The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Charles V. De Vet

  Barely in time, he realized what he must do. His legs trembled with exhaustion as he stopped. But for his next step to succeed he had to move again, and fast. Quickly he shot the inevitable waiting Kunklie in the shoulder—deliberately not killing him.

  As the wounded man fell, writhing, to the street Jeske caught the anguish of a thousand Kunklies around him as they suffered the agony of their wounded comrade; that would furnish ample distraction, for some time.

  Jeske went into the hotel, stepped into the elevator, and shot upward. Halfway to the roof he felt the anguish below him die. That was too fast for drug-action; they must have shot the wounded man. That meant they intended to spare nothing to get him.

  He left the door of the elevator open as he came out on the roof. The Kunklies would not be able to use it when they came up after him.

  * * * *

  Jeske lay flat on his back on the roof, collecting every bit of recuperation possible. He held his mind quiet; they might not be able to read him this far above them.

  But they did. Gradually he became aware of a muted hum beneath him. It sounded like a rising elevator. He jerked his head to one side and saw that the elevator door remained open, with the cage still here. Then he remembered. There was a freight-elevator!

  Jeske bought another precious minute of rest by laying and waiting for them to come nearer. He knew the freight-elevator went up only as far as the floor beneath him; the Kunklies would have to use the stairs for the final level.

  Jeske wounded the first two Kunklies to appear on the roof. In awed fascination he watched each wounded man turn his own weapon to his chest and squeeze the release. They were killing themselves to save their fellows anguish, and—more important to them right now—to leave them free to hunt him.

  The third Kunklie to appear shot at the exact instant Jeske moved; with dismay he felt his right hand go numb.

  Jeske turned and went down the fire-escape, five steps at a time. He looked at his right hand as he went. It was uninjured, but his gun was gone! He was unarmed. That piled the odds against him still higher.

  Going down the fire escape took relatively little energy. But it was seventeen flights to the street, and he hadn’t bought enough time to give him the rest he needed. And there was nothing for him to do now except run!

  Five minutes later Jeske knew he had reached the end of his endurance. He was a mile and a half from the hotel but still he was surrounded by his pursuers. Ahead loomed a rubble-strewn hole in the ground where a building had lately been torn down.

  Jeske poised for a moment at the edge of the hole, and jumped. The drop was only three yards, but his legs buckled as he landed. He fell forward on his face, and for a brief instant he lay still with the taste of brick-dust and his own blood in his mouth, and a stabbing misery that came up from his twisted left leg.

  Jeske sickened and felt the vital juice go out of his spirit. He knew he’d never be able to rise, but he forced himself to crawl into a corner of the excavation. He huddled behind a pile of rubble and waited for them to come and kill him.

  But as any hunter knows, an animal is most dangerous when it is wounded and cornered. Now that all hope had fled, Jeske’s mind cleared and he reasoned with a lucidity that amazed him, and with the lucidity came the solution to his dilemma! They thought they had him cornered, when in fact, they had lost.

  Only one thing could defeat him now. He had to make certain that the first Kunklies to arrive came at him only one at a time. He crawled deeper into the corner of the excavation, pulled himself to a sitting position against one wall, and waited.

  The Kunklie peered cautiously around corner of broken wall, met Jeske’s waiting gaze, and froze!

  A wave of searing violence bent the Kunklie’s body, and he sagged slowly to his knees. He fought for one long terrible moment, and then his face seemed to go to pieces and a cry of agony burst from his lips. The cry changed to a tormented howl, and then to great sobs of anguish.

  Jeske held tight his mind-lock on the crying man. He knew that every Kunklie on Earth, Smith included, was experiencing the same torture. Gradually he let up the punishment, until the Kunklie was able to control his quivering muscles.

  “Drop your weapons,” Jeske said. He spoke to the man at his feet, but every Kunklie knew that he was addressing them all. “Now move directly away from me.” Jeske sent a last warning stab into the mind of the man on the ground. “You stay here with me,” he amended.

