by Keith Laumer
And burst through a curtain of canvas into a field of dry stalks.
Brett steered the car in a wide curve to halt and look back. A blackened panama hat floated down, settled among the stalks. Smoke poured up in a dense cloud from behind the canvas wall. A fetid stench pervaded the air.
“That finishes that, I guess,” Brett said.
“I don’t know. Look there.”
Brett turned. Far across the dry field columns of smoke rose from the ground.
“The whole thing’s undermined,” Brett said. “How far does it go?”
“No telling. But we’d better be off. Perhaps we can get beyond the edge of it. Not that it matters. We’re all that’s left ...”
“You sound like the fat man,” Brett said. “But why should we be so surprised to find out the truth? After all, we never saw it before. All we knew—or thought we knew—was what they told us. The moon, the other side of the world, a distant city ... or even the next town. How do we really know what’s there ... unless we go and see for ourselves? Does a goldfish in his bowl know what the ocean is like?”
“Where did they come from, those Gels? How much of the world have they undermined? What about Wavly? Is it a golem country too? The Duke ... and all the people I knew?”
“I don’t know, Dhuva. I’ve been wondering about the people in Casperton. Like Doc Welch. I used to see him in the street with his little black bag. I always thought it was full of pills and scalpels; but maybe it really had zebra’s tails and toad’s eyes in it. Maybe he’s really a magician on his way to cast spells against demons. Maybe the people I used to see hurrying to catch the bus every morning weren’t really going to the office. Maybe they go down into caves and chip away at the foundations of things. Maybe they go up on rooftops and put on rainbow-colored robes and fly away. I used to pass by a bank in Casperton: a big grey stone building with little curtains over the bottom half of the windows. I never go in there. I don’t have anything to do in a bank. I’ve always thought it was full of bankers, banking ... Now I don’t know. It could be anything ...”
“That’s why I’m afraid,” Dhuva said. “It could be anything.”
“Things aren’t really any different than they were,” said Brett, “... except that now we know.” He turned the big car out across the field toward Casperton.
“I don’t know what we’ll find when we get back. Aunt Haicey, Pretty-Lee ... But there’s only one way to find out.”
The moon rose as the car bumped westward, raising a trail of dust against the luminous sky of evening.
A BAD DAY FOR VERMIN
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1964.
Judge Carter Gates of the Third Circuit Court finished his chicken salad on whole wheat, thoughtfully crumpled the waxed paper bag and turned to drop it in the waste basket behind his chair—and sat transfixed.
Through his second-floor office window, he saw a forty-foot flower-petal shape of pale turquoise settling gently between the well-tended petunia beds on the courthouse lawn. On the upper, or stem end of the vessel, a translucent pink panel popped up and a slender, graceful form not unlike a large violet caterpillar undulated into view.
Judge Gates whirled to the telephone. Half an hour later, he put it to the officials gathered with him in a tight group on the lawn.
“Boys, this thing is intelligent; any fool can see that. It’s putting together what my boy assures me is some kind of talking machine, and any minute now it’s going to start communicating. It’s been twenty minutes since I notified Washington on this thing. It won’t be long before somebody back there decides this is top secret and slaps a freeze on us here that will make the Manhattan Project look like a publicity campaign. Now, I say this is the biggest thing that ever happened to Plum County—but if we don’t aim to be put right out of the picture, we’d better move fast.”
“What you got in mind, Jedge?”
“I propose we hold an open hearing right here in the courthouse, the minute that thing gets its gear to working. We’ll put it on the air—Tom Clembers from the radio station’s already stringing wires, I see. Too bad we’ve got no TV equipment, but Jody Hurd has a movie camera. We’ll put Willow Grove on the map bigger’n Cape Canaveral ever was.”
“We’re with you on that, Carter!”
