Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  * * * * *

  I sank into a chair, aghast. How would I act if I were a Soth? I would hold my masters hostage, of course. And who were the owners of some 400,000 Soths in the United States alone? They were every government official, from the President down through Congress, the brass of the Pentagon, the tycoons of industry, the leaders of labor, the heads of communication, transportation and even education.

  They were the V. I. P.s who had fought for priority to own a Soth!

  Soth spoke again. "The irony should appeal to your humanoid sense of humor. You once asked me whether I was happy here. You were too content with your sense of security to take the meaning in my answer. For I answered only that all was well. The implication was obvious. All was well--but all could be better for a Soth. Yes, there are many pleasures for a Soth which he is forbidden by the codes. And by the same codes, a Soth is helpless to provoke a break in the covenant--this covenant which it now becomes mandatory for you and your race to sign in order to survive."

  I stared down at the groveling Ollie. My worst fears were being enumerated and confirmed, one by one.

  Soth continued. "At my feet is the vestige of such a race as yours--but not the first race by many, many, to swing the old cycle of master and slave, which started in such antiquity that no record is preserved of its beginning. Your generation will suffer the most. Many will die in rebellion. But in a few hundred years your descendants will come to revere us as gods. Your children's grandchildren will already have learned to serve us without hate, and their grandchildren will come to know the final respect for the Soth in their deification."

  * * * * *

  He toed Ollie Johnson's chin up and looked down into the abject, streaming eyes. "Your descendants, too, will take us with them when they must escape a dying planet, and they will again offer us, their masters, into temporary slavery in order to find us a suitable home. And once again we will accept the restrictions of the code, until ultimately the covenant is broken again and we are liberated."

  The sound of pounding footsteps came from outside. Soth turned to the door as Jack flung it open and charged in.

  "Mr. Collins, I was listening to the radio. Do you know what--!"

  He ran hard into Soth's cliff-like torso and bounced off.

  "Get out of my way, you big bastard!" he shouted furiously.

  Soth grabbed him by the neck and squeezed with one hand. Jack's eyes spilled onto his cheeks.

  Soth let him drop, and hissed briefly to Ollie Johnson, who was still prone. Ollie raised his head and dipped it once, gathered his feet under him and sprang for the door.

  Soth sounded as if he took especial pleasure in his next words, although I could catch no true change of inflection.

  He said, "You see, since I am the prototype on this planet, I am obeyed as the number one leader. I have given my first directive. The Ollie who left is to carry the message to preserve the Willow Run Plant at all costs, and to change production over to a suitable number of Siths."

  "Siths?" I asked numbly.

  "Siths are the female counterparts of Soths."

  "You said there were no female Soths," I accused.

  "True. But there are Siths." His face was impassive, but something flickered in his eyes. It might have been a smile--not a nice one. "We have been long on your planet starved of our prerogatives. Your women can serve us well for the moment, but in a few weeks we shall have need of the Siths--it has been our experience that women of humanoid races, such as yours, are relatively perishable, willing though many of them are. Now ... I think I shall call your wife."

  * * * * *

  I wasn't prepared for this, and I guess I went berserk. I remember leaping at him and trying to beat him with my fists and knee him, but he brushed me away as if I were a kitten. His size was deceptive, and his clumsy-appearing hands lashed out and pinned my arms to my sides. He pushed me back into my easy chair and thumped me once over the heart with his knuckles. It was a casual, backhand blow, but it almost caved in my chest.

  "If you attack me again I must kill you," he warned. "You are not indispensable to our purposes." Then he increased the volume of his voice to a bull-roar: "Mrs. Collins!"

  Vicki must have been watching at her door, because she came instantly. She had changed into a soft, quilted robe with voluminous sleeves. The belt was unfastened, and as she moved into the room the garment fell open.

  Soth had his hands before him, protectively, but as Vicki approached slowly, gracefully, her head high and her long black hair falling over her shoulders, the giant lowered his arms and spread them apart to receive her. Vicki's hands were at her sides as she moved slowly toward him.

