The Stork Factor

by Zach Hughes

  of the simplified Bible when the persecutions of his fellows began to be too much for him and he found escape in his father's Soul Lifter. Kyle Murrel was the worst of his tormentors. He was a big, husky boy who always picked Luke as his opponent in gym. Colonel Baxley insisted on physical training, some of it on a primitive basis of actual face-to-face competition. In hand combat, Kyle Murrel would choose Luke as his opponent and, instead of pulling his blows as he was supposed to do, he would chop and hack and kick with intent to hurt. He often did. Luke would leave the mats with a bloody nose, with bruises and aches and hate in his heart. Finally, one day when Kyle chopped him under the eye and left what Luke knew would be a supermouse, Luke's hatred overflowed. He had always been able to hold his own in street fights, but he didn't do too well at the precision, sissy, stand-up hand-to-hand combat. But anger and hate boiled up in him with the new pain and he lowered his head and charged into the grinning Kyle and wrapped him in strong arms, bearing him to the mat. Before the instructors could pull him off, he'd returned the mouse and had almost severed one of Kyle's ears from his head with a set of strong, white teeth. For that he was called before the dean and made to march three punishment tours. But Kyle didn't ask for Luke any more as his opponent. Kyle took a different route. A rash of stealing broke out in the quarters and some of the loot was discovered under Luke's bunk. He swore tearfully, his hand on a Bible, that he hadn't put it there. They had to accept his word. When a man swears on the Bible, he's putting his life on the line, for a lie under those sacred circumstances meant instant death by lightning bolt or worse. But he was kept under close watch and, thus, was detected twice in formation while still high on Soul Lifter. He was on probation when Kyle Murrel decided that he wanted to steal Luke's doll. The doll was a cute little girl, daughter of one of the maintenance men. Since she wasn't Brother, she was below the social level of born Brothers like Kyle Murrel, but Murrel decided he wanted her just because she was Luke's doll. Funny, Luke couldn't even remember the little girl's name. He could remember her long, blond hair and her sweetness. She was sympathetic. When Luke came out of the hand-to-hand combat class with bruises, she oohed and ahed and told him it was all right, that he shouldn't let the Brothers get him down, that soon he'd be a Brother, himself. Their relationship was pure. In the first place, Luke knew nothing about sex other than what he'd heard as a child in the canyons of Old Town. Sex was something which was reserved for married people. Sex was something slightly dirty and very mysterious and sinful. So Luke had no designs on the purity of his doll. He liked her for what she was, a sweet, sympathetic human being to whom he could tell his troubles. He had never so much as kissed her. Often, in his dreams, he kissed her, a sweet, mysterious kiss on the cheek with their bodies not even touching, but he knew no trace of carnal desire for her. He fought one of Kyle Murrel's friends who said his girl was bad, a Jezebel. His punishment for fighting was garbage detail. He had to go through the quarters and clean the waste