Ten minutes after the melodious voice of the Fianna’s translator had requested escort to the village headman, the visitor was looking over the crowded courtroom with an expression reminiscent of a St. Bernard puppy hoping for a romp. The rustle of feet and throat-clearing subsided and the speaker began:
“People of the Green World, happy the cycle—”
Heads turned at the clump of feet coming down the side aisle; a heavy-torsoed man of middle age, bald, wearing a khaki shirt and trousers and rimless glasses and with a dark leather holster slapping his hip at each step, cleared the end of the front row of seats, planted himself, feet apart, yanked a heavy nickel-plated .44 revolver from the holster, took aim and fired five shots into the body of the Fianna at a range of ten feet.
The violet form whipped convulsively, writhed from the bench to the floor with a sound like a wet fire hose being dropped, uttered a gasping twitter, and lay still. The gunman turned, dropped the pistol, threw up his hands, and called:
“Sheriff Hoskins, I’m puttin’ myself in yer pertective custody.”
* * * *
There was a moment of stunned silence; then a rush of spectators for the alien. The sheriff’s three-hundred-and-nine-pound bulk bellied through the shouting mob to take up a stand before the khaki-clad man.
“I always knew you was a mean one, Cecil Stump,” he said, unlimbering handcuffs, “ever since I seen you makin’ up them ground-glass baits for Joe Potter’s dog. But I never thought I’d see you turn to cold-blooded murder.” He waved at the bystanders. “Clear a path through here; I’m takin’ my prisoner over to the jail.”
“Jest a dad-blamed minute, Sheriff.” Stump’s face was pale, his glasses were gone and one khaki shoulder strap dangled—but what was almost a grin twisted one meaty cheek. He hid his hands behind his back, leaned away from the cuffs. “I don’t like that word ‘prisoner’. I ast you fer pertection. And better look out who you go throwin’ that word ‘murder’ off at, too. I ain’t murdered nobody.”
The sheriff blinked, turned to roar, “How’s the victim, Doc?”
A small gray head rose from bending over the limp form of the Fianna. “Deader’n a mackerel, Sheriff.”
“I guess that’s it. Let’s go, Cecil.”
“What’s the charge?”
“First degree murder.”
“Who’d I murder?”
“Why, you killed this here…this stranger.”
“That ain’t no stranger. That’s a varmint. Murder’s got to do with killin’ humerns, way I understand it. You goin’ to tell me that thing’s humern?”
Ten people shouted at once:
“—human as I am!”
“—intelligent being!”
“—tell me you can simply kill—”
“—must be some kind of law—”
The sheriff raised his hands, his jowls drawn down in a scowl. “What about it, Judge Gates? Any law against Cecil Stump killing the…uh…?”
The judge thrust out his lower lip. “Well, let’s see,” he began. “Technically—”
“Good Lord!” someone blurted. “You mean the laws on murder don’t define what constitutes—I mean, what—”
“What a humern is?” Stump snorted. “Whatever it says, it sure-bob don’t include no purple worms. That’s a varmint, pure and simple. Ain’t no different killin’ it than any other critter.”
“Then, by God, we’ll get him for malicious damage,” a man called. “Or hunting without a license—out of season!”
“—carrying concealed weapons!”
Stump went for his hip pocket, fumbled out a fat, shapeless wallet, extracted a thumbed rectangle of folded paper, offered it.
“I’m a licensed exterminator. Got a permit to carry the gun, too. I ain’t broken no law.” He grinned openly now. “Jest doin’ my job, Sheriff. And at no charge to the county.”
* * * *
A smaller man with bristly red hair flared his nostrils at Stump. “You blood-thirsty idiot!” He raised a fist and shook it. “We’ll be a national disgrace—worse than Little Rock! Lynching’s too good for you!”
“Hold on there, Weinstein,” the sheriff cut in. “Let’s not go gettin’ no lynch talk started.”
“Lynch, is it!” Cecil Stump bellowed, his face suddenly red. “Why, I done a favor for every man here! Now you listen to me! What is that thing over there?” He jerked a blunt thumb toward the judicial bench. “It’s some kind of critter from Mars or someplace—you know that as well as me! And what’s it here for? It ain’t for the good of the likes of you and me, I can tell you that. It’s them or us. And this time, by God, we got in the first lick!”
