The Best of Margaret St. Clair

by Margaret St. Clair

  For a moment Hobbs sat paralyzed, as near to stone as a man can be and still breathe. Then he dropped the Butandra stick and turned to the viewing pane. There was nothing there, of course—nothing but the black, the black.

  Hobbs bit his lips. With slightly unsteady fingers he picked up the stick from the floor and locked it away in his valise. Then he tightened his belt around his paunch, buttoned up his coat, and went down to the bar.

  He found the second officer there. McPherson was drinking pomelo juice and eating a bosula tongue sandwich. A plump good-natured man, he always liked a little something to eat before he hit the sack. After his own drink had been brought Hobbs got into conversation with the second officer. A possible explanation for the noise he had heard had come to him.

  “Something gone wrong with the ship?” he asked. “Is that why you’ve got a repair crew out on the hull?”

  McPherson looked surprised. “Repair crew?” he echoed. “Why no, nothing’s wrong. Captain Thorwald hates making repairs in deep space—always something faulty in them—and he wouldn’t order repairs here unless the situation were really emergent. There’s no crew out. What makes you ask that?”

  “I— thought I heard something rapping on my viewing pane.”

  The second officer smiled. He decided to make a joke. “Been doing something you shouldn’t, sir?” he said.

  Hobbs put down his glass. “I beg your pardon?” he said icily.

  The second officer grew sober. Hobbs, while not coming under the heading of VIP, was fairly important all the same.

  “No offense meant, sir,” he said. “Just a little joke. Don’t you know how, in the stories spacemen tell, the curse or doom or whatever it is always shows itself to its victim in space by tapping on his viewing pane? When a man’s broken a taboo on one of the planets, I mean. That was what I was referring to. Just a little joke.”

  “Oh.” Hobbs swallowed. He held out his glass to the barman. “Another of the same,” he said in a rather hoarse voice. “Make it a double.”

  Tiglath Hobbs was an extremely stubborn man. This quality, in some situations, is hardly to be distinguished from courage. Next wake-period he got out the Butandra stick again. With cold, unsteady fingers he worked on the knob. He had stationed himself close to the viewing plate.

  There was no rapping this time. Hobbs did not know what it was that made him look up. Look up at last he did. And there, bobbing about in the tiny spot of light which seeped out through his viewing pane, was the smiling face the room maid in Genlis had seen. Brown and rough, it was regarding Hobbs with incredible, with indescribable benignity.

  Hobbs uttered a cry. He pressed the button which sent the pane shutter flying into place. And the next moment he was standing by his cabin door, as far away from the pane as he could get, his fingers pressed over his eyes. When he stopped shuddering he decided to go see Captain Thorwald.

  It took him a long time to get to the point. Thorwald listened, drumming with his fingers on his desk, while Hobbs circumlocuted, hesitated, retracted, and corrected himself. What came out eventually was that he wanted Captain Thorwald—just for a moment, just for a fraction of a second—to have the ship’s force field turned on.

  Thorwald shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hobbs. It’s impossible. Turning on the field would have to go into the log, you know, and there’s no reason for it.”

  Hobbs hesitated. Then he got his wallet out. “I’ll make it worth your while. Five hundred I.U.’s?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Six hundred? Seven hundred? Money is always useful. You could say you ran into a meteor swarm.”

  “I—no.”

  “Eight hundred? Look here, I’ll give you a thousand! Surely you could fix the log.”

  Thorwald’s face wore a faint, sour smile but still he hesitated. “Very well,” he said abruptly. “Let’s say you bet me a thousand I.U.’s that I can’t turn the ship’s force field on and off again in a sixtieth of a second. Is that it? I warn you, Mr. Hobbs, you’re sure to lose your bet.”

  Hobbs’ eyelids flickered. If the captain wanted to save his pride this way—“I don’t believe it!” he said with artificial vehemence. “I don’t believe a field can be turned on and off that fast. It’s a bet. I’ll leave the stakes on the table, Captain.” From his wallet he drew ten crisp yellow notes.

