The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister

by Banister, Manly

  The Thing in the forest! Memory came back in a stunning flood. The ship dropping down from the sky…

  A pink, unclothed giant swam into distorted view. Allene choked on her fear.

  “You’re all right,” Helsing said kindly. “Nobody will hurt you.”

  The syllables fell on her ears with strange sound and cadence, but she understood them. How could that be?

  “Where…where am I?” she asked, in the same, alien sound and cadence. She was surprised. Talking it, too!

  “You’re in the ship. I want to talk to you.”

  Allene sat up, looked down at herself with startled horror.

  “My clothes…!”

  She grabbed riding breeches from the floor, scrambled into them, her back to the curiously observing giant. She gathered the rest of her clothes, flung them on, flaming with embarrassment. She knuckled the last button into place, whirled on them.

  “Who are you? What do you want? You’d better let me go!”

  “I am Helsing of Voranamor,” he said, ignoring her outburst. “I came here in search of some human beings.”

  “Which ones?” she asked cautiously.

  “Any!” he returned impatiently. “There are many human beings on this world. You are obviously not one yourself, but you could tell me where to find them.”

  Allene frowned. “Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m just as human as you are…if you are human.”

  She backed warily a little distance away, but, as the stranger made no overt move to harm her, her racing pulses quieted.

  “Sit down,” said Helsing simply. “Let me tell you about myself.”

  He told her about himself, the robots, and Voranamor. Allene palmed yellow curls away from her round, pretty face. Her blue eyes quite matched Helsing’s for alert intelligence.

  He smiled happily at her understanding. “I have been so lonely, and I have come a very long way. The human beings of this world can give me the technical knowledge I seek, to take back to Voranamor.”

  Allene looked around at the sumptuous appointments of the ship, obviously awed. She chose the opportunity for some rapid thinking. She had ridden for about an hour that morning. Star, running in fright along the forest trail, would make it back to the ranch in a third of that time, or less. When the horse returned riderless, her father and the hands would ride out in search of her. Perhaps even Joel would come along. She contrasted her mental image of Joel with the magnificent physique of Helsing. Joel wasn’t in it.

  “We’re pretty careful with technical knowledge nowadays,” she said cautiously, “but maybe the President could help you.”

  “Who?”

  “The President of the United States. He’s sort of in charge of all the scientific and technical information in this country, you know. Of course, he won’t tell us about it, so I don’t know why he would tell you.”

  She looked around, anxiously. “How do I get out of here? I really ought to be going. My folks will be worried…”

  The way she kept throwing in English words when Voranamorese had no equivalent confused Helsing. He understood, however, that she wanted to leave. After the initial shock of viewing Allene’s appearance had worn thin, he had begun to think that she looked a little bit of all right. He was now willing to concede that she did look human, especially with her wrappings on.

  But her words had him worried. The information he sought was so secret that only one man on this whole world knew it! He looked unhappily at Alur. The robot wagged its head in commiseration.

  “I might as well warn you,” Allene put in hastily, misconstruing the exchange of glances between the two for stubborn intent to hold her captive, “that my horse has let them know at the ranch that something has happened to me. My people will be coming to look for me.”

  “You should have caught that horse-thing, too,” Helsing said to the robot.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying!” protested Alur.

  Helsing turned to Allene. “You may as well stay until your people get here. Tell me, you really are a human being, aren’t you? Alur says there are two models. You obviously are not a he, like me.”

  “I believe you are the last man of your race!” said Allene. “Otherwise, you’d know I’m a she!”

  Helsing nodded, glumly. “Just my luck…after I’ve searched half the galaxy for humans like myself!”

  “Most men would be tickled to death to find a human like me, anywhere in the old galaxy!” snapped Allene.

  * * * *

  A flicker of movement on the viewscreen attracted her attention.

  “There’s my folks, now!” She peered closely. A file of horsemen came trotting out of the woods. “Yep! That’s Dad…there’s Slim and Hank… Her tone of excitement dropped to a dismal mutter. “And there’s Joel!”

  Helsing looked over her shoulder. “Those are your people?”

  “Yes. The big one, on the bay in front, is my father!”

  “What’s a father?”

  “You’ll find out, if he thinks you’ve been improper.” She shivered. “Boy, won’t Joel be annoyed…when he finds I’ve spent the last hour with you!”

  “Why should he be?” asked Helsing, puzzled. “Is Joel human?”

  “Yes, and a jealous one. He wants to marry me.”

  “I know what that is,” said Helsing naively. He regarded Joel’s image on the screen with jealous interest. “Do you want to live with him?”

  Woman’s instinct sensed what Helsing did not even know he expressed. Allene shrugged, with an arch expression. “I don’t know. I may!”

  Helsing scowled. The men on horseback picked their way cautiously around the ship from Voranamor, looking it over, talking excitedly among themselves.

  “You are the first human beings I have met in the galaxy,” said Helsing, worriedly. “I must at least try to get the information I want.”

