A Star Above It and Other Stories

by Chad Oliver

  Lkani smiled and kept on going. Jonston took a deep breath and tried to cling to the slippery rocks. The churning river tumbled wickedly below them, filling the cavern with booming spray. He was cold and afraid and he felt very small. He tried to joke to himself, as men always do when they feel death at their throat. But nothing is very funny when you’re walking the Last Mile.

  Time ceased to be as they clawed and fought their way along the treacherous ledge. Their fingers were cut and bleeding and their exhausted muscles were numb with fatigue. The world was the next rock, the next curve, the next inch. Below them, the black river chanted its song of hate—and waited.

  Jonston gasped with relief as Lkani turned off into a cave that branched away from the river. He stood gratefully still for a long minute, getting his wind and listening to the roar of the cheated torrent. His chest ached with strain and his torn clothes were streaked with blood where he had touched them with his hands.

  “Come on,” Lkani said.

  They ran through the comparatively dry cave, forcing their bodies as if they were something apart from them, like automatons in which their minds temporarily resided. Lkani still carried the tube in his hand and he set a murderous pace. Jonston kept up with difficulty, breathing in short, painful jerks of air. His mind was a spotty screen of black and white upon which Moreland’s face was stamped in livid flame. Time—there couldn’t be any more time.

  Lkani stopped, his chest heaving. He stood rigidly with his eyes closed. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Jonston watched silently, fighting to get his breath. The great river was a dark murmur behind them.

  “All right,” Lkani whispered. “We’re directly under the pile room, and he’s up there. I’ll open a hole and you get him—and don’t miss.”

  Jonston set himself, his heart beating wildly. Lkani aimed the metal tube at an angle toward the upper part of the cave wall. He set two dials very carefully and pressed the switch.

  There wasn’t a sound—but a spherical section of rock ceased to be. It simply wasn’t there any more. Dale Jonston hurled himself into the hole and hoisted himself through.

  The scene that confronted him was like a picture that he had seen many times before. He had imagined it so intensely that every detail was familiar to him. The indicators set in the lead shield were gyrating feverishly and the very air in the glaringly white room was tensely charged. Moreland crouched at the door, his too bright eyes staring out of his too white face.

  He screamed when he saw Jonston and threw himself crazily at the lead shield, clawing for the damping rods. Jonston caught him with a flying tackle—and Moreland exploded like a wild thing in his arms. He shrieked and tore and lashed out with superhuman strength. Something hit Jonston on the side of the head and white lights danced in his brain.

  Jonston wrenched loose somehow and fell to the floor. He rolled and got up again, sick and dizzy. Moreland was rushing in, screaming his hate, his fingers tensed like white claws. Jonston backed away, calling on reserves of power he wasn’t sure he possessed.

  One punch, he thought desperately. One punch is all I’ve got.

  Moreland loomed up in front of him and Jonston threw his punch from the heels up. It smacked into Moreland’s face with a sickening crunch. The shock of the blow traveled back through Jonston’s arms and went off with a white puff in his brain.

  That was the last thing he remembered.

  “You’ve been out for thirty-six hours,” Lin Carlson said.

  Dale Jonston looked around shakily. He was in his own bed in the Post and his body ached dully. The light from the floor lamp splashed whitely across Lin Carlson’s face.

  “Lkani,” he said, not recognizing his own voice. “Where’s Lkani?”

  “He went back across the swamp after he unlocked the door of the pile room—that tunnel the natives dug caved in.”

  “I see,” Jonston said, not seeing at all. Tunnel caved in? That was nonsense—

  “Sure glad to see you awake again,” Carlson smiled. “You really saved our necks, Dale. If you hadn’t fixed those damping rods, we’d all be in the unhappy hunting ground for sure.”

  I never touched those rods, Jonston thought.

  “The credit belongs to Lkani,” he said.

  “He’s some native, I’ll say.”

  “Yeah—some native.”

  “He left a note for you,” Carlson said, handing him a sealed envelope. “And we’ve got Moreland doped to the gills—we’ll send him back on the first ship to Earth. Maybe they can do something for him.”

  “Everything else O.K.?”