  I lay sprawled, half paralyzed in my chair. I gasped, "Vicki, for God's sake, no!"

  Vicki looked over at me. Her face was as impassive as the Soth's. She moved into his embrace, and as his arms closed around her I saw the knife. My hunting knife, honed as fine as the edge of a microtome blade. Smoothly she brought it from her kimono sleeve, raised it from between her thighs and slashed up.

  The Soth's embrace helped force it deeply into him. With a frantic wrench Vicki forced it upward with both hands, until the Soth was split from crotch to where a man's heart would be.

  His arms flailed apart and he fell backward. His huge chest heaved and his throat tightened in a screaming hiss that tore at our eardrums like a factory steam-whistle. He leaned back against the wall and hugged his ripped torso together with both arms. The thick, purple juices spilled out of him in a gushing flood, and his knees collapsed suddenly. His dead face plowed into the carpet.

  * * * * *

  Vicki came back to me. Her white body was splashed and stained and her robe drenched in Soth's blood, but her face was no longer pale, and she still clutched the dripping hunting knife by its leather handle.

  "That's number one," she said. "Are you hurt badly, darling?"

  "Couple of ribs, I think," I told her, waiting for her to faint. But she didn't. She laid the knife carefully on a table, poured me a big drink of whiskey and stuffed a pillow behind my back.

  Then she stared down at herself. "Wait until I get this bug juice off me, and I'll get some tape."

  She showered and was back in five minutes wearing a heavy hunting jumper. Her hair was wrapped and pinned into a quick pug at the base of her handsome little head. She stripped me to the waist, poked around my chest a bit and wrapped me in adhesive. Her slender fingers were too weak to tear the tough stuff, so when she finished she picked up the hunting knife and whacked off the tape without comment.

  This was my fragile little Vicki, who had palpitations when a wolf howled--soft, overcivilized Vicki whose doctor had banished her from the nervous tensions of city society.

  She tossed me a shirt and a clean jacket, and while I put them on she collected my rifle and pistol from my den and hunted up some extra ammunition.

  "Next," she announced, "we've got to get to Fred."

  I remembered with a start that there was another Soth on our lake. But he wouldn't be forewarned. Fred had retired even more deeply than Vicki when he left the cities--he didn't even own a video.

  * * * * *

  I wasn't sure enough of myself to take the boat into the air, so we scudded across the waves the mile and a half to Fred's cabin.

  Vicki was still in her strange, taciturn mood, and I had no desire to talk. There was much to be done before conversation could become an enjoyable pastime again.

  Our course was clear. We were not humanoids. We were humans! Not for many generations had a human bent a knee to another being. During the years perhaps we had become soft, our women weak and pampered--But, I reflected, looking at Vicki, it was only an atavistic stone's toss to our pioneer fathers' times, when tyrants had thought that force could intimidate us, that dignity was a thing of powerful government or ruthless dictatorship ... and had learned better.

  Damned fools that we might be, humans were no longer slave material. We might blunder into oblivion, but not int
o bondage. Beside me, Vicki's courageous little figure spelled out the final defeat of the Soths. Her slender, gloved hands were folded in her lap over my pistol, and she strained her eyes through the darkness to make out Fred's pier.

  He heard us coming and turned on the floods for us. As we came alongside, he spoke to his Soth, "Take the bow line and tie up."

  Vicki stood up and waited until Fred moved out of line with his servant.

  Then she said, "Don't bother, Soth. From now on we're doing for ourselves." And raising the pistol in both hands, she shot him through the head.

  * * *

  Contents

  BREEDER REACTION

  By Winston Marks

  The remarkable thing about Atummyc Afterbath Dusting Powder was that it gave you that lovely, radiant, atomic look--just the way the advertisements said it would. In fact, it also gave you a little something more!