  Thorwald nodded. “Very well,” he said without touching the money. “In half an hour, Mr. Hobbs, you shall have your demonstration. Will that be satisfactory?”

  “Quite.”

  Thorwald nodded and picked up the notes with his right hand.

  Hobbs went back to his cabin, raised the shutter and sat down by the viewing pane. He had keyed himself up to the pitch where it was almost a disappointment to him that the smiling face did not appear. The moments passed.

  Abruptly the ship shook from stem to stern. A billion billion tiny golden needles lanced out into the dark. Then the cascade of glory was gone and the eternal black of space was back.

  It had happened so quickly that, except for the pattern of light etched on his retina, Hobbs might have wondered whether he had seen it at all. Thorwald could certainly claim to have won his bet.

  But Hobbs was well satisfied with what he had got for his thousand I.U.’s. In the fraction of a second that the force field had been turned on he had seen, crushed and blackened against the field’s candent radiance, a dead scorched shapeless thing like a burned spider.

  The myriad biting fires of the force field must have charred it instantly to the bone. What Hobbs had seen in that instant of incredible illumination was dead beyond a doubt, as dead as the moon.

  By now it must be lying thousands upon thousands of kilos to the side of the ship’s course, where the vast impetus of the field had sent it hurtling. Hobbs drew a deep, deep breath. Relief had made him weak.

  When he and Thorwald met at the next meal they maintained a cautious cordiality toward each other. Neither of them, then or at any time thereafter, referred again to the bet.

  That sleep-period Hobbs rested well. In the next few days he regained most of his usual aplomb. Leisurely he finished carving the Butandra wood into a walking stick. It made a very nice one. By the time the ship docked at Llewellyn, an Earth-type planet but with a third less than Earth’s normal gee, he was quite himself again.

  * * *

  In the depths of space, uncounted millions of kilometers away, the blackened husk of the Gardener floated weightlessly. It was quite dry and dead. But did it not stir a little from time to time as though a breeze rustled it? And what were those cracks that slowly appeared in it? Were they not like the cracks in a chrysalis?

  * * *

  Hobbs was well pleased with the state of the plantations on Llewellyn. He told the young man in charge of the local office so and the young man was gratified. By the end of the third day Hobbs was ready to resume his interrupted voyage toward Earth.

  Something he saw in a sheet of stereo-press newsprint changed his mind. “Fiend robs, mutilates liner chief!” the big red scarehead bellowed. And then, in smaller type, the paper went on, “Minus finger and 1,000 I.U.’s, Captain unable to name assailant. Police make search.”

  Hobbs— he was at breakfast—looked at the item incuriously until, in the body of the story, his eye caught a familiar name. Then he read with avid interest.

  Eins Thorwald, captain of the luxury space liner Rhea (this was inaccurate—the Rhea was not a luxury liner but a freighter with fairly comfortable accommodation for five or six passengers) was in hospital today minus one thousand I.U.’s and the index finger of his right hand.

  Thorwald, found in a state of collapse in his cabin by second officer Joseph McPherson (see page two for pictures), was unable to give details of the attack on him. He told police he had been robbed of exactly one thousand I.U.’s. Other currency in Thorwald’s wallet was untouched.

  Thorwald’s finger, according to medical officer Dingbv of the local police, appears to have been amputated wit
h the help of a chisel or some similar instrument. No trace of the missing digit has been found.

  Thorwald himself, after receiving several transfusions, is in Mercy Hospital, where his condition is reported serious. Police are operating on the theory that the attack was the work of some fiend whose hobby is collecting human fingers. A thorough search is being made and they expect an arrest soon.

  * * *

  Hobbs put the newsprint down. His hands were trembling. His florid cheeks had turned white. What he suspected, he told himself, was sheer lunacy.

  Hadn’t he himself seen the—thing which had rapped at his viewing pane reduced to a blackened cinder by the ravening fires of the force field? But Thorwald had been robbed of exactly one thousand I.U.’s. And he had picked up Hobbs’ bribe with his right hand.

  Hobbs pushed his plate away and asked the robot for his check. In the lobby he video’d Mercy Hospital and inquired for news of Thorwald. He was told that Thorwald’s condition was serious and that he could not possibly see anyone.

