Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by J F Bone

  “I didn’t mean the method by which you learned that vorkum was the stuff we’ve been searching for,” Sims said. “I meant the results you obtained. Results are what count in this business. Call it luck if you wish, but there is more to it than that. Some people are just naturally lucky and those are the sort we need here. They’re survival types. A lot is going to depend on having those so-called lucky people in the right places when we settle Niobe’s status in the Confederation.”

  He paused as the message tube beside his desk burped a faint hiss of compressed air and a carrier dropped out into the receiving basket.

  “Somehow I think that this is your membership card to the club, he said. He read it, smiled, and passed the sheet to Lanceford. “And now, Arthur, before I appoint you as a Niobe Staff member, Fd like to know one thing.”

  “What is that, sir?”

  “Just why in the name of hell did you bring that pack in here with you? Fve just realized where that smell is coming from!”

  “I didn’t dare leave it anywhere,” Lanceford said. “Someone might have thrown it down a disposal chute.”

  “I wouldn’t blame them. That’s vorkum you have in there, isn’t it?”

  Lanceford nodded. “Yes, sir. I didn’t want to lose it.”

  “Why not? We can always get more from the natives if we need it.”

  “I know that, sir. We can, but this is all Fit get for the next six months, and if I ration myself carefully, it might last that long. You see, sir, it’s mildly habitforming—like cigarettes—and one gets accustomed to it. And besides, you really don’t know what flavor is until you’ve tried vorkum on chocolate.”

  QUARANTINED SPECIES

  Those Venusian horgels were cute, clever, intelligent. They made perfect pets. They were lovable.—But that was the big trouble. They were much, much too lovable!

  “DID you ever own a cat?” Thompson asked. He leaned forward, a small gray man in his late sixties, and peered at his visitor through oldfashioned bifocals across the breadth of desk which separated them. The young man standing before the desk fidgeted impatiently as Thompson looked down at the interview card which read “Edward Farnsworth,—Agent, Worldwide Shows”, and scratched the ears of the big Siamese cat sitting on his lap. The cat looked up with incurious blue eyes, regarded Farnsworth with a peculiarly dispassionate stare, stretched, yawned, and closed his eyes again. It was perfectly apparent that the tall swarthy visitor was a matter of complete disinterest. “Now take Cato, here,” Thompson continued. “He’s a fine specimen of a cat. Have you owned anything like him?”

  “Once,” Farnsworth said. “When I went to Venus. But I don’t see what this has to do with my business with you. All I want is a simple answer. Do I or do I not get permission to import a pair of Venusian horgels?”

  “You do not,” Thompson said succinctly.

  “This makes the fourth time,” Farnsworth sighed. “So I’ll have to go to higher authority, I suppose.”

  “There is no higher authority, son. This is the end of the line.”

  “You bureaucrats!” Farnsworth’s voice was filled with poorly suppressed anger. “You sit here behind a desk and play God! Tell us working people what they can and can’t do just as though you knew all the answers, and never give a tinker’s dam about the fact that your stupid decisions can ruin people. Just why in heaven’s name won’t you allow something cute and clever like the horgels to be brought to Earth? There’s nothing wrong with them. They’ll survive nicely in a terrestrial environment.—and they’ll save our show from bankruptcy. People will simply love them if they’re given a chance.”

  “I suppose they would,” Thompson said, “but I doubt if they’ll ever get a chance to do it. They’re a quarantined species.” There was an odd note of grimness in his voice. “Cat’s don’t like them,” he added obliquely.

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I repeat,—have you ever owned a cat?”

  “And I repeat, sir, I did. It was mandatory to own one on Venus,—although why it was, God only knows. There are millions of cats there, and to require a man to lead a Siamese around on a leash is sheer foolishness!”

  “You’re like all the rest,” Thompson sighed. “You confuse words with facts. You never owned a cat in your life.”

  “But—”

  “You just think you did,” Thompson concluded gently.

  “I have papers to prove it.”

