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

by Various

Loveral waited, legs crossed, leaning his head back against the silken softness of the chair. It was so good to relax these days. The business of watching and of caring for his flock was trying. When you have brought an entire community of people at great expense through space, guaranteeing to give them a life of constant comfort and ease, so that they might dream and think as they wander through the flowers and the leaves, their thoughts cleansed of worry about work and responsibility, then you have a job. Loveral was most busy, busier than his heritage of wealth ever before had allowed, seeing to all of this.

  But he also was most content--with everything except Atkinson.

  Mrs. Atkinson teetered on the edge of her chair, as though she might at any moment go flying across the room in a crazy gyration. There was something about her eyes, Loveral noticed, while he peacefully nodded in the chair. Fear, perhaps.

  If so, he probably had been right. He tightened himself, listening. There it was again. The sound. Just as he had heard it a day before when he had passed near the house. He leaned forward quickly.

  Mrs. Atkinson jumped.

  Loveral smiled. "Didn't I hear a noise of some sort, my dear?"

  "Noise?" the woman said, as though her own voice were the sound of an echo.

  "An odd noise," Loveral said, his eyes searching.

  The woman's hands fluttered about her dress.

  Loveral stood up. "Would you mind if I just glanced about, my dear?"

  The woman didn't answer, but Loveral was already moving across the room toward a door. He opened it and walked down a hall. The noise grew stronger. He threw open another door.

  * * * * *

  He stood watching while George Atkinson spun around, dark eyes flashing, hair tousled. There was a two days' growth of beard darkening Atkinson's face.

  "Why, George," Loveral said, swiftly examining the litter of metal and wood which was spread over a table behind Atkinson. There was a home-made hammer in Atkinson's hand. "What have we here, George?"

  "Something for you," Atkinson said, tightening his fingers about the handle of the hammer.

  Loveral grinned his famous Loveral grin. "That's fine. What could it be?"

  "None of your damned business."

  "George," Loveral said, his smile still white but his eyes narrow and quick.

  The woman was behind them. Her voice screeched. "George, I told you. Why didn't you listen, George? You should have listened to me. You--"

  Loveral held up a hand, still watching Atkinson. "Now tell me, George, what is it you're making for me?"

  Atkinson raised the hammer slightly.

  Loveral stood very still. "That's a nice hammer, George."

  Atkinson's eyes were black beneath his thick brows.

  "You made that, didn't you?" Loveral asked.

  "Yes, I made that," Atkinson said. "I made that and I made something else. Another minute and I'll have that finished, too."

  "George," said Loveral, stepping quietly forward, "I don't like to say this, of course. You've been one of our very best members. But nobody works here, George. We can't allow that. You know the rules."

  "I know the rules, all right."

  "Well, then," Loveral said, extending his hand toward the hammer, "we'll just destroy this and whatever else you might have been making. We'll just forget it ever happened. We'll get along real fine that way, George. We'll just be such good friends."

  "We'll just go to hell," said Atkinson, snatching his hammer away.

  Loveral's smile disappeared. "I'll tell you, George. I have to mean business with this. You know the reasons. If we allow anybody to work here, then there's going to be trouble. That isn't our plan. We're here to grow within ourselves and expand culturally. Not to commercialize a beautiful world like Dream Planet."

  Atkinson stood unmoving, and Loveral could see the way the man's muscles were tight, like steel springs, and the way his eyes burned deep inside their blackness.

  "We've given you everything you need," Loveral explained, trying to adjust the smile on his lips again. "Everybody has everything they want. But, you see, if you sit there and work and make something that someone else doesn't have, then the whole system is destroyed. Then someone will want what you've made. We'll have jealousy and hatred and fighting. This is the stuff of which wars are made, George. You know that. It starts with small things like this, but it grows. When it does, the structure of our life here will collapse. You wouldn't want that, would you, George?"

  "Yes!" Atkinson said, his mouth white at the edges. "I'd like to see the whole rotten thing collapsed and blown to hell!"

  Loveral's teeth snapped together and his lips grew tight. He could feel a muscle jumping along his neck.