  receptacles of each cadet. Kyle and his friends saw to it that he had plenty to clean. They saved food until it was rank and then poured it into the receptacles. Kyle even made waste in his receptacle and threatened to report Luke when Luke refused to empty the stinking mess. Luke had no choice. He was already on probation. But when he discovered that Kyle had been giving presents to his girl and talking to her about what a lowlife Luke was, he could no longer control himself. He faced Kyle in the quad and told him that if he didn't leave his girl alone he would kill him. Kyle grinned and walked away. Things were quiet for a few days and Luke hoped that the Brother cadets had tired of baiting him. Then Kyle stood before Luke's desk while Luke was studying his reading and said, «I had your doll today.» «Huh?» There was a strange smirk on Kyle's face. «Don't you know what that means?» Kyle asked, laughing, turning to his audience of several gathered Brother cadets. «Sure I know,» Luke said. «It means, stupid, that I knew her sexually.» Luke felt his face go red. «You're a liar.» «Am I?» Kyle laughed. «Why don't you ask her?» «I will,» Luke said. «I just will.» He ran from the building. He ran across the quad, through the class buildings, down to the quarters of the working staff of the University. His doll's father answered the door. «What do you want?» her father answered angrily, when Luke opened his mouth to ask if he could see the girl. «Haven't you people done enough to her?» «I didn't do anything,» Luke said. «God knows, I didn't do anything.» The man's face softened. «No, I guess you didn't. It was them Brother bastards.» Luke felt scared. His stomach was aching. «What did they do?» «You know damned well what they did,» her father said. «No, no, I don't. Honest.» «Well.» He swallowed. «They raped her.» Luke didn't know the word. «Raped?» «He's a nice boy,» the girl's mother said, coming up behind the father. «You can see he's a nice boy. He doesn't know such nasty words.» «What is it?» Luke asked. «What did they do to her'» «They hurt her,» the father said. «Rape means they did something awful to her,» her mother said. «Something—sexual.» Luke blushed. «Well, didn't you report them?» The man looked down at his feet. «I'm only a Lay,» he said. «What's that got to do with it?» Luke asked. «If they hurt her—» «Kyle Murrel's father is Secretary of the Republic,» her father said. «Do you think they'd believe me or my daughter against the son of the Secretary of the Republic?» «But if they hurt her—» Luke said again, feeling helpless. «Son,» her father said, «you're from Old Town, right?» «That's right, but I don't see—» «How many fights you seen on the streets? Ever see a Tech or a Brotherfuzz kill someone?» «Sure,» Luke said, «but that's—» «The way things are,» the man said, «you being a cadet, you should know that.» «But hurting a girl?» Luke asked. «He told her to tell us that if she squealed he'd swear that she propositioned him.» «Huh?» Luke asked. «That she was the one who asked for—sex,» the father said. «They would believe him.» Luke couldn't believe it. He went to one of his more sympathetic instructors, a young Brother who seemed to have an interest in Luke. «Kyle Murrel raped my girl,» Luke said. «And her father says he can't report it.» «Her father is wise,» the instructor said. «Well, then I'm going to report it,» Luke said. «I wouldn't,» the instructor said. «You're not even Brother. They wouldn't believe you.» But Luke went to the Brother dean and made his report. Kyle Murrel was called into the same room. He denied even knowing the girl. Kyle Murrel said that Luke—he called him that stupid Lay—had probably gone crazy and raped the girl himself and was trying to shift the blame. The

  dean, in his wisdom, said, «You are both cadets. The fact that one of you is Brother-born has no bearing. The gist of it is that we have a basic

  disagreement. So we will settle this with Christian finality.» He got out two

  Bibles. Luke swore on his Bible that he had never touched the girl, that she had told her parents that it was Kyle Murrel who raped her. Kyle Murrel swore that he had never spoken to the girl, that he had not, of course, raped her or anyone. «There is serious blasphemy here,» the Brother dean said. «One of you has just lied on a Bible.» Luke waited for the roof to split asunder, for lightning to punish the lying Kyle Murrel. That did not happen. What did happen was that Luke

  was called before a jury of his peers, a board of cadets and instructors and was dismissed from University One, without appeal, for telling a lie on a Bible. He took it with a growing fury and a determination to do something

  about the gross injustice of it. It wasn't just the girl now, although she'd suffered, God knows. It was he and his father, who had his heart set on Luke's being a full Brother. There was only one thing to do. He ran to the restricted portion of the campus and slipped by the guard of Brotherfuzz and entered Colonel Ed Baxley's house by a French window. Awed by being in the great hero's quarters, he almost retreated, but he heard sounds from an adjoining room and pushed on, his heart pounding. He recognized Baxley from having seen him on the screen so many times. The colonel was talking with a group of important-looking brothers in ceremonial dress. If Luke had not been desperate he would never have had the courage
to break in, but he was being kicked out of the University and it wasn't fair. He knew that the colonel would be a just man, that the colonel would do something about it. He stepped into the room. One of the Brothers saw him, halted his words in midstream. «What the infernal are you doing here?» Five faces, four stern Brothers and Baxley, looking at him, indignation, surprise, anger. Only Baxley was calm. «Guard!» one of the Brothers yelled. «Sir,» Luke cried out. «Sir, I have to talk to you.» «Get him out,» one of the Brothers said angrily. «It's life or death, sir,» Luke cried out. Two Brotherfuzz rushed into the room and seized Luke roughly. «Get him out,» said the tallest Brother. «And find out what idiot let him in!» «Please sir,» Luke said, looking at the Colonel. «I've got to talk to you.» He was being hustled out, his feet barely touching the floor. «My dad marched with you!» he yelled. «Wait,» Colonel Baxley said. The guards stopped at the door. «What's your name?» «Luke Parker, sir.» «Parker, Parker,» the colonel mused. «John Parker, right?» «Yes sir. I have to—» «Turn him loose,» the colonel said. «Really, colonel,» the tall Brother said. «I am here to help my cadets,» Baxley said. «And this young man sounds as if he has some problems.» He smiled at Luke. «You'll have to talk fast, boy.» «Yes, sir,» Luke said. «Well, you see, they say, I mean—» «Can't this wait, colonel?» the tall Brother said coldly. «My time is valuable, you know.» «Brother Murrel,» Baxley said, equally as cold, «There is nothing more important to this Republic than the future of its cadets.» Luke was stunned. Baxley had called the Brother Murrel. What a tough

