me off here.”

  “They’re obviously strays from that other continent,” Smathers said. “Most unusual. Be sure to report any further difficulties of this sort.”

  “Sure,” Wingert said. “Big comfort that is.”

  “To change the subject,” Smathers said frigidly,” I wish to remind you that the Company stands ready to serve you. In the words of the Contract, ‘All necessities of life will be sent via Matter-Transmitter.’ That’s in the Manual, too. Would you care to make your first order now? The Company is extremely anxious that its employees are well taken care of.”

  Wingert frowned. “Well, I haven’t even unpacked, you know. I don’t think I need anything yet—except—yes! Send me some old-fashioned razor blades, will you? And a tube of shaving cream. I forgot to pack mine in, and I can’t stand these new vibroshavers.”

  Smathers emitted a suppressed chuckle. “You’re not going to grow a beard?”

  “No,” Wingert said stiffly. “They itch.”

  “Very well, then. I’ll have the routing desk ship a supply of blades and cream to Machine AZ-1142. So long for now, Colonist Wingert, and good luck. The Company sends its best wishes.”

  “Thanks,” Wingert said sourly. “Same to you.”

  ###

  He turned away from the blank screen and glanced beyond the confines of his force-field. All seemed quiet, so he snapped off the generator.

  Quellac, he thought, had the makings of a darned fine world, except for the beasts on the western continent. The planet was Earth-type, sixth in orbit around a small yellow main-sequence star. The soil was red with iron-salts, but looked fertile enough, judging from the thick vegetation pushing up all around. Not far away a sluggish little stream wound through a sloping valley and vanished in a hazy cloud of purple mist near the horizon.