  Hobbs sat in the lobby for an hour or so and tried to think. At the end of that time he had come to a decision. Tiglath Hobbs was a stubborn man.

  He called a ‘copter and had it take him to the local office of the Bureau of Extra-Systemic Plant Conservation. Scott, the young man in charge of the office, was out and Hobbs had to wait for him.

  It was nearly noon when Scott came in, very brown and erect in his clothing of forest green. He had been supervising the weeding of a plantation of young Tillya trees and there was mud on the knees of his trousers from kneeling beside the seedlings. The knees of his trousers were always a little muddy. He had the green heart of the true forester.

  Hobbs came to the point at once. “Scott,” he said, “I want you to go to Cassid and supervise the uprooting of the plantation of Butandra trees there.”

  Scott looked at him for a moment incredulously. “I beg your pardon, sir?” he said at last in a neutral tone.

  “I said, I want you to go to Cassid and supervise the uprooting of the plantation of Butandra trees there.”

  “I— sir, what is the reason for this order?”

  “Because I say so.”

  “But, Mr. Hobbs, the Butandra trees are unique. As you of course know, there is nothing like them anywhere else in the universe. Scientifically it would be criminal to destroy those trees.

  “Further than that, they play a considerable role in Cassidan planetary life. To the inhabitants the trees have a large emotional significance. I must ask you, sir, to reconsider your decision.”

  “You have your orders. Carry them out.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I decline to do so.”

  Hobbs thick neck had turned red. “I’ll have your job for this,” he said chokingly.

  Scott permitted himself a thin smile. “I have civil service tenure, sir,” he said.

  “You can be removed for cause. Insubordination, in this case.”

  Scott’s smile vanished, but he did not retreat. “Very well,” he said. “If it comes to a public hearing we’ll see. In any case I can’t carry out that order. And I very much doubt, Mr. Hobbs, that you’ll find anyone who will. It’s not the kind of thing you can ask of a forester.”

  Hobbs raised his stick of Butandra wood. His expression was murderous. Then his common sense reasserted itself. He gave Scott a nod and left.

  He called the travel bureau, canceled his Earthward passage and made reservations for a cabin on the next ship back to Cassid. If he could not find anyone to carry out his orders to destroy the plantation of Butandra trees he would do it himself. Tiglath Hobbs, as has been said before, was a stubborn man.

  The trip back to Cassid was unexceptional. Nothing came to rap at Hobbs’ viewing pane or to peer in at him. It was so quiet, in fact, that Hobbs had fits of wondering whether he was doing the right thing.

  The Butandra trees were, as Scott had said, of considerable scientific interest and Hobbs might be letting himself in for a good deal of unfavorable criticism by destroying them. And the attack on Thorwald might have been only a coincidence.

  But by now Hobbs bitterly hated the Butandra trees. Guilt, anxiety, and self—righteousness had coalesced in him to form an emotion of overwhelming intensity. He hated the Butandra trees. How could there be any question about destroying them?

  With their repulsive staring white bark and the nasty whispering rustle their long green leaves made they deserved—yes, they positively deserved—to be killed. How could a decent-minded man let the Butandra trees live?

  Usually, by the time he got to this point in his thoughts, Hobbs began to pant. He had to make a conscious effort to calm himself.

  Hobbs’ ship docked at Genlis spaceport late at night. Hobbs was too excited to try to sleep. He paced up and down in the waiting room until day came.

  Then he rented a ‘copter from a Fly-It-Yourself hangarage and flew to a supply house which specialized in compact power saws. He had decided to fell the trees first and afterwards make arrangements for having the stumps pulled up.

  It was still early when he got to the sacred grove. In the tender light of morning the straight, white-barked, green-leaved trees made a pretty, peaceful sight. Hobbs hesitated, though not from any qualms about his contemplated arboricide. What was bothering him was a feeling that entering the grove to cut down the trees, even in daylight, might be dangerous.

  On the other hand the best defense was always attack. What had happened to Thorwald had been almost certainly a coincidence. But if it hadn’t—Hobbs swallowed—the best way of insuring himself against a similar experience was to cut down the grove.