  Atkinson looked at him with furious eyes. "What do you think it's like, living this way? You're busy working twenty-four hours a day, while we wander around this damned prison like the breathing dead. You can feel sweat and aches in your bones from a hard day's work. Sleep is like medicine to you, instead of another stretch of torture. You can forget your own brain for a while by doing something with your hands. You can relax because you can get tired. Not us, by God. Not us!"

  "I envy you, George," Loveral said through his teeth.

  "Oh, like hell you do. You treat us like we were helpless infants. You feed and clothe us and do all our work, and you're so happy you damned near split your guts."

  "I'll take that, if you don't mind," Loveral said, reaching for the hammer, his voice suddenly icy cold.

  Atkinson slammed back against the table. "No, you won't. You won't take anything more at all. You've taken our spirit and our pride and the strength right out of our spines. You won't take anything more!"

  "George?" Loveral said, but not moving any further.

  Atkinson slid the hammer back of him onto the table, and his hands were searching among a dozen scattered pieces of metal and wood. He watched Loveral as he worked. "Let me show you what else I've made," he said.

  "I'd hate to do it," Loveral said, "but I can stop your food, your water, everything."

  Atkinson's hands moved swiftly, assembling the pieces. He nodded. "You can, but you won't."

  "I have the only keys to the storage units. I control everything, George."

  "Correction," said Atkinson, holding an assembled revolver in his hands. "You did."

  * * * * *

  Loveral looked at what Atkinson had in his hands. He blinked.

  "You're nearly dead," Atkinson said.

  Loveral looked at Atkinson, into his eyes. "If you wanted to kill me, you could have done it some other way."

  Atkinson shook his head. "Just this way. Just with something that took me dozens of days and nights to make. With something that made me sweat and swear to get. It was difficult--with no tools or proper materials--but that made it all the better. Now I've got it finished," he said, pushing a bullet into the chamber, "and ready to use."

  Loveral stood frozen, then he turned. "My dear," he said to the woman who moved her mouth as though her voice had been pumped out of her. He reached to touch her shoulder. She recoiled, as though his fingers held poison. "George," he said, turning back to the black-eyed man.

  "This is a great moment," Atkinson said, lifting the muzzle of the revolver. "When I squeeze the trigger, it'll be like blowing the lock off a prison door. I'll go yelling to the others, and we'll smash down the whole goddamned place. We'll smash it down, so we'll have to rebuild it. We'll pull apart every robot you've got. We'll tear apart the food lockers and have a celebration for a week, and when we've gotten sick from too much food, we'll start growing some more with our own hands. We'll make forges for the men and looms for the women. We'll burn our clothes and make new ones. We'll grow corn in the fields. We'll pump water from the ground. You're finished, Loveral."

  Loveral stared at the revolver. "George," he said, pleading. "The plans. The beautiful, beautiful plans. All of you, you all wanted peace and contentment. Time to think and dream. You all wanted to get away from the work and the wor
ry and the responsibility. You--"

  Atkinson fired the gun into Loveral's stomach.

  Loveral gestured at the air and fell to his knees. Atkinson threw his gun through a window and grabbed his wife by the hand. "Hurry!" he said, laughing. "Hurry!"

  Loveral felt of the blood on his shirt and rested on his knees. He could hear footsteps, racing through the house and out to the yard. He held out his bloody hand and looked at it. Atkinson's voice pealed through the warm clear air. "He's dead! Loveral's dead!"

  There was a sound of sudden activity, and everywhere went the cry, "Loveral's dead!"

  Loveral sank to his haunches and opened his lips. The blood was there, too. He could hear the shouts and the laughter, and then the tearing of steel, the smashing of glass. He bent over his knees, trembling with a sudden chill. The sound of destruction grew like thunder. "Why?" he said in his dying throat. "Oh, why? It was what they said they wanted."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE EYES HAVE IT

  By James McKimmey, Jr.

  Daylight sometimes hides secrets that darkness will reveal--the Martian's glowing eyes, for instance. But darkness has other dangers....

