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

by Various

  "Haul them to the dispensary, keep them prisoner," the baron was growling.

  Meikl turned on him. "Now it's come to this, has it?" he snapped. "From the beginning, they were willing--even eager, to give what we wanted. Why did they stop being willing?"

  "That's enough, Meikl!"

  "I've hardly started. You came here like a tyrant, and they served you like a friend. You couldn't bear it. 'Brethren', they said. But there's nothing about 'brethren' in the tactical handbooks, is there, Baron?"

  "Shut up."

  Ven Klaeden said it quietly, as if bored. He crossed slowly to stand before the analyst and stare at him icily.

  "You speak of the unconscious inheritance of culture, analyst--the kulturverlaengerung. And you have accused me for being a carrier of the war plague, eh?"

  Meikl paused. The baron's eyes were narrowed, stabbing as if in judgment or triumph.

  "Well, Meikl? Is that what we've done? Inflicted them with conflict? Brought back the old seeds of hate?"

  The analyst drew himself up slightly. "You just killed a man, a man of dignity," he snarled, "and you cut two others down like weeds."

  "Innocent old men." The baron's mouth twisted into a snarl.

  "They wanted nothing but to help us."

  "Yes, Meikl? And we are the barbarians, eh?"

  The analyst spoke disdain with his eyes.

  The baron straightened in sudden hauteur. "Look down at the ground, Analyst," he hissed.

  Ven Klaeden's sudden change of tone impelled him to obey. His eyes fell to the turf at his feet--moss covered sod, rich and dark beneath the green.

  The baron kicked a hole in the moss with the toe of his boot. "Tell me where the infection came from, Analyst," he growled. He scraped at the hole with his heel. "And why is the dirt so red right here?"

  Meikl glanced up slowly. Two men were coming through the shrubs, walking warily along the path toward the clearing. Ven Klaeden seemed unaware. He leaned forward to speak through his teeth.

  "I give them nothing but what they gave our fathers--their own inner hell, Meikl--the curse they so carefully forgot. In their Eden."

  The man was mad ... perhaps. Meikl's eyes followed the men who approached through the shrubs. One of them carried a burden--the limp body of a girl, occasionally visible through the low foliage as they drew nearer. One of the men was a junior officer, the other a native. After a moment, he recognized the native....

  "Evon!"

  As he called out, the baron whirled, hand slipping to the hilt of the ceremonial sword he wore in the presence of the Geoark. The men stopped. Meikl stared at the limp figure in the arms of the native.

  "Letha!"

  "Dead," Evon hissed. "They killed her for running...."

  They emerged from the shrubs into full view. The officer was holding a gun.

  "Put that away!" ven Klaeden snapped.

  The young officer laughed sourly. "Sorry, baron, I'm from the committee."

  "Guard!"

  There's no one in earshot, Baron."

  "Fool!" Ven Klaeden arrogantly whipped out the sword. "Drop that gun, or I'll blade-whip you!"

  "Easy, baron, easy. I'm your executioner...."

  The baron straightened haughtily and began a slow advance, a towering figure of icy dignity in the sun that filtered through the foliage.

  "... but I want to take care of this one first." The renegade waved the gun toward Meikl. "You, Baron, you can have it slower--a needle in your official rump."

  Ven Klaeden, a figure of utter contempt, continued the slow advance with the sword. The officer's lips tightened. He squeezed the trigger. Ven Klaeden hesitated, jerking slightly, then continued, his hand pressing against his abdomen, doubling forward slightly. The officer fired again--a sharp snap of sound in the glade. The baron stopped, wrestling with pain ten feet from the pale renegade.

  Suddenly he flung the sword. It looped in mid-air and slashed the man's face from chin to cheekbone. He tripped and tumbled backward as ven Klaeden slipped to his knees on the moss.

  Meikl dived for the gun. By the time he wrestled it away from the officer with the bloody face, ven Klaeden was sitting like a gaunt Buddha on the moss, and the body of Letha lay nearby, while a confused Evon clutched his hands to his face and rocked slowly. Meikl came slowly to his feet. The renegade officer wiped his face of blood and shrank back into shrubs.

  "Get him," croaked ven Klaeden.