  For the next half hour Jeske sat still, feeling the aura of the Kunklies draw away into the distance. He kept his mind-lock on the man before him, touching him with pain at regular intervals. “That’s far enough,” he said, when he was certain that he was safe.

  “Smith,” Jeske said. “I want you. Come to me.”

  Time dragged for almost an hour before Smith came into sight. He walked like an automaton, with only the fierce agony in his eyes showing how hard he was fighting. But he was helpless.

  Jeske shifted his control to Smith. “You. Out.” He indicated the prostrate Kunklie with a nod of his head. He was taking no chances now.

  Smith’s tongue and lips worked as he tried to form words. “It’s no use,” Jeske said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say; just listen.

  “I know your upper-level hierarchy on Kunkle is hearing everything I tell you,” Jeske said, “and I say to them, listen carefully while I speak. They will never get another warning.

  “By nightfall I want every Kunklie off this Earth, all except Smith. He and I will remain here—for the rest of his life. After I finish talking I am going to place Smith under hypnosis. He will forget all about everything that he has known before this moment. He will be given the memory and identity of an Earthman. And I will stay here to see that he is not rescued.

  “If I receive word that you make any further attempts at conquest,” Jeske continued, laying the heavy weight of his voice on Smith—and on the distant Kunklies, “or if you come to Earth, with the intention either to free Smith or kill him, I will subject you to the same torture you have experienced for the past couple hours. Bear in mind that I have all the cards in my hands now. Your trying to find Smith here would be as futile as seeking a particular pebble among two billion. While I have only to discover that you are here…

  “Furthermore, my friends back on Kunkle will be observing you at all times. Needless to say I will revenge any harm to them. I think you are wise enough to realize how futile any attempt to thwart me would be. You know my power. Be warned! That is all.”

  Jeske snapped off Smith’s consciousness and watched him fall slackly to the ground. It was done! Jeske felt a peace he had never before known in his life.

  * * * *

  Two weeks later the business agent of the luscious Lelanne received an offer for her to appear on the legitimate stage. It was the break of her career, and she was an instant success. Her act there was pretty much the same as it had been before, but now it was billed as a satire on burlesque. The better class of people that patronized her show came, presumably, to watch her clever imitation of a burlesque queen, and to laugh with her. But the secret of her success was still her lovely body—and both she and the spectators knew that they came to see it.

  The “angel” of the show was a certain Mr. Jess Edgar. He and Lelanne were soon very close friends. In her rare moments of introspection Lelanne wondered what it was about Mr. Edgar—a man she had never seen before he backed her show—that was so familiar. She never did remember what it was.

  In the background of the enterprise a quiet, unobtrusive man named John Jones earned his living by doing odd jobs about the theater. He had no slightest recollection that he had once gone under the name of Herbert Smith.

  FEMALE OF THE SPECIES

  Originally published in Science Fiction Stories, Nov. 1955.

  Each day the female found her mate less satisfying; soon she would kill him.

  Hegland watched the bird as she spread her vermillion wings out w
ide and pirouetted coquettishly, keeping her attention all the while on the dun-colored male, who observed her diffidently from the edge of the copse. Apparently she had already chosen her mate’s successor.

  Behind him Hegland heard the screen door of the cottage open and Karol come out. He didn’t turn as she came and stood beside him. For a minute they looked on as the piranya bird strutted, danced, and made tentative advances toward her interested but apprehensive visitor.

  “She’s got him,” Karol said.

  “If she doesn’t get too bold,” Hegland answered.

  “That’s right; she must never be too bold at first,” Karol agreed. She glanced at Hegland with a trick she had of moving her eyes but not her head. Hegland felt the blood rise slowly into his neck and cheeks.

  He knew his obvious discomfort must be apparent to her, and the knowledge was irritating; he tried to cover it now by turning to face her. Karol looked away.