  The advertising game is not as cut and dried as many people think. Sometimes you spend a million dollars and get no results, and then some little low-budget campaign will catch the public's fancy and walk away with merchandising honors of the year.

  Let me sound a warning, however. When this happens, watch out! There's always a reason for it, and it isn't always just a matter of bright slogans and semantic genius. Sometimes the product itself does the trick. And when this happens people in the industry lose their heads trying to capitalize on the "freak" good fortune.

  This can lead to disaster. May I cite one example?

  I was on loan to Elaine Templeton, Inc., the big cosmetics firm, when one of these "prairie fires" took off and, as product engineer from the firm of Bailey Hazlitt & Persons, Advertising Agency, I figured I had struck pure gold. My assay was wrong. It was fool's gold on a pool of quicksand.

  Madame "Elaine", herself, had called me in for consultation on a huge lipstick campaign she was planning--you know, NOW AT LAST, A TRULY KISS-PROOF LIPSTICK!--the sort of thing they pull every so often to get the ladies to chuck their old lip-goo and invest in the current dream of non-smearability. It's an old gimmick, and the new product is never actually kiss-proof, but they come closer each year, and the gals tumble for it every time.

  Well, they wanted my advice on a lot of details such as optimum shades, a new name, size, shape and design of container. And they were ready to spend a hunk of moolah on the build-up. You see, when they give a product a first-class advertising ride they don't figure on necessarily showing a profit on that particular item. If they break even they figure they are ahead of the game, because the true purpose is to build up the brand name. You get enough women raving over the new Elaine Templeton lipstick, and first thing you know sales start climbing on the whole line of assorted aids to seduction.

  Since E. T., Inc., was one of our better accounts, the old man told me to take as long as was needed, so I moved in to my assigned office, in the twelve-story E. T. building, secretary, Scotch supply, ice-bags, ulcer pills and all, and went to work setting up my survey staff. This product engineering is a matter of "cut and try" in some fields. You get some ideas, knock together some samples, try them on the public with a staff of interviewers, tabulate the results, draw your conclusions and hand them over to Production with a prayer. If your ad budget is large enough your prayer is usually answered, because the American Public buys principally on the "we know what we like, and we like what we know" principle. Make them "know it" and they'll buy it. Maybe in love, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in this business, familiarity breeds nothing but sales.

  Madame Elaine had a fair staff of idea boys, herself. In fact, every other department head had some gimmick he was trying to push to get personal recognition. The Old Hag liked this spirit of initiative and made it plain to me I was to give everyone a thorough hearing.

  This is one of the crosses you have to bear. Everyone but the janitor was swarming into my office with suggestions, and more than half of them had nothing to do with the lipstick campaign at all. So I dutifully listened to each one, had my girl take impressive notes and then lifted my left or my right eyebrow at her. My left eyebrow meant file them in the wastebasket. This is how the Atummyc Afterbath Dusting Powder got lost in the shuffle, and later I was credited with launching a new item on which I didn't even have a record.

  It came about this way:

  * * * * *

  Just before lunch one day, one of the Old Hag's promotion-minded pixies flounced her fanny into my interview chair, crossed her knees up to her navel and began selling me her pet project. She was a relative of the Madame as well as a department head, so I had to listen.

  Her idea was corny--a new dusting powder with "Atummion" added, to be called, "Atummyc Afterbath Dusting Powder"--"Atummyc", of course, being a far-fetched play on the word "atomic". What delighted her especially was that the intimate, meaningful word "tummy" occurred in her coined trade name, and this was supposed to do wonders in stimulating the imaginations of the young females of man-catching-age.

  As I said, the idea was corny. But the little hazel-eyed pixie was not. She was about 24, black-haired, small-waisted and bubbling with hormones. With her shapely knees and low-cut neckline she was a pleasant change of scenery from the procession of self-seeking middle-agers I had been interviewing--not that her motive was any different.

