The Ninth Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by Dave Dryfoos

  “Why,” he said, “it’s just a matter of word-play. Whatever kind of rational being exists anywhere is a man. It’s rationality makes the man, and not the size or the color of him, or anything.”

  Well, that sounds all right too—till you think about it.

  What it boils down to is, that he was looking for men without knowing what in the world they’d be like.

  By adaptation he got organized to be light-sensitive instead of radio-sensitive, and he watched, and there were some unbelievable sorts of life down there all right, but nothing you’d call very fancy.

  He looked for artifacts, he told me. That’s his word, naturally—all these fancy scientific words are his, and if it sounds to you like I don’t understand them, why, don’t worry, pal—your hearing’s o.k.

  But of course Dyt was looking for things like his Old Man’s visual telescopes and radio receivers and computers and such, or buildings that might house them, or something like that. The best he could make out, though, was some weak-looking critters that created artificial light and heat by oxidizing bits of their vegetation. (Those are some of Dyt’s words, right there.)

  Anyhow, some of those critters would kind of keep a favorite stone to pound with, too, instead of getting a new one every time they wanted to pound. But you don’t have to be very smart to do that.

  Main thing that discouraged Dyt though, was the ice. You’ll have to take his word for this, because we don’t have none I could show you, but there’s a substance they call water, and it flows and is gathered into what they call oceans, but whenever it gets cold it turns into a solid they call ice. And when heated, it can be a vapor.

  So all right. Now, that star this planet Earth went around, it gave off a lot of heat and light. And Dyt, he came between the planet and its star, so he thought maybe he’d have a cooling effect on the planet.

  But he didn’t. He’s positive, he says, that he kind of held the heat in and that the planet got warmer under him than if he hadn’t of been there.

  But though he felt it get warmer, and was positive it did, that darned planet Earth acted just like it had got colder. Big ice-sheets that had capped the poles began spreading out under him till they covered a good deal of the land, and locked up so much water that the sea was shrunk. That’s what Dyt told me!

  Right away he figures a thing like that is contrary to reason, so some sort of rational creature must be doing it. I mean, it wouldn’t have happened by itself, like.

  But he couldn’t tell what caused it. And he had to find out, because if he didn’t get some real proof there were men on this planet, his father would be made to look like a fool. So Dyt wasn’t satisfied with just guessing.

  To see if he himself caused the ice, he visited other planets of that System.

  First he went to the one nearest its star; He found out this one always faced its Sun, so a day was as long as a year. And there was no ice.

  Then he went back to Earth, and the ice that had shrunk while he was gone began to spread again. He couldn’t figure it out. He was sure that he raised the surface temperature, instead of lowering it when he came between Earth and its Sun, so he supposed somebody must be trying to signal him, or something.

  This was the proof he’d gone after, and it made him very happy for his Old Man’s sake. But it needed more checking.

  He went to the planet that travels next to Earth on the Sun side, and he didn’t form any ice there. He went back to Earth, and sure enough, the ice began to grow a third time.

  But to make sure men were causing that, he went on to another planet—the one that goes next to Earth on the side away from the Sun.

  He saw just what he didn’t want to see. Ice formed—not nearly so much of it, but some.

  And there wasn’t any rational life there! Dyt was sure of it. All he could make out by way of living things was some primitive vegetation, he said.

  Besides, if there’d been men on each of those two planets—Earth and this other one I’m talking about—and if both sets of men were making the ice as a signal, they’d have to be in communication with each other some way. And there weren’t enough artifacts for that. So the ice didn’t prove anything after all.

  You can guess how he felt. All his hopes were going glimmering. He went back to Earth to see if there wasn’t something he’d overlooked.

  And there was. I mean, maybe he hadn’t overlooked it, if it had kind of developed while he was away; but anyhow, there were men on the planet, now.

  Tiny, of course. And so funny-looking that I can’t picture them. But they had stone tools, and containers woven out of their vegetation, and vehicles made of vegetation that would support a man or two on the water. He could tell these were men—and rational, too.

