The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  “I guess he did.” Don sought a way to get the conversation away from Jen Jervis. “Where’s Doc Bendy? He certainly turned out to be a disappointment.”

  “Poor Doc!” Alis said. “He’s always the first to form a committee. But then his enthusiasm wears off and he goes back to the bottle. Only now he’s got a keg.”

  Don snapped his fingers. “The keg. I almost forgot about that matter duplicator. If it can give you perfume and Doc rum.… Come on. Let’s reopen negotiations with the Master.”

  They found the old man surrounded by a group of reporters, being charmingly evasive with the science editor of Time. Professor Garet had now joined this group, where he listened as eagerly as a student.

  The Master was showing the vault-like chamber in which he had spent the generations since the spaceships left Gorel-zed. He let them examine the coffin-sized drawer that had been his bed and indicated the others where the younger ones still slept, awaiting the birth of their new planet. Don counted fewer than three dozen drawers.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Infants and children take up less room,” the Master said. “There are two or three in each drawer, and still others in the ships that never come to Earth. Even so, we number fewer than a thousand.”

  “But you have the matter duplicator,” Don said. “Won’t it work on people?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Transubstantiation has never worked on living cells. Don’t think we haven’t tried. We shall have to encourage early marriages and hope for a high birth rate.”

  “Now about this transubstantiator,” the Time man said, and Garet’s head cocked in delight, apparently at the resounding sound of the word. “What’s the principle? You don’t have to give away the secret—just give me a general idea.”

  The Master shook his head.

  Don asked, “What will you trade for the transubstantiator and the paralysis scepter you gave Hector?”

  The old man smiled. “Not even New York,” he said. “Our moral code couldn’t permit us to trade either. Earth has enough problems already.”

  “Offer him the formula for fusion,” Frank Fogarty’s voice said from the Pentagon.

  The old man shuddered. “I heard that,” he said. “No, thank you, Mr. Secretary!”

  “This is the clean bomb,” Fogarty said. “It ought to come in very handy in construction work on your new planet.”

  “We will try to manage in our own way,” the Master said. He asked Garet, “Wouldn’t you say that magnology was sufficient for our purposes, Professor?”

  Alis’ father beamed at being consulted and hearing his own term applied to the Gorel-zed propulsion system.

  “More than sufficient,” he said enthusiastically. “Preferable, in fact. Magnology is safe, stressless, and permanently powerful in stasis. It is the ultimate in gravity-beam nullification. If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it. You can understand how I was misled. Your system so fitted my theory that I imagined it was I who had caused Superior to rise from Earth.”

  “I understand perfectly,” the Master replied graciously. “And I cannot say how glad I am that you and Mrs. Garet have chosen to stay with Cavalier and Superior and become citizens of our new world.”

  “What will you call your new planet?” the AP man asked. “Asteroida? Something like that?”

  “We haven’t decided. I welcome suggestions.”

  The UPI man was inspired. “How about Neworld?” he asked. “That describes it perfectly, doesn’t it? New world—Neworld?” He wrote it on a piece of paper and admired it.

  “Thank you,” the Master said. “Well certainly consider it.”

  The UPI man was satisfied. He had a lead for his story.

  * * * *

  SUPERIOR, Nov. 6 (AP)—The floating city of Superior, Earthbound again after nearly six days of aerial meandering, prepared today to discharge its former residents. Its new inhabitants, the kangaroo-like Gizls who came from beyond the stars to swing an unprecedented barter deal involving the United States, Russia and Germany, said they would leave almost immediately to join Superior with the new planet they have been building in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.…

  * * * *

  HEIDELBERG, Nov. 6 (AP)—This university city said good-by today to some 400 interplanetary visitors it belatedly realized had long been burrowed under it. The first officially acknowledged flying saucer landed on Heidelberg’s outskirts early today and took aboard the Gizls, who, but for the shrewd maneuvering of the U. S. Secretary of State, “Foghorn Frank” Fogarty, acting through a hastily commissioned ex-sergeant troubleshooter, General Don Cort…