  “So what? Did your cat ever obey you when it didn’t wish to? Did it ever sacrifice its comfort for your own? Did it ever go out of its way to be good to you?”

  Farnsworth shook his head. “I can’t say that it did,” he admitted. “It was a nasty selfish brute. I loathe cats!”

  “But you like horgels.”

  “Yes,—I’m quite fond of them. They’re cute, and clever,—and loveable.”

  “Hmp! Yes,—they are. That’s the trouble with them. They’re too cute, too clever, and too loveable!”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “That so?—Just a moment son. How long were you around those horgels?”

  “Just a few days. A swamprat owned them. Kept them in a locked cage, and never touched them. He even had one of the natives feed them. The poor little things were terrified. I don’t think they’d ever been in a cage before, and I can’t see why they were. They’re the softest most endearing things. They’d make perfect pets.”

  “Undoubtedly they would,” Thompson said. “Well, there’s no damage done. Oh by the way, did you see any cats about the place?”

  “No,—none but my own,—I heard them. Nasty brutes that yowled all night.”

  “That’s one worry taken care of. I was afraid that I’d have to ask you where that trader lived, and I know you wouldn’t tell me. Thompson beamed pleasantly at him over his spectacles. “The cats will take care of them. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “You mean that they’ll kill those inoffensive little things?”

  “Of course. It’s a matter of priority rights.” There was iron in Thompson’s voice. “Cat’s are great believers in direct action. Now sit down, young man and I’ll tell you why you’ll never get an entry permit from this office, and why you’ll never again be allowed to visit Venus.”

  “But you can’t do that!”

  “I already have,” Thompson said gently. “I revoked your ship permit before I ever saw you.”

  “You what?”

  “You heard me son. Venus is closed.”

  “But why?”

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you.” Farnsworth sputtered, but did what he was told. At least, he reflected bitterly, he should get something out of this highly unsatisfactory interview.

  “THAT’S fine,” Thompson beamed. “There’s nothing like acquiring knowledge. And the first bit of knowledge you should acquire is that I haven’t always been a bureaucrat. Once I was a biotechnician in the Space Service, and I was a member of the first expedition to Venus. There were five of us on the “Venus I”. Archie Slezak the pilot, Ed Smith the navigator, Mitsui Watanabe the engineer, and myself. And then there was Katy, the ship’s cat.

  She was an unlisted crew member, a big, black, short-haired cat of dubious ancestry. From her size, I’d judge that there was a little wildcat somewhere in her family tree, but despite the fact that she looked like a black panther, she was affectionate enough in her way, and we all endured her,—all except Watanabe. He liked her. I think he smuggled her aboard before we took off even though he never admitted it. He was a sucker for pets. But she never paid too much attention to him. Generally she was nosing around in dark corners of the ship once acceleration pressure was off.

  We had a little artificial gravity of course, but it was about one eighth Earth normal, just enough to keep our feet. Katy loved it. It was nothing for her to leap twenty feet across the control room, and land on one of our shoulders, so lightly that we hardly felt her. She had an incredible judgment of distance, and would amuse us by the hour with her ant
ics.

  As far as cats went, she was likeable enough, but I never really trusted her. There was a little too much of the wildcat in her.” he reached down and scratched Cato’s ears and smiled when the big tom swore at him in low Siamese.

  “Then why—” Farnsworth began.

  “Save it son,—I’ll explain. As I was saying, we all thought she was amusing but useless until the day she came floating into the control room with a dead rat in her jaws. It was a pregnant female filled with pups, and I’ll tell you it scared us silly!

  Rats and spaceships just don’t go together. They breed fast and mutate easily in the drive radiations, and once they get started they’re hard to control. It’s particularly bad if an intelligent mutation appears, but Katy stopped that threat before it ever got started.

  We got into spacesuits and blew the ship down. Not even rats can live in a vacuum, and we kept the ship open long enough to make sure the last trace of air was removed from the fiberglass insulation of the hull. Fortunately, none of our unwanted guests had been exposed to the drive radiations long enough for mutations to appear, so we managed to get a complete kill. Watanabe had fixed a pressure tank for Katy, and during the blowdown she sat in it as smug as a dowager empress while we killed off the rats.