  Joseph Heidel looked slowly around the dinner table at the five men, hiding his examination by a thin screen of smoke from his cigar. He was a large man with thick blond-gray hair cut close to his head. In three more months he would be fifty-two, but his face and body had the vital look of a man fifteen years younger. He was the President of the Superior Council, and he had been in that post--the highest post on the occupied planet of Mars--four of the six years he had lived here. As his eyes flicked from one face to another his fingers unconsciously tapped the table, making a sound like a miniature drum roll.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five top officials, selected, tested, screened on Earth to form the nucleus of governmental rule on Mars.

  Heidel's bright narrow eyes flicked, his fingers drummed. Which one? Who was the imposter, the ringer? Who was the Martian?

  Sadler's dry voice cut through the silence: "This is not just an ordinary meeting then, Mr. President?"

  Heidel's cigar came up and was clamped between his teeth. He stared into Sadler's eyes. "No, Sadler, it isn't. This is a very special meeting." He grinned around the cigar. "This is where we take the clothes off the sheep and find the wolf."

  Heidel watched the five faces. Sadler, Meehan, Locke, Forbes, Clarke. One of them. Which one?

  "I'm a little thick tonight," said Harry Locke. "I didn't follow what you meant."

  "No, no, of course not," Heidel said, still grinning. "I'll explain it." He could feel himself alive at that moment, every nerve singing, every muscle toned. His brain was quick and his tongue rolled the words out smoothly. This was the kind of situation Heidel handled best. A tense, dramatic situation, full of atmosphere and suspense.

  "Here it is," Heidel continued, "simply and briefly." He touched the cigar against an ash tray, watching with slitted shining eyes while the ashes spilled away from the glowing tip. He bent forward suddenly. "We have an imposter among us, gentlemen. A spy."

  He waited, holding himself tense against the table, letting the sting of his words have their effect. Then he leaned back, carefully. "And tonight I am going to expose this imposter. Right here, at this table." He searched the faces again, looking for a tell-tale twitch of a muscle, a movement of a hand, a shading in the look of an eye.

  There were only Sadler, Meehan, Locke, Forbes, Clarke, looking like themselves, quizzical, polite, respecting.

  "One of us, you say," Clarke said noncommittally, his phrase neither a question nor a positive statement.

  "That is true," said Heidel.

  "Bit of a situation at that," said Forbes, letting a faint smile touch his lips.

  "Understatement, Forbes," Heidel said. "Understatement."

  "Didn't mean to sound capricious," Forbes said, his smile gone.

  "Of course not," Heidel said.

  Edward Clarke cleared his throat. "May I ask, sir, how this was discovered and how it was narrowed down to the Superior Council?"

  "Surely," Heidel said crisply. "No need to go into the troubles we've been having. You know all about that. But how these troubles originated is the important thing. Do you remember the missionary affair?"

  "When we were going to convert the Eastern industrial section?"

  "That's right," Heidel said, remembering. "Horrible massacre."

  "Bloody," agreed John Meehan.

  "Sixty-seven missionaries lost," Heidel said.

  "I remember the Martian note of apology," Forbes said. "'We have worshipped our own God for two-hundred thousand years. We would prefer to continue. Thank you.' Blinking nerve, eh?"

  "Neither here nor there," Heidel said abruptly. "The point is that no one knew those sixty-seven men were missionaries except myself and you five men."

  * * * * *

  Heidel watched the faces in front of him. "One case," he said. "Here's another. Do you recall when we outlawed the free selection system?"

  "Another bloody one," said Sadler.

  "Forty-eight victims in that case," Heidel said. "Forty-eight honorable colonists, sanctioned by us to legally marry any couple on the planet, and sent out over the country to abolish the horrible free-love situation."

  "Forty-eight justices of the peace dead as pickerels," Forbes said.

  "Do you happen to remember that note of apology?" Heidel asked, a slight edge in his voice. He examined Forbes' eyes.

  "Matter of fact, yes," said Forbes, returning Heidel's stare steadily. "'You love your way, we'll love ours.' Terribly caustic, what?"

  "Terribly," said Heidel. "Although that too is neither here nor there. The point again, no one except the six of us right here knew what those forty-eight men were sent out to do."