  * * * *

  MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (Reuters)—The industrial city of Magnitogorsk was assured of remaining Soviet territory today with the departure of 1,000 kangaroo-like aliens. These visitors from Gorel-zed, the doomed world whose survivors will increase the number of planets in the solar system to ten with the creation between Mars and Jupiter of…

  From the editorial page of the New York Daily News:

  Nice Knowing You, Gizls, But—

  Next time you visit us, how about doing it openly, instead of burrowing underground like a bunch of Reds?

  Bulletin

  ABOARD THE SPACESHIP SUPERIOR, Nov. 6 (UPI)—This former Ohio town, adapted for space travel, took off for the asteroid belt today after transferring 2,878 of its citizens to a convoy of buses bound for a relocation center. The other 122 of its previous population of 3,000 chose to remain aboard to pioneer the birth of the tenth planet of the solar system—Neworld.

  Neworld, named by the United Press International correspondent accompanying the survivors of the burned-out planet of Gorel-zed, will become the second known inhabited planet in the solar system.…

  * * * *

  “Just a minute, Alis,” Don said.

  “No, sir, Sergeant-General Donald Cort, sir. Not a minute longer. You tell him now.”

  “All right. Sir,” Don Cort (Gen., temp.) said to Frank Fogarty, Secretary of Defense, “has the mission been accomplished?”

  Don and Alis were in the back seat of an army staff car that was leading the bus convoy.

  “Looks that way, son. Our best telescopes can’t see them any more. I’d say Neworld was well on its way to a-borning.”

  Alis Garet, her arms around Don and her head on his shoulder, spoke directly into the transceiver. “Mr. Fogarty, are you aware that I haven’t had a single minute alone with this human radio station since I’ve know him? This is the most inhibited man in the entire U. S. Army.”

  “Miss Garet,” the Defense Secretary said, “I understand perfectly. When I was courting Mrs. Fogarty I was a pilot on the Meseck Line.… Well, never mind that. Mission accomplished, General Cort, my boy.”

  “Then, sir,” Don said, “Sergeant Cort respectfully requests permission to disconnect this blasted invasion of privacy so he can ask Miss Alis Garet if she thinks two of us can live on a non-com’s pay.”

  The driver of the staff car, a sergeant himself, said over his shoulder, “Can’t be done, General.”

  Fogarty said, “Don’t be too anxious to revert to the ranks, my boy. I’ll admit the T/O for generals isn’t wide open but I’m sure we can compromise somewhere between three stripes and four stars. Suppose you take a ten-day delay en route to Washington while we see what we can do. I’ll meet you in the White House on November sixteenth. The President tells me he wants to pin a medal on you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Don said. Alis was very close and he was only half listening. “Any further orders, sir?”

  “Just one, Don. Kiss her for me, too. Over to you.”

  “Yes, sir!” Don said. “Over and out.”

  SPACE OPERA1, by Michael R. Collings

  “Ah, when once we breach the boundaries of known space, what Works, what Wonders, we will achieve!”

  —Torq, Farewell Address to the Koleic

  Most numbers would have at least muttered a vi
tuperation, if not an outright blasphemy when the klaxons sounded.

  Most, perhaps. But not Torq.

  Without a pause, his eyen split, half to the left, half to the right, while his first hands were already reaching for the buttons that would simultaneously silence the klaxon; perform an infinitesimal shift in the ship’s course that would make collision with the asteroid ahead impossible; and, the danger avoided, restore the ship to course and trim.

  His second hands never once left the complex screencaps of their destination—the point at which the flash drive would take over and, for the moment, at least, the entire vessel and all of its contents would cease to exist within known realities.

  His first hands slapped at the buttons. The klaxon ceased, and sudden, almost unbroken silence reigned once more on the command deck.