  “Guess so—except that none of us quite understands what happened. Lkani didn’t do much explaining and—”

  “Tell you all about it some day, Lin. Right now, I wonder if you’d go tell the cook to scare up some breakfast for me? I’m half starved.”

  “Will do,” Carlson said, getting to his feet. “See you later.”

  He left the room and Dale Jonston was alone. He twisted his bruised body over in the bed and tore open the letter. His hands, he noticed, were shaking. There were two sentences on the paper:

  “There was no atomic explosion—that is what counts. Stop and think and you will understand.”

  Dale Jonston fumbled for his pipe, filled it with fragrant tobacco, and lit it. He closed his eyes and relaxed, inhaling the smoke slowly. Lkani, he sensed instantly, had somehow planted a message in his brain. Or perhaps he was in contact now from across the swamp—

  No matter. It came softly into his mind—softly but with bell-like clearness.

  You are an intelligent man, the voice spoke in his mind. You cannot see two and two and fail to put them together to make four. We have gambled on your intelligence and your discretion—and we know that you will act accordingly, both for our people and for your own.

  You saw force fields and spaceships, telepathy and a tool that realigns the dimensional plane of atoms. You must have guessed that we are a part of that civilization which you know only as the Others. Much that may seem mysterious to you is not strange at all; like so many things, it is relatively simple once you know the facts.

  You have had difficulty in associating what appears to be a primitive culture with an advanced civilization, but that is only because you have confused complexity with progress. Your own anthropologists have known for many years that simple cultures are often better integrated than your own, and better serve the needs of the individual. It has been a truism of your people that you have knowledge and refuse to apply it.

  If you will stop and think about it, the “Time of the Terror” is quite as graphic a term as “A Psychological State of Tension Induced by Periodic Storms”—but I will not trouble you with an analysis of why we live as we do. We are happy and that, after all, is the only valid test.

  We are but a tiny part of a tremendous civilization that spans the galaxy. Cultural maturity must be attained before a people can become a part of such an association—and there are many different types of civilizations involved. For example, we do not manufacture our own spaceships; our contributions are along other lines.

  We have been watching Earth for centuries, waiting. Your presence here on Rohan is not entirely your own doing—it is one of a series of tests. You see the problem: a tense conflict situation with atomic energy readily available. There was no atomic catastrophe—and it was prevented by your own efforts. You asked for help and got it—and that, too, showed intelligence on your part.

  You will understand, Dale Jonston, why this knowledge must stop with you. Your people are not yet ready to face the situation that exists, and unless they work their problems out for themselves they can never attain the stability that is essential for galactic co-operation. But the time is rapidly approaching—and you will live to see the day—when mankind sets forth on an adventure beyond its wildest dreams.

  For we are not the only civilization in the universe.

  That was all.

  Dale Jonston opened his eyes. Hi
s pipe had gone out and he put it aside. It was too much to assimilate all at once. He looked around his room. The floor lamp threw dark shadows on the log walls. He thrilled with knowledge.

  Not the only civilization in the universe—

  Beyond the Others—what?

  He shook his head, suddenly conscious of a strangeness in the air.

  Something was wrong.

  He got out of bed and stood still, listening. There wasn’t a sound. That was it. Silence.

  He walked shakily over to the window and pressed the button that changed the glass from opaque to clear. Mottled sunlight splashed into the room. He looked up into the sky where the massed black clouds were splitting and being forced apart by slanting rays of flame that transformed the sky into a brilliant mass of color—red and yellow and green, cold silver and warm gold, the clouds rolled by and the light came through. He opened the window and drank in the fresh, clean smell of the breeze that murmured in from the marshes.

  It had been a tough climb up from Earth to the edge of forever, he thought—but it was a climb that had to be made.

  He heard laughter drift up from around the Post and somewhere a guitar began to play. A rhythmic voice started an old, old song:

  “Oh, I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow,

  Where the sleet don’t fall and the wind don’t blow,

  In the Big Rock Candy Mountains—”

  Dale Jonston smiled happily.

  “There’s a lake of stew and of whisky, too,

  You can paddle all around in a big canoe,

  In the Big Rock Candy Mountains—”

  The storm was over.