  But they didn’t like the cold worth a hoot. No sir! They did everything they could to cover themselves with animal-skins and take shelter in the rocks and make this artificial heat I told you about. And of course Dyt’s being there made the ice spread out a fourth time.

  He’d harmed them, he figured. He’d be banished for hurting rational creatures. Unless he said his Old Man was a dope and there wasn’t any rational life on Earth.

  He could have gotten away with that. Easy. It was what lots of people wanted to believe. The reason his Old Man’s enemies made such a fuss in the first place was, they wanted to feel our Radio-Systems are something special—and that we are, too, by being rational.

  If even the Visual Systems support rational life, then we’re a lot more ordinary than some folks I could name would like to think, see? And this kid Dyt could have gone along with them.

  He wasn’t that kind of a guy, though. That’s why I’m telling you the story.

  He still wanted to prove his Old Man was right, see. So he came back here and confessed that he’d harmed the men his father had correctly said would be on Earth.

  He was bound over for trial.

  Maybe, though, he secretly hoped to get off. He was sure he’d caused the ice some way, because it came when he came and went when he went, but he didn’t know how that worked. So maybe he figured they’d never pin anything on him.

  If so, he was disappointed. Some scientific rival of his Old Man, some guy who liked to insist there couldn’t be any life in a Visual System, managed to prove that Dyt had created the ice.

  What they called a hot-house-effect. I was there in Court when it came out, because the kid was under guard and the guard was me. Head guard, that is—naturally, I didn’t do the actual work, just gave the orders.

  Well, anyhow, this old coot came up with a string of math that proved Dyt had increased the Earth’s temperature by reflecting the Sun’s heat back to Earth so it got warmer, and that made it colder.

  Sure! The hotter it got, the more water was evaporated, and the more was evaporated, the more fell—they used words like rain, and snow—and pretty soon more was falling than was evaporating, so there were these ice-sheets.

  If I’d of been the judge I’d have throwed the case out right then, because even if I’m no scientist I know it don’t get colder just because it gets hotter, but the kid, he had to stand and take it because everybody believed that stuff.

  Still, the Court gave him a chance to deny there was any rational life influenced by this hot-cold. Instead, he told them he was sure his Old Man was right, and these more or less miserable inhabitants of Earth were rational men.

  Then the Old Man stood up in court and he said, “My son has told you how different time is on Earth from what we experience. Why not delay sentencing, therefore, till we see what develops? In a month or two, those Earthmen might advance their culture enough to communicate with us, and then we can be sure of Dyt’s innocence or guilt. As it is now, all the evidence is circumstantial.”

  But the Court rapped for order and said, “Your son’s confession, my friend, is not circumstantial. I’ll give you exactly twenty
-four hours to develop any new evidence you may find, and if there’s none, I’ll pass sentence.”

  Now, that Judge wasn’t being as tough as he tried to sound, because twenty-four of our hours is a lot of time on Earth. Of course, he didn’t want to give the other side a chance to say he was being soft. But he must have liked the way this kid Dyt stood up for his Old Man—I sure did.

  Now, though, it was the Old Man’s turn to stand up for the kid, and I could see he didn’t know what to do. Just for ducks he went up to the Observatory.

  He stayed there all night. Of course he couldn’t see Earth by any telescope whatever, so he focused the astronomical radio-receiver there, just as a forlorn hope.

  I’d gone along by Court Order to kind of snoop on what he might try to do. And I found out quick he wasn’t pulling any fast ones.

  He was just trying to prove himself wrong, see. Trying to prove that this Earth wasn’t a part of a Visual System at all. If it was a Radio-System, like ours, then everything the kid had said would have been tossed out the window as so much hokum gotten up to make his Old Man look good.

  This Old Man—his name was Dyt, too, and that’s why I don’t use it much—this Old Man must have been quite a guy, in his way. Because he was trying to undermine his own life’s work to help out the kid.