  As always she was blonde, and achingly feminine. She was wearing a low-cut sleeveless dress and her feet and legs were bare. The day was hot and a fine sprinkling of perspiration covered the tan of her rounded shoulders and neck like a thin film of oil.

  Karol seemed unaware of his gaze and with a deliberate effort Hegland followed her glance to the foot of the porch where the piranya bird’s mate drooped dejectedly in the hot sun. He differed from her in being a grayish brown in color, rather than her red, and was only half her size. His flightless wings were mottled a darker brown than the rest of his body.

  “The miserable little dupe,” Hegland said, directing his sourceless anger at the bird. “Why doesn’t he leave her before it’s too late?”

  “The fatal feminine allure,” Karol answered. Her tone was faintly amused.

  The piranya female made one too-aggressive advance, and her suitor fled back into the brush from which he had come. She returned to her brooding mate and began her dance in front of him. He sulked for only a short time longer before he began matching her dancing steps.

  “The typically predatory female, eh, Ned? Never relinquishes anything—until she’s certain of something better.”

  “I’d like to kill the little beast.” Hegland turned and went into the cottage, letting the screen door slam behind him.

  * * * *

  Shortly before dusk, as Hegland sat on the porch catching the first of the evening breeze, Bassett returned from the Queeg village. He walked with tired steps and his shoulders drooped dejectedly.

  Karol must have heard him coming for she opened the door as he stopped on the steps. “Tired, dear?” she asked.

  Bassett nodded and smiled wanly. His blue eyes had lost much of their youthful candor the last few weeks. Karol took his pith helmet and carried it into the cottage; Bassett and Hegland followed.

  “Sometimes I think it’s a blind chase, Ned,” Bassett went to the wash basin in the corner, poured tepid water from a native jug over his hands, and began washing.

  “No luck?”

  “Nothing.” Bassett didn’t look at Hegland. His attention was on his wife—twenty years younger than he.

  “Come sit down,” Karol said. She filled their plates with a salad of the spaghetti-like native grain, and edible snails which she had gathered at the creek bottom.

  After dinner Bassett and Hegland took their chairs out on the porch while Karol did the dishes. Hegland knew that Bassett needed to talk. “I presume none of your feedings are showing any results,” he said.

  “Not one of them has had the slightest effect. I’ve tried every kind of food that the Queegs might have gotten from the colonists—using only one kind for each male and female—and so far there’s no sign of any change.”

  “Yet they did become sterile after we came,” Hegland said. “And they returned to fertility again after they left us. Something we did, or gave them, must have caused the sterility; but are you certain it was the food?”

  “I’m not certain, but what else could it have been?”

  “I wish I could tell you. Still—I think you’d be wise to try something else.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Hegland had been giving the problem considerable thought. “Perhaps it’s some form of allergy.”

  “Not unless it takes a greater number than the three of us to induce it,” Bassett answered listlessly; “otherwise our presence here should be showing some results. I’d like a chance to do a dissection on a dead Queeg. I think I could learn something then. But none of them have died since we moved in.” He seemed to tire of the subject; Hegland didn’t blame him.

  “How’s your book coming?” Bassett asked.

  “It’s just about finished. I’ve divided it into three sections. In the first I tell of the Earth colony landing here on Kronholm, and the early struggles to establish themselves.

  “In the second I tell what we’ve learned about the local flora and fauna, devoting the greater part to the humanoid Queegs. I tell how the low-mentality creatures cooperated with us at first, helping us build homes and bringing us food; how, in turn, we taught them agriculture, and sanitation. Then how they left us when their females became sterile.”

  “In the part about sanitation did you use the notes I gave you on the trouble we had exterminating the chiggers?” Bassett asked.

  “Yes,” Hegland answered. “Also, I’m devoting a considerable portion of the last third to your following the Queegs here—after they’d been gone from the coast for about six months—and your finding that they were reproducing normally again. When you find the reason for that lost—and regained—fertility, I’ll be able to finish the book.”