  THE BOY NEXT DOOR

  It was five o’clock by the clock on the studio wall. Behind his glass partition, the balding engineer waved his right hand at Harry Royal.

  “Hello again, kids!” Harry said in a hearty voice.

  The youthful studio audience squealed with delight. A little girl in a pink dress smacked her hands together enthusiastically. Harry moaned to himself. What a way to make a living!

  “Yes, sir,” he said, careful to keep a big, cheery smile on his face. “Five o’clock again, boys and girls, and you all know what that means!” He winked at the adults in his audience—must be parents, he thought. Why else should they torture themselves? He said: “Ha, ha. Station ZNOX, right here in the good old Hotel Murphy, again brings you The Boy Next Door, the program where you get to hear your very own friends speak to you over the radio. This is your old Uncle Harry Royal, getting the old program under way again. How are you all this evening, hmmm?”

  The kids in the audience assured him that they were fine. They always were, thought Harry grimly. They would be. He smiled wanly and tried to look like a good scout.

  “Well, sir,” he continued, “as you all know, old Uncle Harry picks one of your names out of the little old red box every day, Monday through Friday, and invites the lucky winner down here to the good old Hotel Murphy to talk over the radio.” His smile felt a trifle limp and he engineered a fresh one. “This afternoon, our guest is young Jimmy Walls, from away out in Terrace Heights.”

  Applause. Harry wondered why. What had Jimmy Walls ever done? Set fire to the school?

  Jimmy Walls eyed Harry gravely. He was an eager-looking boy in what was obviously a brand new suit. His straw-colored hair was slicked back precariously. He had bright blue eyes and his tie was crooked.

  “Don’t be afraid now, Jimmy,” said Harry Royal.

  “I’m not afraid,” Jimmy Walls assured him.

  “Well, well—that’s fine, Jimmy, fine. There—stand a little closer to the microphone. Fine. Dandy. How old are you, Jimmy?”

  “I’m eight years old, going on nine.”

  The same questions. The same answers. Harry Royal decided, not for the first time, that he hated kids. All of them.

  “Mighty fine, Jimmy,” he said. “Mighty fine. Yes, sir, that’s fine. Where do you go to school, Jimmy?”

  “I go to Terrace Heights School,” answered Jimmy. He added: “When I go.”

  “When you go? Ha, ha. You don’t mean to tell your old Uncle Harry that you skip school sometimes?”

  “Sometimes,” Jimmy admitted.

  Harry worked on his smile again. Didn’t they ever say anything new or interesting?

  “You’re not very bright, are you?” he wanted to say.

  “What programs on good old ZNOX do you like best?” he said.

  Jimmy Walls thought about it briefly. Then his blue eyes glistened. “Golly,” he exclaimed, “I like The Hag’s Hut best. I like Terror in the Night, too!”

  Well, thought Harry. Just a nice, healthy, American boy. Nothing like horror programs for the little, growing minds.

  “Ha, ha,”’ Harry Royal chuckled dutifully.’“Don’t those programs scare you, Jimmy?”

  “They don’t scare me,” Jimmy retorted indignantly.

  “Ha ha. I see. Yes, I see.” Harry Royal fumbled around for something to say, and came up with: “Why do you like those programs best, Jimmy?”

  “I like the way they kill people,” Jimmy replied instantly. “They sure are smart!” His blue eyes were bright with admiration.

  That one stopped Harry Royal for a second, but he bounced back in a hurry. Nothing ever stopped Harry Royal for long, no, sir! “But they always get caught, don’t they, Jimmy?” he suggested. “Crime doesn’t pay, you know.”

  He winked broadly at the adults in the studio.

  “Maybe,” hedged Jimmy Walls reluctantly.

  “Hmmmm. Well, well. I see. Yes, sir.” Better change the subject, Harry decided. Definitely. You never could tell about parents, studio brass, and the FCC. He chose a safe topic: “What have you been doing all week, old man?”

  “Killing people,” Jimmy Walls announced proudly.

  Pause. Harry began to feel uncomfortable. “Ha, ha,” he said, without humor. “Come now, Jimmy. Ha, ha. Come now—honesty is the best policy.”