  “I would suggest,” said Allene, “that you don’t let anybody know you’re here for a while. You would be mobbed! After you’ve learned your way around, we’ll try to get you in touch with somebody who can help you. We can put you up at the ranch, if you’d like. Dad would be tickled to death… he’s always been interested in the stars. And Mom would love to have you. You can come with me now…”

  She stopped her mouth with the back of her hand, stared wide-eyed.

  “Good heavens…you need clothes!”

  “Wrappings!” groaned Helsing. “Must I?”

  “Just let me out,” she said succinctly. “I’ll send one of the boys back from the ranch with some duds.”

  * * * *

  Helsing had never known that life could have such spice, such peace and contentment. Living at the Morgan Dude Ranch, among other human beings, was an experience he reveled in…in spite of the rather tight-fitting overalls, shirt and shoes he had been outfitted with—extras of Dad Morgan’s.

  Helsing understood that the ranch entertained guests during the summer, but the season was early yet, and Joel was the only guest present. Joel wasn’t really a guest, either; he merely hung around, hoping Allene would marry him. Somehow, Helsing was glad she wouldn’t do it.

  Bulging at the seams and pinching at the toes, he wandered over the ranch with Allene and the inseparable robot, marveling at everything he saw. He was unaware of the ludicrous figure he cut in the borrowed clothes; but he was sensitive enough to know how foolish he would look if he tried to ride one of the horses, as Allene suggested.

  Even after a week of living with the family, of talking, asking and answering questions, Helsing still did not understand much about terrestrial social life. He tried to make friends with the hands, but Hank and Slim acted nervous when he was around, tried to teach him to roll a cigarette, and failed. The ranch animals shied away from Alur, no doubt frightened by
his shell of gleaming, rustproof alloy.

  Joel was surly, and Helsing deliberately ignored him. Instinct raised a barrier between them that Helsing, for one, was willing to let stand.

  None of the ranch people would allow themselves to be persuaded to enter the space ship for a turn at the hypo-learner. Therefore, Allene served as interpreter, doing valiant duty in the question-and-answer field between Helsing and her father. Helsing liked Dad Morgan, and answered his questions willingly. He also liked Mom Morgan. Allene’s mother had a profusion of white hair, a kindly smile, and wide, candid blue eyes, very like Allene’s. She went to no end of trouble to discover what foods Helsing; favored and to prepare special dishes for him.

  Helsing spent carefree days lounging in the shade of the blossoming apple trees with Allene, listening to the droning vibration of bees on the cool air. It was good to be alive, he thought—good to be with Allene. He told her about his childhood on Voranamor, how the robots had taught him and cared for him. She answered his questions about Earth, but the complex of her answers remained hazy to him. He could make little sense of so far-flung a culture on short notice.

  Alur leaned boredly against my apple tree, humming softly in the thorax.

  “I haven’t said a word!” protested Allene.

  “I was talking to Alur,” said Helsing. He pulled a blade of grass and bit it. “Hear that hum? It’s unusual.”

  “It’s my stance control gear,” said the robot apologetically. “I haven’t got around to replacing it. I’m sorry if it bothers you.”

  “I can’t get over it,” murmured Allene. “That’s a machine…yet it seems almost human!”

  Helsing grinned. “I’ll say so! I just found out robots can dream. Control dreamed it was married to Alur. They had an assembly line in the basement, where they made little robots.”

  Allene got up and started away. Helsing jumped up and followed.

  “Where are you going? What did I do?”

  She turned a cold glance on him. “Stranger to our world, or not, Mr. Helsing, I don’t care for your insinuations!”

  Joel appeared, ducking under the limb o£ the apple tree. He looked sourly at Helsing said something to Allene. The girl tossed her head in Helsing’s direction and walked off arm in arm with the interloper.

  Helsing sat down and glared at Alur. “Are you sure there are two models of humans?”

  “Positive,” asserted the robot.

  Helsing puzzled the situation, wondering what had possessed Allene.

  “If I am human,” he said to Alur, “and Allene is human, there must be a reason for having two models. What is it? Did you see how angry she got? I mentioned little robots…”

  “I was never one to snoop in human affairs,” Alur defended. “I don’t profess to understand them. I just do my duty, that’s all.”

  “Why did people marry on Voranamor, Alur?”

  “I don’t know,” the robot answered truthfully. “It was some kind of human institution. They all lived that way—a couple here, a couple there. Come to think of it—they had a word they used a great deal. Love.”

  “Love,” murmured Helsing. “Do I love Allene? I would certainly like to marry her!”

  “Talk sense,” grumbled Alur.

  “A lot of help you are,” sneered Helsing. “How long did you hang around humans? You must have had five or six chassis before this one. A thousand years? And you don’t know the first thing about humans!”

  “I didn’t live with them,” reproved Alur. “I just served them—as I do you.”

  “Ha!” said Helsing. “I’ve been doing better by myself. How did I know it wasn’t proper for a grown man to be spoon-fed by a robot? You let me think it was all right. I learned different from Allene. Now I can feed myself, thank you.”

  “The duty of a robot is to serve,” murmured Alur religiously. “May I serve you with a suggestion?”