  “If I find it,” Bassett corrected gloomily.

  “I’m sure you will,” Hegland said.

  The colonists had found the going much rougher without the Queegs to help them; they had sent Bassett to try to convince the natives to return. It all hinged on his finding the cause of their sterility—when they associated with humans. Hegland could see that discouragement, and the rigors of the investigation, had him at the point of exhaustion.

  Karol interrupted Hegland’s thoughts by joining them on the porch; she had changed to a freshly-laundered white dress, and washed all traces of makeup from her face. Her blonde hair had been gathered into a “ponytail” and tied at the back of her head with a black ribbon. Hegland noticed how cool and fresh, and young she looked.

  Karol placed her chair next to Bassett’s and sat down, taking one of his hands in both hers and placing it in her lap. “You’ll solve it, my sweet.”

  Hegland watched the lines of fatigue disappear from Bassett’s face. “Thank you, dear,” he answered. “I’m glad you believe it.” He regarded her gently for a moment. “I should never have brought you here; this is no place for a woman.”

  “I would never have let you go without me,” Karol told him. She leaned over and touched her lips to his cheek.

  “If there were any possible way for us to return to the coast,” Bassett said, “I’d give this thing up and take you back.”

  Karol herself, Hegland reflected, had often suggested this—demanded it—in the first month of their stay here. After the initial enthusiasm of seeing herself as the heroic wife of a doctor—going with him into the unknown interior and sharing danger at his side—had faded before the heat and dirt, the odor of the native village, and soon—she had hated the place.

  He remembered the innumerable arguments, the several hysterical scenes, before she was convinced that they could never reach the colony through the jungle that separated it from the coast.

  And there was no chance that the colony copter would pick them up before the end of the agreed upon year. There had been only enough fuel left for one more trip, and they had wanted to be certain to give Bassett sufficient time to do his job.

  * * * *

  Kronholm’s abrupt darkness had been with them an hour when they heard footsteps approaching, and Queekong walked into the light of the porch lantern.

  Queekong was definitely human
oid: He had two arms, two legs—all short and powerful—and a head with features common to humans. But despite the fact that he could swivel his head a full hundred and eighty degrees Queekong had no shoulders, or neck. Neither had he knees: His hip joints were retractable for walking convenience. His body was covered with a pink down.

  The only clothing the native wore was a scarf, a gift from Karol which he wore knotted about his neck and hanging over his chest. Yet, his unclothed body gave Karol no cause for embarrassment; he had none of the human male’s physical accouterments.

  Queekong stood for a minute gazing up at the three on the porch, his features wearing their perpetual expression of bovine placidity, his heavy-lidded eyes opening and closing as he pondered what he had to say. Finally it came. “Wife, dead.”

  Bassett stirred wearily. “I’ll have to give him a hand,” he said to the others. He called down to Queekong. “Will come.”

  They had had this same experience too often in the past months, since Bassett had induced the native to make his home near theirs, to be alarmed now.

  They knew Queekong’s wife would not be dead. In his language “pain” and “death” had a difference only of degree, with death being the ultimate stage of pain; he used the same word for both, utilizing inflection to indicate degree.

  Now, very probably, one of his wives was having her menstrual period.

  Bassett went into the cottage and returned a minute later with a small surgeon’s kit. Karol rose to accompany him. Hegland took down the paraffin lantern from its porch hook and led the way.

  They followed Queekong to his hut, a natural growth of Kronholm’s universal rapid-growing vine that wound about a framework of long poles. It was primitive, but quite weatherproof.

  Inside the hut the light of the lantern revealed no furniture. There was nothing except a dirt-packed floor, and eight piles of leaves against the walls. On seven of the piles lay Queekong’s wives. There were no children; young natives left their parents soon after they were able to walk, and lived in the jungle. Those that survived to adulthood wandered back and rejoined the tribes.