  break, to get to the colonel only to find him with the father of Kyle Murrel, for now Luke recognized the badge of office hanging on the tall Brother's robe. It was Class One, meaning very high. And Kyle Murrel's father was Secretary of the Republic. «All right, son,» Baxley said. So Luke told it. He stumbled at first, but he told it. He got as far as the charge of rape against Kyle Murrel and the Secretary of the Republic blew up, anger making his face red. «This is the Lay who swore false witness on the Holy Bible,» he yelled at the colonel. «And you're wasting my time and yours by listening to his lies.» «Please sir,» Luke begged. «I couldn't lie on a Bible.» «I have the report,» the colonel said, not unkindly. «And it's quite evident that someone lied.» «Well, it wasn't me, sir.» Luke said tearfully. «As God is my witness—» «More blasphemy,» Murrel said. «Guards—» «This is my home,» Baxley said quietly. «I give the orders in my home.» The Secretary's face turned a shade more ruddy, but he didn't speak. «You were tried,» the colonel said to Luke. «You were found guilty.» «By them sir,» Luke said. «They were all Brothers. And I was only Army—» «Now he is insinuating that—» But Baxley didn't allow Murrel to finish. «I know what he's insinuating,"' Baxley said. «Look, son, there is nothing I can do.» He sighed. «There isn't even anything I want to do, because the record says you swore falsely on the Bible.» «If I had,» Luke blurted, «wouldn't He have blasted me right then?» Baxley sighed again. «Not always, son. He moves in mysterious ways.» «I'll prove it,» Luke said, his voice breaking with his tears. «God,» he prayed, looking up, «Show them, God. Show them who lied. If I'm the liar blast me, send down your lightning, God. Prove to them who is the liar.» But God, having failed him once during the swearing ceremony, was not to be moved. «Help me, God,» he prayed. «God, help me.» «You'll have to go now, son,» Baxley said quietly. «I didn't lie,» Luke said. «I wish I could believe you,» Baxley said, «but there is the evidence.» «I'll show you,» Luke said, as the guards seized his arms. «Someday I'll show you. Someday I'll have that sign from God. Someday He'll punish the

  real liar.» But by that time he was outside, being hustled roughly out of the colonel's quarters onto the quad and then out of University One. He went back to Old Town with the beginnings of the ability to read and a new cynicism which made him doubt the very existence of God. The cynicism, and his unreduced rank of Apprentice Brother, Third Class, made it possible for him to go into the ministry, rather than into the already overcrowded ranks of Techs, Fares, or Lays. He used the privilege well, learning his trade on crowded street corners, preaching to anyone who would listen. He struggled through the simplified Bible, improving his reading skill as he went. He told the old Biblical stories and studied the techniques of the big, preaching Brothers who traveled the country holding revivals. Then he stumbled onto the faith-healing gimmick. His fine voice, his good looks, his youthful enthusiasm made him a success. He became skilled in picking those who suffered from psychological ailments and, with a combination of faith and mind control amounting almost to hypnotism, he effected cures. And then he began, at rare intervals, to actually feel the power. There were isolated times when he felt that he really could heal. And then the night when God opened the heavens and gave him a sign and he did heal, did pull back into place dislocated

  intestines and healed them and then sutured the slit belly lining with faith and power and now he was kneeling at his bedside praying with complete sincerity for the first time in many years, a young man of nineteen years, old in his society, mature, more than halfway through his expected lifespan, praying, asking for a clarification of his power and not caring about the ache in his knees, for there was, for the first time since he'd been kicked out of the University, hope. He had had his sign. If he could repeat it, repeat the sign or the miracle in the presence of a witness, a Brother, the colonel himself, he would show them who had lied so long, long ago. He would show them upon whom God cast his favor and they would have to clear his name; they'd have to give him the cloak of Brotherhood. Reveling in new faith, joyful in hope, awed by what had happened Luke did not know that his sign from the heavens was merely the dying explosion of man's last foothold in space. He would learn this and there would still be the miracle. That would not be taken from him. But out beyond Pluto a sensor thing, newly activated by the first firing of a fire gun outside the damping mantle of solid rock, was sending a signal through space which was not even imagined by men such as Luke Parker.