  “If you think it has value, you may.”

  “Find out from that girl, or somebody, what you came here to learn; and let’s get back to Voranamor. The climate here is too humid. I think I’m beginning to rust.” The robot looked critically at its gleaming thorax of rustproof alloy.

  “You saw what happened when I tried to lead into the subject,” Helsing pointed out. “She got up and flounced off with Joel. These people have turned all their science and technology over to one man, it seems, and it insults them when you try to talk about it.”

  “In your place,” said Alur coldly, “I shouldn’t have wasted so much time. When you had her in your power in the ship was when you should have asked her.”

  Helsing hung his head and pulled at the grass. “I could have, couldn’t I?” he admitted feebly.

  He lifted his glance to the grandeur of the forested mountains ringing the ranch at the edge of the lake.

  “As soon as I find out what I came here for, we’ll have to go back to Voranamor, Alur, and get things started. I like it here. I… I thought I could put the question off…until I felt more like leaving…”

  * * * *

  Perhaps Alur was right, Helsing thought as the family gathered that evening in the long, heavily-raftered living room of the ranch house. He liked it here, no doubt about that, but it was high time he was leaving.

  He brooded, while Allene translated the questions her father put to him and translated back the answers he gave. Finally, Dad and Mom Morgan excused themselves and went to bed.

  Suddenly, it was all very dull and boring, and Helsing looked toward the robot, as if seeking in that creature of metal and subtle electronic currents a solution to the enigma be had come so far to solve.

  “Ask her now,” suggested Alur.

  Joel still sat up with them, suspiciously alert and sullen. He was always around, Helsing thought with a trace of rancor. Of course, Joel couldn’t understand the conversation that went on between Helsing and Allene, so he doubtless thought they were talking about him.

  Helsing drew a deep breath ordering his thoughts.

  “Allene,” he said. “It is time now I went back to Voranamor. But first I must get the information I came for. You must locate for me the person who can answer my question.”

  She glanced at him, startled. “Certainly…but what…?”

  Helsing drew a deep breath and plunged ahead. “One thing I must know. How do you make little human beings?”

  She drew back, astonished. In another moment, the real meaning of his earnest question might have penetrated. Joel filled the breach. “Is that lunk trying to get fresh?”

  She whirled. “No! Joel—don’t!”

  Whatever had been going on in the frustrated Joel’s consciousness while he sat there, Helsing would never know. A fistful of knuckles, connected to the end of Joel’s long arm, slammed against the side of his head and knocked him sprawling from his chair. Helsing rolled across the carpet, scrambled to his feet.

  “Command me to punish him for striking you!” cried Alur, incensed, all the little robot’s radio-activated loyalty aroused by the deed.

  “Never mind!” barked Helsing. He wiped a smear of blood from his cheek.

  Joel stood panting, glaring, arms akimbo. He swung again, and Helsing caught his fist. Seizing the other, he brought the two together, slung Joel like a sack over his shoulder. Anger, deep and terrible, churned inside him. He strode wordless from the house, Joel kicking and yelping on his back.

  Helsing’s lips were white and grim. He had never felt anger in his life before. Annoyed he had been, yes. Piqued. But burning, hateful anger—never!

  Allene ran after them, pounding on Helsing’s shoulder and ribs, pleading with him to release Joel. Helsing paid no heed. He was through, finished with Earth, he would go back to Voranamor and live out his life with the robots, alone, and better off for it. But first, he had
to do what he was about to do.

  Helsing strode across the ranch yard in the moonlight. At the horse trough by the corral, he paused, dumped Joel in, and wheeled toward the forest trail. Joel splashed and yelled.

  Allene pulled at Helsing’s arm. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Voranamor!” he growled stiffly. “If you people are human, I am a freak. I belong on my own world.”

  She hauled him around, furiously.

  “What’s the matter with you, you big ape?”

  He thought there were tears in her eyes, but the moonlight was not bright. He didn’t know why there should be. He halted, a feeling of depthless vacancy inside him.

  He said, bitterly, “I asked you a question. The answer to it means a great deal to me. I…”

  Her look was incredulous. “Don’t…don’t you really know?” she whispered.

  “If I knew,” he ground out, “would I be here? I would have re-peopled Voranamor long ago!”

  “Sit down!” she said kindly.

  * * * *

  He sat on a nearby stone and looked at her. She knelt in front of him. Joel had pulled himself dripping from the trough and slunk off toward the house.

  She said, “I must be just beginning to understand. Our human prudery, dear Helsing, sometimes confuses things terribly. You think human beings are manufactured like robots, don’t you?”

  “Aren’t they?” he challenged.

  She laughed, a silly little giggle. “Oh…forgive me, Helsing! I am not laughing at you…really!”

  She looked up into his shadowed face. The moon was on her own, showing the mirth there…and something else Helsing could not name.

  “How can I make you understand, without a course in applied biology, Helsing? Do you know…” Her eyes sparkled, and she winked conspiratorially. “Joel is dreadfully jealous of you!”

  “Jealous?” He was uncomprehending.

  “He thinks you want to marry me!”