  Almost unbroken silence.

  Torq swiveled one eyes. Several stations to his left, one of the crew-hammocks was empty. The screen above it buzzed slightly, as if indicating its irritation at the disruption of its function.

  Beneath the hammock, one of the crew—a seven, Torq noted wryly—had curled almost completely, now resembling more a glistening brown ball than anything else. A thin mewling rose from within the ball, and a dribble of something pungent and black already stained the otherwise pristine floor.

  It would be a seven. Figures.

  The asteroid emergency safely averted, Torq swiveled to face the crew.

  He did not speak. He did not have to. Everyone present knew what had just happened—that a feckless seven had failed in the number-one priority for command deck: Absolute Trust in the Name at the helm… The Chaptain is always right. The first lesson instilled in every number that emerged from the pupal crèches at the academy.

  Most had probably heard tales of failure. Few had ever seen it happen, however, given the evidence Torq saw reflected in their eyen. Part of each focused on the inert seven, communicating enough of its anguish that every crew member felt an insistent yank on its own nervous system, the ages-old clash-or-curl instinct each knew and dreaded.

  The other part focused on Torq. The lenses glittered in the diffuse light, a thousand sparks of fear and determination.

  He waited.

  Gradually, the split eyen joined, and all of the compounds were trained on him.

  As they should be!

  Without a word, he withdrew a thin metal rod from his carapace pouch.

  A sudden susurration, almost but not quite inaudible, swept the deck, then ceased as Torq raised one of his second hands, pointed directly at the miserable ball of chitin just visible beneath the hammock, did something with his tarsi than none could quite distinguish, and lowered the tube.

  There was another moment of silence before the unconscious seven tightened even further, so much that the faint crackle of bruised and broken chitin filled the deck as the thing—no longer one of them but merely so much tissue and ichor—compressed beyond the limits of possibility and finally, soundlessly, fractured into a mass of brown fluid.

  “Clean that up.” Not waiting to see that the order would be carried out, Torq turned back to his consoles and continued to manipulate data on the dozen or so screens.

  “We won’t flash for some sleeps yet,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “Decant another seven.”

  His voice had not died out before three sixes were attending to the unfortunate seven, and an eight jumped to send a comm to the Hatchery.

  * * * *

  Coming out of the flash was the same as it had been described by the techs, the same as it had been the previous three times: first, absolute nothingness; then an instant—too short to be counted by any time measurements—in which there was the faintest awareness of constituent molecules re-joining into muscle and tissue; and finally the almost overwhelming effect of life-experiences reconstituting themselves as memory.

  Torq stretched. Nothing felt quite as good as a post-flash stretch, he decided, wondering how many times he would be blessed by the God to relive such moments.

  The God.

  She would be re-constituting as well, perhaps already resuming her never-ending calling of providing new Koleic for new worlds. Torq felt as if he could commune with her mentally, imagining her stretching her vast length—fully one-quarter the length of the ship itself—then consuming the tens that would have appeared as if by magic by her side. She would need the nutrients to begin laying eggs.

  Torq depressed a switch on his control module. If there were anything wrong—Gods forbid—in the Hatchery, he would be notified immediately.

  For the moment, though, command deck was empty. As with all of the seeding ships in all of their flashes, the crew would not appear for some short while, enough for the commanding name—Torq bristled slightly with pride, perhaps his only vice—to be assured that all was functioning normally.

  As it should be!

  His eyen scanned multiple monitors simultaneously, his tarsi seeming to fly over the command board as he checked and re-checked readings from the flash.

  All normal.

  He relaxed slightly. For the moment, he was alone, truly alone in ways that almost none of the Koleic ever experienced. Alone with himself and with his thoughts.

  His eidetic memory flashed pictures almost as rapidly as the drive had transported the ship through the emptiness of space to an unknown sun-system, where another planet orbited, waiting for its new overlords.