  And, at the end of galactic distance, the signal was being received by other sensor instruments untended by living beings. And there was motion, activity. On a lonely, automated planet near the core of the spiral of stars which made up Luke Parker's galaxy, an alarm flashed, sent signals deeper into the heart of the cluster. Automatic instruments began to double check, to trace back the call to the ancient sensor stationed near a planetary system out near the end of a spiral arm. The checks proved the sensor to be in perfect working condition. Since the language of the signals was similar to but beyond electronics, there could have been no exact translation to a language spoken by man. Roughly, the alarm which went from the automated planet into the heart of the cluster would be read as: ALARM RED. PLANET KILLER. SECTION G-1034876. STAR R-875948 PLANET 3. CHAPTER FIVE Before coupling with the handsome male from A-7, a union computed to be on a superior scale because of the similarity of their gangliogroupings, she reduced gravity in her bedchamber to one-fourth normal. It was more restful. It tired one less when one became excited and went spastic-wild. The arrangement had been completed via warpsignal only the period previous and she was still in stage one of the euphoric, always new sensation of total union. The male from A-7 was as computed, total, willing to commit, sensuous to an extravagant degree. Together, with the atmosphere odorous with trang, they had built rapidly to maximum potential and then, their systems reinforced by the trang, past maximum to a paralyzing ecstasy which they prolonged by shared mental

  patterns of past couplings with others. It was as if they were able to couple with dozens, hundreds simultaneously. It was a good union and the trang, sweet, potent, euphoric trang, made time timeless and a period passed with nerves screaming at full climactic capability and that was but the beginning. Period after period they would lie, coupled, moving at times, wild at times, passive at times, minds woven, bodies clasped. Thus it was and thus it had always been and thus it would ever be and she knew no other way and would have wanted no other way. She was uncommitted for two stellar ci
rcuits and the delightful fusing of their gangliogroupings indicated that two circuits might not be enough. This male from A-7 was, indeed, superior. Around them, around the soft-hard couch, the chamber was softly feminine in glowing star colors. Alter rhythmic sounds sent languor to ears; aromas of life and goodness blended with the trang. And the room changed, pulsingly, with irregular pleasing patterns of color and form. Timeless time passed and the good coupling made her alive with pure sentience. «I will cancel my next commitment.» She didn't say words. She knew no language. Her mental pattern told him and it was the greatest of compliments. «I knew of you.» He communicated. «I made no commitments.» «And when we tire I will lie in numbness and remember.» His mind sent a message meaning long, long circuits, a great lapse of time, contentment, total caress. She had no name, as such. Her mental patterns were distinctive and by them she was known. In the mind of her lover she made a bright, rosy glow. By that pattern she was known. His mind was hard, masculine, metal. Trang infused her, made her all mental, removed her from the physical and made her endless nerve pathways for voluptuousness. A servomech extended a mobile arm. A sweet taste in her mouth. Liquid. Servomechs tending to the physical, outside of her responsibility, automatic. He was served likewise. On the world outside a red sun gleamed, died. A crowded sky lit the dark period with huge, near stars. Three moons chased across the night. Her structure was atop a hill overlooking a valley of trees with fernfrond limbs, a stream. Small furry things played. Winged nightbirds swept the air. No light showed from the structure. It was dark, permanent, private, isolated. Around the planet, at intervals of hundreds of miles, other structures reared darkly from scenic spots. A few floating structures were scattered over a great, single sea. Water creatures swam in the sea and feral things roamed the night and there was no other movement except in the chambers of the structures. There couples lay, trangized, libidinous, living, living, living. Servomechs coiled silently to serve, to nourish. A network of giant stations drew power from the crowding stars and sent it winging to keep alive the structures, the servomechs. And all around the blazing stars crowded in a fairyland density and no ships cruised the space between for commitment time had come and gone and the ships rested at darkened ports awaiting the next shifting of male to female, female to male. On one planet, however, near the heartland, there was movement. It was a light period, although that made no difference to the automated things which rolled and tested waving fields of green with nodules of gold ripening atop some of the fields and careful machines gleaning the golden buds tenderly and transporting them. Soon ships would flash from the planet Trang. Soon the mobile computer machines would send the Trang fleet moving out, scattering in hundreds over the widespread field at the heart of the galaxy to deliver golden euphoric Trang to each world, to each structure scattered widely over the populated planets, to bring Trang. At the end of harvest time, ancient, self-servicing traffic computers would sense the arrival of a single ship where once there had been frantic movement. Traffic computers designed to handle the landing and takeoff of one ship per heartbeat would put into action their vast capabilities to land one, single, small automated freighter with one small vital cargo. Trang. And servocenters would channel the new Trang to the isolated structures and local servomechs would grind it, sort it, feed it into the perpetually burning Trangers. And those without names would breathe and know maximum contentment, would breathe and live, would