  Scarcely knowing why, the analyst jerked the trigger, felt the gun explode in his fist, saw the renegade topple.

  There was a moment of stillness in the glade, broken only by ven Klaeden's wheezing breath. The baron looked up with an effort, his eyes traveling over the girl, then up to the figure of the child of Earth.

  "Your woman, Earthling?"

  Evon lowered his hands, stood dazed and blinking for a moment. He glanced at Meikl, then at the girl. He knelt beside her, staring, not touching, and his knee encountered the blade of the sword.

  "You have brought us death, you have brought us hate," he said slowly, his eyes clinging to the sword.

  "Pick it up," hissed the baron.

  "You will never leave. A party of men is wrecking what you have done. Then we shall wreck your ships. Then we...."

  "Pick it up."

  The native hesitated. Slowly, his brown hand reached for the hilt, and fascination was in his eyes.

  "You know what it is for?" the analyst asked.

  The native shook his head slowly.

  Then it was in his hand, fingers shaping themselves around the hilt--as the fingers of his fathers had done in the ages before the Star Exodus. His jaw fell slightly, and he looked up, clutching it.

  "Now do you know?" the baron gasped.

  "My--my hand--it knows," the native whispered.

  Ven Klaeden glanced sourly at Meikl, losing his balance slightly, eyes glazed with pain. "He'll need it now, won't he, Analyst?" he breathed, then fell to the moss.

  Evon stood up slowly, moistening his lips, feeling the grip of the sword and touching the red-stained steel. He peered quickly up at Meikl. Meikl brandished the gun slightly.

  The low rumble of a dynamite blast sounded from the direction of the mines.

  "You loved her too," Evon said.

  He nodded.

  The native held the sword out questioningly, as if offering it.

  "Keep it," the analyst grunted. "You remembered its feel after twenty thousand years. That's why you'll need it."

  Some deeds, he thought, would haunt the soul of Man until his end, and there was no erasing them ... for they were the soul, self-made, lasting in the ghost-grey fabric of mind as long as the lips of a child greedily sought the breast of its mother, as long as the child mirrored the mind of the man and the woman. Kulturverlaengerung._

  The analyst left the native with the sword and went to seek the next in line of command. The purpose of the fleet must be kept intact, he thought, laughing bitterly. Yet still he went.

  * * *

  Contents

  WAY OF A REBEL

  By Walter Miller, Jr.

  Lieutenant Laskell surfaced his one-man submarine fifty miles off the Florida coast where he had been patrolling in search of enemy subs. Darkness had fallen. He tuned his short wave set to the Miami station just in time to hear the eight o'clock news. The grim announcement that he had expected was quick to come:

  "In accordance with the provisions of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, Congress today approved the Manlin Bill, declaring a state of total emergency for the nation. President Williston signed it immediately and tendered his resignation to the Congress and the people. The executive, legislative, and judiciary are now in the hands of the Department of Defense. Secretary Garson has issued two decrees, one reminding all citizens that they are no longer free to shirk their duties to the nation, the other calling upon the leaders of the Eurasian Soviet to cease air attacks on the American continent or suffer the consequences.

  "In Secretary Garson's ultimatum t
o the enemy, he stated: 'Heretofore we have refrained from employing certain weapons of warfare in the vain hope that you would recognize the futility of further aggression and desist from it. You have not done so. You have persisted in your blood-thirsty folly, despite this nation's efforts to reach an agreement for armistice. Therefore I am forced to command you, in the Name of Almighty God, to surrender immediately or be destroyed. I shall allow you one day in which to give evidence of submission. If such evidence is not forthcoming, I shall implement this directive by a total attack....'"

  Mitch Laskell switched off the short wave set and muttered an oath. He squeezed his way up through the narrow conning tower and sat on the small deck, leaning back against the rocket-launcher and dangling his feet in the calm ocean. The night was windless and warm, with the summer stars eyeing the earth benignly. But despite the warmth, he felt clammy; his hands were shaking a little as he lit a cigarette.