  The first world. Desert. Sand, although of a curiously odd brown, quite unlike the emerald sands of the Koleic home. Very little moisture, but that meant nothing; that would change once the apparatus got under way to create a more congenial atmosphere. Otherwise, the seeding proceeded as outlined, no problems at all. In fact, slightly boring.

  Then the second flash…and the awakening.

  The second world was different. Almost all water, deep and scarlet, tinged by some unknown microscopic creatures barely more complex than the fringes of plant life that surrounded the scattered islands. Again, though, the task was completed with little difficulty. The apparatus settled securely on one of the islands, the egg cases prepared for the moment when the environment would awaken sensors and the grubs would emerge, followed shortly thereafter by the newborn God, already prepared to multiply and fill her world.

  The third flash…and the awakening.

  The third world…ah, that was a memory that would have made Torq smile had his physiology allowed such a contortion of the vocal mechanisms. As it was, it was sufficient to generate a repetitive tingling along his ventral plates, a vibration almost—almost—as pleasant as what he had experiences that once and only time as he and his God shared essences during their brief mating flight.

  He consciously pulled his mind away from that premier moment in his life, never to be repeated, and concentrated on something nearly as wondrous.

  There had been living beings on the third world. Strange, multi-limbed creatures that resembled nothing Torq had ever seen or imagined. But they were intelligent, sentient, builders on a vast scale that had dwarfed even the greatest Koleic nests.

  As far as the eyen could see, structures, above-ground structures, into and out of which the creatures had scuttled when the lander first cleared the atmosphere. They seemed not to have known of the ship hovering above them, even though the most rudimentary of equipment would have alerted them…but apparently they had had no interest in such things. After the cleansing, nothing resembling the needed machinery was found amid the rubble.

  But the first sight of the new world was not what had brought Torq such pleasure.

  No, it had been the smell and the sound. Torq had never experienced such things, never imagined such pleasures.

  The smell—the piquant scent of flesh, alien though it was and disgusting to look upon, as it was consumed by the meticulously aimed bursts of energy from the ship. Everywhere, every transpiration…ambrosial, although in truth the God lacked the senses to enjoy it even had she been planet-side during the aftermath.
>
  And the sounds—first the screams, full-bodied screams ripped from hot-blooded throats as the bursts struck buildings and creatures alike, the echoes of terror as the alien beings dashed mindlessly around, more often than not running headlong into another wall of flame. That was pleasant.

  But even better, the slight crackle of roasted tissue as Torq and his numbers strode triumphantly across the blackened landscape, treading on the remains of the now-vanished people.

  His ventral plates quivered rhythmically.

  What a blessed memory.

  And now, the fourth world drew near.

  * * * *

  As he had stood at his console, reliving his conquests—and his God’s slight nod of acquiescence as he had reported to her of the three successful seedings—the numbers had appeared at their terminals, silently, already seeing to the millions of minor tasks that the ship required.

  They did not speak.

  They knew their jobs.

  And they knew that Torq would handle everything exterior to the ship that might.…

  “My lord.”

  For an instant, Torq could not quite comprehend what had happened.

  “My lord.”

  He turned his left eyes toward the bank of terminals.

  A five was staring at him, quivering (although, thankfully, not retreating into insentience as had the pre-flash seven). Its compounds were all trained on Torq.

  That was enough to let him know that something truly unanticipated had occurred. The rule-of-tarsus was that at least one-half of one eyes should remain trained on the monitor.

  Unless the name required full attention.

  This time, though, the number had initiated the communication.

  Now it was trembling in every limb, first and second arms nearly useless even had it tried to perform some small bit of business.

  Torq waved a first leg. Permission to speak granted.

  “My lord, there is…there is…something…unusual about this system.…” The number stuttered to a halt.

  Torq chose not to help it out. He waited in silence.

  “My lord, there is a…I feel a terrible…disturbance…in the forces…the charges that.…”