  After that, Katy was a heroine. And did she take advantage of it! It was almost as though she knew she had reached privileged status. She’d boss us around, and glare at us to move if we were sitting on one of her favorite spots. She wasn’t very nice about it, and if you’ve-been bossed by a cat you’ll understand what I mean.

  She liked to be petted, but wanted affection on her own terms and time, and she picked the damndest times. Whenever Smitty was busy with calculations, there would be Katy sitting in the middle of his papers, tail straight up in the air, her back arched, and her purr as loud as a dynamotor. And when I checked the algae tanks for ecological balance, there she’d be trying to unbalance the ecology. And if Mitsui wanted to check the engines he always had to check the cat first. She was a pest.

  But poor Slezak got it worst. For some unknown reason Katy liked him,—and Archie hated cats. She’d fuss over him, croon cat talk to him, and then slump bonelessly on his lap and sleep.

  Archie’s body temperature probably had a lot to do with it, since it was a full degree warmer than the rest of ours, but Slezak used to say that she did it deliberately out of sheer orneriness,—and I wouldn’t disagree with him.

  Anything was possible where Katy was concerned. She looked on the ship and all that was in it as her personal property, especially created for her comfort and amusement, and she used it just that way. There was something direct about her that didn’t bother with such niceties as form and attitude. She was a cat,—we were only human,—and she was never averse to putting us in our place.

  WE spent two months coasting under minimum power, and then started the braking run. We blasted down after turnover until we got the trajectory straightened out, and then let Venus do the rest. We circled the planet just above the ion belt where the few molecules of atmosphere slowed us down without too much overheating, making close range observations of the world below.

  We checked the atmosphere. The upper layer was mainly carbon dioxide and formaldehyde, just like the astronomy boys said it would be, but it was neither thick nor cloudy. The clouds were all down at the surface. As you know, Venus has a heavy-gas based atmosphere, but even then the oxygen content was high enough to be breathable if you didn’t mind the smell of embalming fluid.

  Our orders called for landing if it was feasible, so Slezak cleared the board and trimmed ship for a setdown. We made it all right, and landed on one of those humps of land that stick up out of the swamp. There wasn’t much to see, of course. Venus was a pretty dismal place what with the steady rain and air that smelled like a cut-rate undertaking parlor. But I shouldn’t have to tell you what Venus is like. You’ve been there too.”

  “It still is bad,” Farnsworth said. “It hasn’t improved much.”

  “Any improvement in Venus would be a lot,” Thompson continued. “Well, we did the usual things,—planted the flag and claimed the planet, and then while Slezak and I stayed with the ship, Smitty and Watanabe went exploring. We drew straws for the honor, and Archie and I won.

  We stayed close to the ship, peering through the rain for what seemed hours, walking around a little and stretching our legs. We weren’t equipped for any real exploration work but we had to do some to make the claim legal. The real work would come later, after the lads back home evaluated our data, but at least we had the honor of being the first humans to set foot on the planet.” Thompson coughed rackingly and smiled when the spasm passed. “The memory still gets me,” he explained. “I never could stand formaldehyde. My lungs got over being partially embalmed years ago, but thinking of Venus still makes me cough.”

  IT was about an hour before Smitty and Mitsui came back. Mitsui had a horgel in his arms. The kid was a sucker for animals, but this time we all thought he really had something. None of us had ever seen a horgel before, and it looked so innocent and appealing that we couldn’t help falling for it.

  With its pink fur and violet eyes it looked for all the world like a child’s doll, a pint-sized teddy bear with a button nose, black, handlike feet, and an expression of utter trust on its pointed face. But that didn’t explain all of its appeal. I guess there is a little of the mother in every man, because the damn thing touched something within us that could only be called the maternal instinct. There’s nothing else that can describe it. It made us feel all soft inside, and every one of us wanted to hold it and protect it.”