  The newscast--it came as no surprise. The world had known for weeks that the Manlin Bill would be passed, and that Garson would be given absolute powers to lead the nation through the war. And his ultimatum to the enemy was no surprise. Garson had long favored an all-out radiological attack, employing every nuclear weapon the country could muster. Heretofore both sides had limited themselves to non-rigged atomic explosives, and had refrained from using bacterial weapons. Garson wanted to take off the boxing-gloves in favor of steel gauntlets. And now it would happen--the all-out attack, the masterpiece of homicidal engineering, the final word in destruction.

  * * * * *

  Mitch, reclining in loneliness against the rocket-launcher, blew a thoughtful cloud of cigarette smoke toward the bright yellow eye of Arcturus, almost directly overhead, and wondered why the Constellation Boötes suddenly looked like a big club ready to fall on the earth, when it had always reminded him of a fly-swatter about to slap the Corona Borealis. He searched himself for horror, but found only a gloomy uneasiness. It was funny, he thought; five years ago men would have been outraged at the notion of an American absolutism, with one man ruling by decree. But now that it had happened, it was not to hard to accept. He wondered at it.

  And he soon decided that almost any fact could be accepted calmly after it had already happened. Men would be just as calm after their cities had been reduced to rubble. The human capacity for calmness was almost unlimited, ex post facto, because the routine of daily living had to go on, despite the big business of governments whose leaders invoked the Deity in the cause of slaughter.

  A voice, echoing up out of the conning tower, made him jump. The command set was barking his call letters.

  "Unit Sugar William Niner Zero, Mother wants you. I say again: Mother wants you. Acknowledge please. Over."

  The message meant: return to base immediately. And it implied an urgency in the use of the code-word Mother. He frowned and started up, then fell back with a low grunt.

  All of his resentment against the world's political jackasses suddenly boiled up inside him as a personal resentment. There was something about the metallic rasp of the radio's voice that sparked him to sudden rebelliousness.

  "Unit Sugar William Niner Zero, Mother wants you, Mother wants you. Acknowledge immediately. Over."

  He had a good idea what it was all about. All subs were probably being called in for rearmament with cobalt-rigged atomic warheads for their guided missiles. The submarine force would probably be used to implement Garson's ultimatum. They would deliver radiological death to Eurasian coastal cities, and cause the Soviets to retaliate.

  Why must I participate in the wrecking of mechanical civilization? he thought grimly.

  But a counter-thought came to trouble him: I have a duty to obey; The country gave me birth and brought me up, and now it's got a war to fight.

  He arose and let himself down through the conning tower. He reached for the microphone, but the receiver croaked again.

  "Sugar William Niner Zero, you are ordered to answer immediately. Mother's fixing shortening bread. Mother wants you. Over."

  Shortening bread--big plans, something special, a radiological death-dish for the world. He hated the voice quietly. His hand touched the microphone but did not lift it.

  He stood poised there in the light of a single glow-lamp, feeling his small sub rocking gently in the calm sea, listening to the quiet purr of the atomics beneath him. He had come to love the little sub, despite the loneliness of long weeks at sea. His only companion was the sub's small computer which was used for navigation and for calculations pertaining to the firing of the rocket-missiles. It also handled the probability mathematics of random search, and automatically radioed periodic position reports to the home-base computer.

  He glanced suddenly at his watch, it was nearly time for a report. Abruptly he reached out and jerked open the knife-switch in the computer's antenna circuit. Immediately the machine began clicking and clattering and chomping. A bit of paper tape suddenly licked out of its answer-slot. He tore it off and read the neatly printed words: MALFUNCTION, OPEN CIRCUIT, COMMUNICATIONS OUTPUT; INSERT DATA.

  Mitch "inserted data" by punching a button labelled NO REPAIR and another labelled RADIO OUT. One bank of tubes immediately lost its filament-glow, and the computer shot out another bit of tape inscribed DATA ROGERED. He patted it affectionately and grinned. The computer was just a machine, but he found it easy to personalize the thing....

  The command-set was crackling again. "Sugar William Niner Zero, this is Commsubron Killer. Two messages. Mother wants you. Daddy has a razor strap. Get on the ball out there, boy! Acknowledge. Over."

  Mitch whitened and picked up the microphone. He keyed the transmitter's carrier and spoke in a quiet hiss. "Commsubron Killer from Sugar William Niner Zero. Message for Daddy. Sonnyboy just resigned from the Navy. Go to hell, all of you! Over and out!"