“Why you…you…hate-monger!”
“Now, hold on right there. I’m as liberal-minded as the next feller. Hell, I like a nigger—and I can’t hardly tell a Jew from a white man. But when it comes to takin’ in a damned purple worm and callin’ it humern—that’s where I draw the line.”
Sheriff Hoskins pushed between Stump and the surging front rank of the crowd. “Stay back there! I want you to disperse, peaceably, and let the law handle this.”
“I reckon I’ll push off now, Sheriff,” Stump hitched up his belt. “I figgered you might have to calm ’em down right at first, but now they’ve had a chance to think it over and see I ain’t broken no law, ain’t none of these law-abiding folks going to do anything illegal—like tryin’ to get rough with a licensed exterminator just doin’ his job.” He stooped, retrieved his gun.
“Here, I’ll take that,” Sheriff Hoskins said. “You can consider your gun license canceled—and your exterminatin’ license, too.”
Stump grinned again, handed the revolver over.
“Sure. I’m cooperative, Sheriff. Anything you say. Send it around to my place when you’re done with it.” He pushed his way through the crowd to the corridor door.
“The rest of you stay put!” a portly man with a head of bushy white hair pushed his way through to the bench. “I’m calling an emergency Town Meeting to order here and now!”
* * * *
He banged the gavel on the scarred bench top, glanced down at the body of the dead alien, now covered by a flag.
“Gentlemen, we’ve got to take fast action. If the wire services get hold of this before we’ve gone on record, Willow Grove’ll be a blighted area.”
“Look here, Willard,” Judge Gates called, rising. “This—this mob isn’t competent to take legal action.”
“Never mind what’s legal, Judge. Sure, this calls for Federal legislation—maybe a Constitutional amendment—but in the meantime, we’re going to redefine what constitutes a person within the incorporated limits of Willow Grove!”
“That’s the least we can do,” a thin-faced woman snapped, glaring at Judge Gates. “Do you think we’re going to set here and condone this outrage?”
“Nonsense!” Gates shouted. “I don’t like what happened any better than you do—but a person—well, a person’s got two arms and two legs and—”
“Shape’s got nothing to do with it,” the chairman cut in. “Bears walk on two legs! Dave Zawocky lost his in the war. Monkeys have hands.”
“Any intelligent creature—” the woman started.
“Nope, that won’t do, either; my unfortunate cousin’s boy Melvin was born an imbecile, poor lad. Now, folks, there’s no time to waste. We’ll find it very difficult to formulate a satisfactory definition based on considerations such as these. However, I think we can resolve the question in terms that will form a basis for future legislation on the question. It’s going to make some big changes in things. Hunters aren’t going to like it—and the meat industry will be affected. But if, as it appears, we’re entering into an era of contact with…ah…creatures from other worlds, we’ve got to get our house in order.”
“You tell ’em, Senator!” someone yelled.
“We better leave this for Congress to figger out!” another voice insisted.
“We got to do something….”
The senator held up his hands. “Quiet, everybody. There’ll be reporters here in a matter of minutes. Maybe our ordinance won’t hold water. But it’ll start ’em thinking—and it’ll make a lots better copy for Willow Grove than the killing.”
“What you got in mind, Senator?”
“Just this:” the Senator said solemnly. “A person is…any harmless creature….”
Feet shuffled. Someone coughed.
“What about a man who commits a violent act, then?” Judge Gates demanded. “What’s he, eh?”
“That’s obvious, gentlemen,” the senator said flatly. “He’s vermin.”
* * * *
On the courthouse steps Cecil Stump stood, hands in hip pockets, talking to a reporter from the big-town paper in Mattoon, surrounded by a crowd of late-comers who had missed the excitement inside. He described the accuracy of his five shots, the sound they had made hitting the big blue snake, and the ludicrous spectacle the latter had presented in its death agony. He winked at a foxy man in overalls picking his nose at the edge of the crowd.