  The two of them—kind of nice, you know. I mean, a cop like me sees so many families that don’t do nothing but battle all the time…

  Well, I don’t want to mention names, and haven’t, but these guys that had hooted at the Old Man, why, they’d come around to the Observatory to have a real good laugh, see, and they were there when the Old Man turned around and said, “Say, they’ve invented artificial radio on Earth—I can pick up their signal!”

  Right away he could have bitten off his tongue. This was artificial radio, see—it couldn’t exist in a natural Radio-System. And if it was invented, the inventors were rational men. Dyt was practically over the edge already.

  I guess the Old Man would have been too much the scientist to have kept it quiet, anyhow. You never know, though.

  But with those other guys there, all scientists themselves and hot to show him up, the Old Man didn’t have a chance. Right away they doped out a hookup to pipe those radio-signals through a translating computer and prove they were artificial.

  They were, too. The computer could tell the difference between language and music and showed they were both coming in. After an hour or two it even began to learn the languages. This was a little tough, I understand, because time on Earth went by so fast that the pronunciations changed every couple of minutes and that made the basis of the computer’s learning kind of shift, as they say.

  But it got the dope. Found out these people were very inventive. They hadn’t the power of adaptation that we do, but they’d developed machines to help them, and had even left their Earth and gone to its satellite in some kind of a complicated vehicle they’d invented to do what we do naturally.

  They’d studied physics, just like Dyt and his Old Man, and had learned how to make atomic power. Also bombs, to destroy each other with. They kept boasting about it to each other, so we got the whole story through the computer.

  It seems there were two sides. Each wanted to destroy the other, so they both kept on making bombs as fast as ever they could. And in the process, discharged a lot of exhaust gases into their atmosphere.

  Yup, you’ve guessed it. Those gases floating around and reflecting radiation were just like Dyt had been. That same hot-cold effect was beginning to be noticeable down there.

  But each side was afraid to quit making bombs.

  Neither side would admit to being afraid, of course. Instead, each boasted.

  One side had developed a lot of harbors, or something—valuable properties, anyhow, right along the edges of those bodies of water called oceans. And if the ocean-level dropped, that would give the opposition an advantage, they claimed, because they didn’t have so many harbors and wouldn’t be so disrupted.

  In reply, though, the harbor-people pointed out that their enemies were located much closer to the pole, so if the ice spread, it would engulf them, first.

  You can judge the amount of fear each side had, by the amount of fear it tried to cause in the other. But neither would stop discharging the gases, so it kept getting hotter, which meant it would get colder, and ice was already starting when the Old Man switched off. I figured that was a gesture of despair.

  But he got up in court next day, the Old Man did, and he made a speech that put a different light on things. I remember every word.

  “As my learned colleagues will verify,” he told the Judge, pointing at a whole, sour-looking row of his worst enemies, “as my learned colleagues will verify, these inhabitants of the planet Earth—and we may as well call them men—these brothers of ours in the Visual System, have invented a whole technology, much more magnificent than any we’ve previously discovered.

  “That, of course, proves the Earthmen are rational. Yet, being rational, these Earthmen have, as my learned colleagues will also verify, embarked on a course of conduct that will bring—probably, by now, has brought—additional ice-sheets to their planet, ice-sheets like those my son Dyt is accused of ‘wrongfully, willfully, and/or negligently causing, creating, and/or encouraging,’ as the complaint says.

  “But when rational men create an ice-sheet, they must like it! My son, in creating the earlier ice-sheets, can thus have done them no injury. I ask that the case be dismissed!”

  Brother! The Judge had to rap for five minutes before his dismissal ruling could be heard, we hollered so.

  But the Old Man’s enemies weren’t quieted. No, sir. They’re powerful people, and I don’t want to mention names, but they haven’t given up their attack.

  They’ve gone right back to the beginning. They’re still, to this very day, trying to make out that Dyt’s Old Man is a bum. Claim those Earthmen, because they’re so plainly making things tough for themselves, aren’t rational at all! Stubborn, aren’t they?