  “I know,” Farnsworth said. “I’ve held one.”

  “Mitsui had fallen in love with it. You know how emotional the Japanese are. He was cuddling it in his arms and whispering sweet words into its shell-like ears, and it was crooning back at him. His actions would have made me sick except that I wanted to hold it so bad that it hurt. I wanted to feel the softness of its fur, to pet and fondle it. I wanted it like I’d want a woman. Smitty was green with jealousy and even Slezak looked interested. All of us were acting a little queer. I suppose, but it seemed all right at the time.

  Katy didn’t react like we did. She came to the entrance port, stepping delicately as though she was treading on eggs and was afraid of breaking them,—but the moment she saw the little pink puffball in Watanabe’s arms her whole attitude changed. Her back arched and her tail looked like a bottle brush! She let out one yowl of pure hate and leaped for Mitsui! Her claws dug into his jacket as she clawed upward toward the horgel, a screaming, spitting fury of insane rage!

  The horgel screamed just once. It sounded so much like a hurt baby that we were paralyzed for a moment,—and while we were all standing there, it leaped from Mitsui’s arms and ran clumsily across the seared landing area to the jungle some fifty yards away. But it never reached it. Katy was after it like a thunderbolt! She caught it after it had gone about twenty yards, and by the time we reached the scene, she had swiftly and completely demolished it.

  Now I’ve seen cats kill many times, but it always seemed to be more for the fun of it than anything else. Cats appear to hunt for the sport of the thing, but there was no sport in Katy. She simply caught the horgel and tore it to ribbons!

  Mitsui was heartbroken. From the way he acted it was almost as though Katy had killed his baby brother. “I loved that little thing!” he sobbed. “I’ve never seen anything so trusting and affectionate. Oh! damn that dirty cat!”

  I cocked an interested ear. Mitsui was always the one who had defended Katy. He always liked her,—wasted three times the affection on her than any of the rest of us did. But right now he would have cheerfully killed her. Katy apparently realized how he felt, because she beat a quick retreat to the ship and hid in one of the dark corners she knew so well, while Mitsui prowled after her calling the wrath of his Japanese ancestors down upon her murderous head. Katy, of course, ignored him.

  Mitsui calmed do
wn after an hour or so, but he spent the rest of the evening building a strong box with a barred door. “It’s not that I don’t like Katy.” he said apologetically. “But I loved that little thing.”

  He waited patiently until Katy came out of hiding, scooped her up and popped her surprised body into the box. “Now stay there until you can learn to behave yourself,” he said grimly. Then without a word to us he walked outside and in a half hour came back with another of the pink things, exactly like the one he had lost. He was grinning from ear to ear. “There’s a village over there.” he said pointing outside the port, “and these animals are as thick as fleas on a dog’s back. The natives keep them for pets.”

  So Mitsui Watanabe was the first one of us to discover the dominant intelligence of Venus. But we weren’t thinking of that. We just wanted one of those delightful creatures for our own. And this time there was no drawing straws. We set out in a body, leaving a raging Katy behind us safely locked up in the box.

  THE village was a cluster of mud huts filled with little humanoid natives. You know what they’re like,—stupid, imitative primitives who follow you around looking for something to beg or steal. I understand that they’re no different now than they were.

  The only difference was that the village simply swarmed with horgels. They were everywhere, scampering familiarly through the village for all the world like a lot of pet dogs.

  As far as we could tell, the humanoids were a harmless lot. From what we could see, they spent their time fishing and taking care of their pets and children. The way they coddled those pink furballs was amazing. I even saw nursing mothers feed them at the same breast they fed their children! It was a perfect expression of the love and tenderness the horgels inspired.

  The natives didn’t object when we scooped up a horgel apiece and held them in our arms. There were plenty of them and they seemed to be community property. The horgels apparently liked us as much as we liked them, because it was no time at all before we were all acting like kids despite our space ratings, and since you’ve held a horgel you know how we felt.”