“Guess it’ll be a while ’fore any more damned reptiles move in here like they owned the place,” he concluded.
The courthouse doors banged wide; excited citizens poured forth, veering aside from Cecil Stump. The crowd around him thinned, broke up as its members collared those emerging with the hot news. The reporter picked a target.
“Perhaps you’d care to give me a few details of the action taken by the…ah…Special Committee, sir?”
Senator Custis pursed his lips. “A session of the Town Council was called,” he said. “We’ve defined what a person is in this town—”
Stump, standing ten feet away, snorted. “Can’t touch me with no ex post factory law.”
“—and also what can be classified as vermin,” Custis went on.
Stump closed his mouth with a snap.
“Here, that s’posed to be some kind of slam at me, Custis? By God, come election time….”
Above, the door opened again. A tall man in a leather jacket stepped out, stood looking down. The crowd pressed back. Senator Custis and the reporter moved aside. The newcomer came down the steps slowly. He carried Cecil Stump’s nickel-plated .44 in his hand.
Standing alone now, Stump watched him.
“Here,” he said. His voice carried a sudden note of strain. “Who’re you?”
The man reached the foot of the steps, raised the revolver and cocked it with a thumb.
“I’m the new exterminator,” he said.
END AS A HERO
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1963.
I
In the dream I was swimming in a river of white fire and the dream went on and on. And then I was awake—and the fire was still there, fiercely burning at me.
I tried to move to get away from the flames, and then the real pain hit me. I tried to go back to sleep and the relative comfort of the river of fire, but it was no go. For better or worse, I was alive and conscious.
I opened my eyes and took a look around. I was on the floor next to an unpadded acceleration couch—the kind the Terrestrial Space Arm installs in seldom-used lifeboats. There were three more couches, but no one in them. I tried to sit up. It wasn’t easy but, by applying a lot more will-power than should be required of a sick man, I made it. I took a look at my left arm. Baked. The hand was only medium rare, but the forearm was black, with deep red showing at the bottom of the cracks where the crisped upper layers had burst….
There was a first-aid cabinet across the compartment from me. I tried my right leg, felt broken bone-ends grate with a sensation that transcended pain. I heaved with the other leg, scrab
bled with the charred arm. The crawl to the cabinet dwarfed Hillary’s trek up Everest, but I reached it after a couple of years, and found the microswitch on the floor that activated the thing, and then I was fading out again….
* * * *
I came out of it clear-headed but weak. My right leg was numb, but reasonably comfortable, clamped tight in a walking brace. I put up a hand and felt a shaved skull, with sutures. It must have been a fracture. The left arm—well, it was still there, wrapped to the shoulder and held out stiffly by a power truss that would keep the scar tissue from pulling up and crippling me. The steady pressure as the truss contracted wasn’t anything to do a sense-tape on for replaying at leisure moments, but at least the cabinet hadn’t amputated. I wasn’t complaining.
As far as I knew, I was the first recorded survivor of contact with the Gool—if I survived.
I was still a long way from home, and I hadn’t yet checked on the condition of the lifeboat. I glanced toward the entry port. It was dogged shut. I could see black marks where my burned hand had been at work.
I fumbled my way into a couch and tried to think. In my condition—with a broken leg and third-degree burns, plus a fractured skull—I shouldn’t have been able to fall out of bed, much less make the trip from Belshazzar’s CCC to the boat; and how had I managed to dog that port shut? In an emergency a man was capable of great exertions. But running on a broken femur, handling heavy levers with charred fingers and thinking with a cracked head were overdoing it. Still, I was here—and it was time to get a call through to TSA headquarters.
I flipped the switch and gave the emergency call-letters Col. Ausar Kayle of Aerospace Intelligence had assigned to me a few weeks before. It was almost five minutes before the “acknowledge” came through from the Ganymede relay station, another ten minutes before Kayle’s face swam into view. Even through the blur of the screen I could see the haggard look.
“Granthan!” he burst out. “Where are the others? What happened out there?” I turned him down to a mutter.