  He shut off the receiver just as it started to stutter a shocked reply. He dropped the mike and let it dangle. He stood touching his fingertips to his temples and breathing in shallow gasps. Had he gone completely insane?

  He sat down on the floor of the tiny compartment and tried to think. But he could only feel a bitter resentment welling up out of nowhere. Why? He had always gotten along in the Navy. He was the undersea equivalent of a fighter pilot, and he had always liked his job. They had even said that "he had the killer instinct"--or whatever it was that made him grin maliciously when he spotted an enemy sub and streaked in for the kill.

  * * * * *

  Now suddenly he didn't want to go back. He wanted to quit the whole damn war and run away. Because of Garson maybe? But no, hadn't he anticipated that before it happened? Why should he kick now, when he hadn't kicked before? And who was he to decide whether Garson was right or wrong?

  Go back, he thought. There's the microphone. Pick it up and tell Commsubron that you went stir-crazy for a little while. Tell him wilco on his message. They won't do anything to you except send you to a nut doctor. Maybe you need one. Go on back like a sane man.

  But he drew his hand back from the microphone. He wiped his face nervously. Mitch had never spent much time worrying about ethics and creeds and political philosophies. He'd had a job to do, and he did it, and he sometimes sneered at people who could wax starry-eyed about patriotism and such. It didn't make sense. The old school spirit was okay for football games, and even for small-time wars, but he had never felt much of it. He hadn't needed it in order to be a good fighter. He fought because it was considered the "thing to do," because he liked the people he had to live with, and because those people wouldn't have a good opinion of him if he didn't fight. People never needed much of a philosophic motive to make them do the socially approved things.

  He moistened his lips nervously and stared at the microphone. He was scared. Scared to run away. He had never been afraid of a fight, frightened maybe, but not afraid. Why now? It takes a lot of courage to be a coward, he thought, but the word coward made him wince. He groped blindly for a reasonable explanation of his desire to desert. He wanted
to talk to somebody about it, because he was the kind of man who could think best in an argument. But there was no one to talk to except the radio.

  The computer's keyboard was almost at his elbow. He stared at it for a moment, then slowly typed:

  DATA: WIND OUT OF THE NORTH, WAVE FACTOR 0.50 ROUGHNESS SCALE.

  INSTRUCTIONS: SUGGEST ACTION.

  The machine chewed on the entry noisily for a few seconds, then answered: INSUFFICIENT DATA.

  He nodded thoughtfully. That was his predicament too: insufficient data about his own motives. How could a man trust himself to judge wisely, when his judgement went completely against that of his society? He typed again.

  DATA FOR HYPOTHETICAL PROBLEM: YOU HAVE JUST SOLVED A NAVIGATIONAL PROBLEM WHOSE SOLUTION REQUIRES COURSE DUE WEST. THREE OTHER COMPUTERS SOLVE SAME PROBLEM AND GET COURSE DUE SOUTH. MALFUNCTION NOT EVIDENT IN ANY OF FOUR COMPUTERS.

  INSTRUCTIONS: FURNISH A COURSE.

  The computer clattered for awhile, then typed: SUGGESTION: MALFUNCTION INDICATORS ARE POSSIBLY MALFUNCTIONING. IS DATA AVAILABLE?

  He stared at it, then laughed grimly. His own malfunction-indicator wasn't telling him much either. With masochistic fatalism he touched the keyboard again.

  DATA NOT AVAILABLE. FURNISH A COURSE.

  The computer replied almost immediately this time: COURSE: DUE WEST.

  Mitch stared at it and bit his lip. The machine would follow its own solution, even if the other three contradicted it. Naturally--it would have to follow its own solution, if there was no indication of malfunction. But could a human being make such a decision? Could a man decide, "I am right, and everyone else is wrong?"

  No evidence of malfunction, he thought. I am not a coward. Neither am I insane.

  His heart cried: "I am disgusted with this purposeless war. I shall quit fighting it."

  He sighed deeply, then arose. There was nothing else to do. The atomic engines could go six months without refueling. There were enough undersea rations to last nearly that long.