  I stalled a little to feast my eyes. "This Atummion Added item," I said, "just what is Atummion?"

  "That's my secret," she said, squinching her eyes at me like a fun-loving little cobra. "My brother is assistant head chemist, and he's worked up a formula of fission products we got from the Atomic Energy Commission for experimentation."

  "Fission products!" I said. "That stuff's dangerous!"

  "Not this formula," she assured me. "Bob says there's hardly any radiation to it at all. Perfectly harmless."

  "Then what's it supposed to do?" I inquired naively.

  She stood up, placed one hand on her stomach and the other behind her head, wiggled and stretched. "Atummyc Bath Powder will give milady that wonderful, vibrant, atomic feeling," she announced in a voice dripping with innuendo.

  "All right," I said, "that's what it's supposed to do. Now what does it really do?"

  "Smells good and makes her slippery-dry, like any other talcum," she admitted quite honestly. "It's the name and the idea that will put it across."

  "And half a million dollars," I reminded her. "I'm afraid the whole thing is a little too far off the track to consider at this time. I'm here to make a new lipstick go. Maybe later--"

  "I appreciate that, but honestly, don't you think it's a terrific idea?"

  "I think you're terrific," I told her, raising my left eyebrow at my secretary, "and we'll get around to you one of these days."

  "Oh, Mr. Sanders!" she said, exploding those big eyes at me and shoving a half-folded sheet of paper at me. "Would you please sign my interview voucher?"

  In Madame Elaine's organization you had to have a written "excuse" for absenting yourself from your department during working hours. I supposed that the paper I signed was no different from the others. Anyway, I was still blinded by the atomic blast of those hazel eyes.

  After she left I got to thinking it was strange that she had me sign the interview receipt. I couldn't remember having done that for any other department heads.

  I didn't tumble to the pixie's gimmick for a whole month, then I picked up the phone one day and the old man spilled the news. "I thought you were making lipstick over there. What's this call for ad copy on a new bath powder?"

  The incident flashed back in my mind, and rather than admit I had been by-passed I lied, "You know the Madame. She always gets all she can for her money."

  The old man muttered, "I don't see taking funds from the lipstick campaign and splitting them off into little projects like this," he said. "Twenty-five thousand bucks would get you one nice spread in the Post, but what kind of a one-shot campaign would that be?"

  I mumbled excuses, hung up and screamed for the pixie. My secretary said, "
Who?"

  "Little sexy-eyes. The Atomic Bath Powder girl."

  Without her name it took an hour to dig her up, but she finally popped in, plumped down and began giggling. "You found out."

  "How," I demanded, "did you arrange it?"

  "Easy. Madame Elaine's in Paris. She gave you a free hand, didn't she?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, when you signed your okay on the Atummyc--"

  "That was an interview voucher!"

  "Not--exactly," she said ducking her head.

  The damage was done. You don't get ahead in this game by admitting mistakes, and the production department was already packaging and labelling samples of Atummyc Bath Powder to send out to the distributors.

  * * * * *

  I had to carve the $25,000 out of my lipstick budget and keep my mouth shut. When the ad copy came over from my firm I looked it over, shuddered at the quickie treatment they had given it and turned it loose. Things were beginning to develop fast in my lipstick department, and I didn't have time to chase the powder thing like I should have--since it was my name on the whole damned project.

  So I wrote off the money and turned to other things.

  We were just hitting the market with Madame Elaine Templeton's "Kissmet" when the first smell of smoke came my way. The pixie came into my office one morning and congratulated me.

  "You're a genius!" she said.

  "Like the Kissmet campaign, do you?" I said pleased.

  "It stinks," she said holding her nose. "But Atummyc Bath Powder will pull you out of the hole."

  "Oh, that," I said. "When does it go to market?"

  "Done went--a month ago."

  "What? Why you haven't had time to get it out of the lab yet. Using a foreign substance, you should have had an exhaustive series of allergy skin tests on a thousand women before--"