  Heidel straightened in his chair. The slow grating voice of Forbes had taken some of the sharpness out of the situation. He wanted to hold their attention minutely, so that when he was ready, the dramatics of his action would be tense and telling.

  "There is no use," he said, "in going into the details of the other incidents. You remember them. When we tried to install a free press, the Sensible Art galleries, I-Am-A-Martian Day, wrestling, and all the rest."

  "I remember the wrestling business awfully well," said Forbes. "Martians drove a wrestler through the street in a yellow jetmobile. Had flowers around his neck and a crown on his head. He was dead, of course. Stuffed, I think...."

  "All right," snapped Heidel. "Each one of our efforts to offer these people a chance to benefit from our culture was snapped off at the bud. And only a leak in the Superior Council could have caused it. It is a simple matter of deduction. There is one of us, here tonight, who is responsible. And I am going to expose him." Heidel's voice was a low vibrant sound that echoed in the large dining room.

  The five men waited. Forbes, his long arms crossed. Sadler, his eyes on his fingernails. Meehan, blinking placidly. Clarke, twirling his thumbs. Locke, examining his cigarette.

  "Kessit!" Heidel called.

  A gray-haired man in a black butler's coat appeared.

  "We'll have our wine now," Heidel said. There was a slight quirk in his mouth, so that his teeth showed between his lips. The butler moved methodically from place to place, pouring wine from a silver decanter.

  "Now then, Kessit," Heidel said, when the butler had finished, "would you be kind enough to fetch me that little pistol from the mantel over there?" He smiled outwardly this time. The situation was right again; he was handling things, inch by inch, without interruption.

  He took the gun from the old man's hands. "One thing more, Kessit. Would you please light the candles on the table and turn out the rest of the lights in the room. I've always been a romanticist," Heidel said, smiling around the table. "Candlelight with my wine."

  "Oh, excellent," said Locke soberly.

  "Quite," said Forbes.

  Heidel nodded and waited while the butler lit the candle
s and snapped off the overhead lights. The yellow flames wavered on the table as the door closed gently behind the butler.

  "Now, then," Heidel said, feeling the tingling in his nerves. "This, gentlemen, is a replica of an antique of the twentieth century. A working replica, I might add. It was called a P-38, if my memory serves me." He held the pistol up so that the candlelight reflected against the glistening black handle and the blue barrel.

  There was a polite murmur as the five men stretched forward to look at the gun in Heidel's hands.

  "Crude," Sadler said.

  "But devilish-looking," Forbes added.

  "My hobby," Heidel said. "I would like to add that not only do I collect these small arms, but I am very adept at using them. Something I will demonstrate to you very shortly," he added, grinning.

  "Say now," nodded Meehan.

  "That should be jolly," Forbes said, laughing courteously.

  "I believe it will at that," Heidel said. "Now if you will notice, gentlemen," he said touching the clip ejector of the pistol and watching the black magazine slip out into his other hand. "I have but five cartridges in the clip. Just five. You see?"

  They all bent forward, blinking.

  "Good," said Heidel, shoving the clip back into the grip of the gun. He couldn't keep his lips from curling in his excitement, but his hands were as steady as though his nerves had turned to ice.

  The five men leaned back in their chairs.

  "Now then, Meehan," he said to the man at the opposite end of the table. "Would you mind moving over to your left, so that the end of the table is clear?"

  "Oh?" said Meehan. "Yes, of course." He grinned at the others, and there was a ripple of amusement as Meehan slid his chair to the left.

  "Yes," said Heidel. "All pretty foolish-looking, perhaps. But it won't be in a few minutes when I discover the bastard of a Martian who's in this group, I'll tell you that!" His voice rose and rang in the room, and he brought the glistening pistol down with a crack against the table.

  * * * * *

  There was dead silence and Heidel found his smile again. "All right, now I'll explain a bit further. Before Dr. Kingly, the head of our laboratory, died a few days ago, he made a very peculiar discovery. As you know, there has been no evidence to indicate that the Martian is any different, physically, from the Earthman. Not until Dr. Kingly made his discovery, that is."