  The grove was, he had decided on Llewellyn, the—the thing’s base of operations. It drew power from the grove as surely as the trees of the grove drew nourishment from the soil. Once the grove was destroyed the tiling, whether or not the force field had killed it, would have no more power.

  Hobbs took the portable saw from the ’copter and slung it over his shoulder. He hesitated a fraction of a second longer. A sudden gust of wind set the long leaves of the Butandras to rustling mockingly. Hobbs felt a nearly blinding surge of hate. His jaw set. He opened the gate and entered the grove.

  The power saw was not heavy and he decided to begin his felling operations beside the sapling he had first cut down. He found the stump without difficulty and was pleased to see that it had not put up any shoots. But somebody had dug a deep hole in the ground beside it, and Hobbs frowned over this.

  He set the saw down on the turf and knelt to adjust it. He could find out about the hole later. He touched a switch. The saw’s motor began to purr.

  The Gardener came out from behind a tree and smiled at him.

  Hobbs gave a strangled, inarticulate shriek. He scrambled to his knees and started to run. The Gardener stretched out its lanky arms and caught him easily.

  With its little pink mole hands it stripped his clothing away. His shoes came off. With ten separate chops of its strong white teeth the Gardener bit away his toes. While Hobbs struggled and shrieked and shrieked and shrieked, the Gardener peeled away the skin on the inner surfaces of his legs and thighs and bound these members together with a length of vine.

  It drew scratches all over the surface of his body with its long sharp mole claws and rubbed a gritty grayish powder carefully into each gash. Then it carried Hobbs over to the hole it had made and, still smiling, planted him.

  When the Gardener came back an hour or so later from its tasks of cultivation in another part of the grove, a thin crust of bark had already begun to form over Hobbs’ human frame. It would not be long, the Gardener knew, before Hobbs would become a quite satisfactory Butandra tree.

  The Gardener smiled benignly. It looked with approval at the graft on the trunk of the tree to the right, where what had once been Eins Thorwald’s index finger was burgeoning luxuriantly.

  The Gardener nodded. “A leaf for a leaf,” it said.

  1949. Thrilling Wonder Stories

  CHILD OF VOID<
br />
  Ischeenar is his name, and he lives in the big toe of my left foot. He’s fairly quiet during the day, except that now and then he makes my foot twitch. But at night he comes out and sits on my knee and says all sorts of hateful things. Once he suggested-But I didn’t mean to tell about Ischeenar yet. I suppose I got off on him thinking about the fire and all that. It was after the fire that he got into my foot. But I want to tell this in order, the way it happened, and I ought to begin at the beginning. I suppose that means telling about how we happened to go to Hidden Valley to live.

  Uncle Albert killed himself and left Hidden Valley to Mom in his will. I didn’t want to go there. We had visited Hidden Valley once or twice when I was little, and I hated it. It gave me the creeps. It was the kind of place you see articles about in the Sunday supplement—a place where water flows uphill and half the time the laws of gravity don’t work, a place where sometimes a rubber ball will weigh three or four pounds and you can look out the upstairs window and see a big blue lake where the vegetable garden ought to be. You never could depend on things being normal and right.

  But Mom wanted to go. She said there was a nice little house we could live in, an artesian we ll with the best water in the world, and good rich soil for growing our own vegetables. There were even a cow and some chickens. Mom said we could be a lot more comfortable there than in the city, and live better. She said we’d get used to the funny things and they wouldn’t bother us. And though she didn’t say so, I knew she thought I’d be happier away from people, on a farm.

  Mom’s been awfully good to me. She kept on with the massage and exercises for my back for years after the doctors said it was no use. I wish I could do more for her. Her ideas are usually pretty good, and when I’ve gone against them I’ve been sorry. When you think about it, Mom is generally right.

  So we went to Hidden Valley, Mom and Donnie (that’s my younger brother) and I. It was worse than I had thought it was going to be. The place was still queer enough to scare you purple, but besides that there was something new, a kind of heavy depression in the air.