  TREE, SPARE THAT WOODMAN

  Stiff with shock, Naomi Heckscher stood just inside the door to Cappy’s one-room cabin, where she’d happened to be when her husband discovered the old man’s body.

  Her nearest neighbor—old Cappy—dead. After all his wire-pulling to get into the First Group, and his slaving to make a farm on this alien planet, dead in bed!

  Naomi’s mind circled frantically, contrasting her happy anticipations with this shocking actuality. She’d come to call on a friend, she reminded herself, a beloved friend—round, white-haired, rosy-cheeked; lonely because he’d recently become a widower. To her little boy, Cappy was a combination Grandpa and Santa Claus; to herself, a sort of newly met Old Beau.

  Her mouth had been set for a sip of his home brew, her eyes had pictured the delight he’d take in and give to her little boy.

  She’d walked over with son and husband, expecting nothing more shocking than an ostentatiously stolen kiss. She’d found a corpse. And to have let Cappy die alone, in this strange world…

  She and Ted could at least have been with him, if they’d known.

  But they’d been laughing and singing in their own cabin only a mile away, celebrating Richard’s fifth birthday. She’d been annoyed when Cappy failed to show up with the present he’d promised Richard. Annoyed—while the old man pulled a blanket over his head, turned his round face to the wall, and died.

  Watching compassionately, Naomi was suddenly struck by the matter-of-fact way Ted examined the body. Ted wasn’t surprised.

  “Why did you tell Richard to stay outside, just now?” she demanded. “How did you know what we’d find here? And why didn’t you tell me, so I could keep Richard at home?”

  She saw Ted start, scalded by the splash of her self-directed anger, saw him try to convert his wince into a shrug.

  “You insisted on coming,
” he reminded her gently. “I couldn’t have kept you home without—without saying too much, worrying you—with the Earth-ship still a year away. Besides, I didn’t know for sure, till we saw the tree-things around the cabin.”

  The tree-things. The trees-that-were-not. Gnarled blue trunks, half-hidden by yellow leaf-needles stretching twenty feet into the sky. Something like the hoary mountain hemlocks she and Ted had been forever photographing on their Sierra honeymoon, seven life-long years ago.

  Three of those tree-things had swayed over Cappy’s spring for a far longer time than Man had occupied this dreadful planet. Until just now…

  The three of them had topped the rise that hid Cappy’s farm from their own. Richard was running ahead like a happily inquisitive puppy. Suddenly he’d stopped, pointing with a finger she distinctly recalled as needing thorough soapy scrubbing.

  “Look, Mommie!” he’d said. “Cappy’s trees have moved. They’re around the cabin, now.”

  He’d been interested, not surprised. In the past year, Mazda had become Richard’s home; only Earth could surprise him.

  But, Ted, come to think of it, had seemed withdrawn, his face a careful blank. And she?

  “Very pretty,” she’d said, and stuffed the tag-end of fear back into the jammed, untidy mental pigeon-hole she used for all unpleasant thoughts. “Don’t run too far ahead, dear.”

  But now she had to know what Ted knew.

  “Tell me!” she said.

  “These tree-things—”

  “There’ve been other deaths! How many?”

  “Sixteen. But I didn’t want to tell you. Orders were to leave women and children home when we had that last Meeting, remember.”

  “What did they say at the Meeting? Out with it, Ted!”

  “That—that the tree-things think!”

  “But that’s ridiculous!”

  “Well, unfortunately, no. Look, I’m not trying to tell you that terrestrial trees think, too, nor even that they have a nervous system. They don’t. But—well, on Earth, if you’ve ever touched a lighted match to the leaf of a sensitive plant like the mimosa, say—and I have—you’ve been struck by the speed with which other leaves close up and droop. I mean, sure, we know that the leaves droop because certain cells exude water and nearby leaves feel the heat of the match. But the others don’t, yet they droop, too. Nobody knows how it works…”