  “I am honest,” muttered Jimmy Walls insistently. He shuffled his feet, smearing the fresh polish on his shiny brown shoes. “Nobody ever believes me.”

  “Oh, I believe you, all right. If you say so, Jimmy. Ha, ha—just a regular cut-up, I guess! Do you use a knife, Jimmy? Ha, ha.”

  “No,” Jimmy Walls stated flatly.

  “Well, well. Yes, sir! This younger generation!” Harry winked hugely at the studio audience. Several of the adults smiled weakly, but the children sat very still, listening to Jimmy Walls raptly.

  “You don’t believe me, honest,” accused Jimmy. “You’re just saying that. You’ll see.”

  Harry felt peculiar. Not worried, or afraid, or anything like that, he assured himself. Of course not. Just—well, funny.

  “Well, Jimmy,” he said, feeling quite clever, “if you kill people, why don’t you get caught, eh? Crime doesn’t pay, you know! Ha, ha. No, sir. Honesty is the best policy. I guess you listen to old ZNOX and try out everything you hear, hmmm?”

  “That’s not the way.” Jimmy Walls looked disgusted.

  “How do you do it then?” Harry was getting desperate. “You must be awfully smart.”

  “I’m not so smart.”

  Harry Royal worked up a new smile. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven minutes to go. He decided to try another angle.

  “Then you were just kidding your old Uncle Harry, huh, Jimmy? Ha, ha. You have a lively sense of humor, all right.”

  “Golly, no.” Jimmy Walls tugged nervously at his tight collar. “You don’t understand. I’ve killed lots of people.”

  Harry Royal frowned. Then, remembering himself, he turned it into what would have to pass for a smile. Until the real thing came along, he thought to himself. He felt a little better. Time for the man-to-man angle, he decided.

  “Well sir, Jimmy,” he said heartily, “you want to be careful with that kind of talk. Yes, sir. Now, I understand, of course—old Uncle Harry understands kids pretty well, you bet. But other people might get the wr
ong idea. Then what will you do?”

  “Uncle George will fix it,” Jimmy said, after a short pause. “Uncle George?”

  “Uncle George.”

  Harry Royal felt an unaccustomed chill race down his spine. It felt like a cold centipede with little crystals of ice on its legs. Harry didn’t like it. Something was wrong here. He knew it. Maybe Jimmy was just kidding him along—of course he was! Of course. But amateurs—kids at that—seldom carried out a gag over the air, even if they had one planned. There was something about a microphone—

  “Uncle George must be quite a man,” he heard himself saying. “Oh gosh, no!” Jimmy protested.

  “You mean he isn’t remarkable, then?”

  “I mean he isn’t a man, Uncle George isn’t.”

  Harry determined to keep talking. “I see, I see,” he said, not seeing in the least. “A blue midget with twelve legs, maybe? Ha, ha.” Harry managed a wink for the audience, but he had given up his smile. He noticed that several of the adults were looking startled, and one old lady was frowning her disapproval. That was bad. The children looked awed and envious—a composite picture of shining eyes and open mouths. Fiends, thought Harry.

  “He is not a midget with twelve legs, Uncle George isn’t,” Jimmy Walls declared. “I’d be scared. Uncle George looks like a man.”

  “But he—isn’t?” asked Harry, knowing the answer in advance. “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You can tell.”

  It was a mad conversation—mad for anywhere, but unthinkable for radio. Harry Royal was worried; he’d hear about this. He tried to smooth it over. “Well,” he said jovially, “you out there in the radio audience must be having quite a time, ha, ha. Yes, sir. It isn’t often that we get a real killer here on The Boy Next Door, ha, ha. But I’m sure that you all remember little Bobby Boyle, who slaughtered all those soldiers in Burma, and Stu Dailey from Westmont, who said he was a werewolf. There just isn’t any limit to young imaginations, no, sir. Quite a healthy sign, too—-take it from old Harry Royal.”

  He turned back to Jimmy, who remained perfectly impassive during Harry’s speech to the radio audience. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Jimmy?” he asked, searching for a safe subject. “A fireman? A G-Man?”