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k
c. THE WATCHERS
o' IN THE GLADE
by
RICHARD WILSON
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
by WYMAN GUIN
1964
WILLY
LEY
CORDWAINER
SMITH
RICHARD
WILSON rnfM--
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FORECAST 91 Printed in the U.S.A.
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Cover by PEDERSEN Title Reg. U. S. Pat. Off.
POLITICS - 21st CENTURY STYLE
in space and time from our own election, hardly anyone votes for
they are, in fact, that long THERE are some things that cannot organization) an age-old brotherhood
a candidate; what they actually be generally told — things you ought to
. . .
of learning, have preserved this secret
view of events that science fiction go to the polls to do is to vote know. Great truths are dangerous to wisdom in their archives for centO'
gives us better than any other some — but factors for personal power ries. They now invite you to share the
against his opponent. There are and accomplishment in the hands of practical helpfulness of their teaching
form of reading ever committed many reasons for this, but what those who understand them. Behind Write today for a free copy of me
to paper and print; because seems to me to be the significant the tales of the miracles and mysteries book, "The Mastery of Life.” Within
of the ancients, lie centuries of their its pages may lie a new life of oppor^
Guin’s politicians are not merely one is that American political secret probing into nature’s laws — tunity for you. Address: Scribe
H.C.H,
other than Democrats and Re- parties don’t really embody dif- their amazing discoveries of the hid-
den processes of man’s mind, and the SEND THIS COUPON
publicans. They are other than fering political philosophies; it is
i
lllusarated by MORROW
Bne, and how the cat-girl C’mell likely tliat you know the other
6
witch,” which absurd, be- haut III, the profession of “lay
1ms is it was to repair sick ones. Furth- he was bored. He was so cloM
cause she really had a name. The therapist, female, intuitive capa-
ermore, the tender, loving care to the end of his term that h«
ame was “Klaine,” an ancient city for correction of human
of a hospital might give them was already counting the days
and forbidden one. physiology with local resources.”
ideas. Such as the idea that they to his own release. Meanwhile
Elaine was a mistake. Her On some of the early ships they were people. This would have he was rearranging two popular
her life, her career were all used to call these people witch-
birth, been bad, from the prevailing songs. One was The Big Bamboo,
mistakes. The ruby was wrong. women, because they worked un- point of view. Therefore the hu- a primitive piece which tried to
How could that have happened? accountable cures. For pioneer
man hospitals remained almost evoke the original magic of man.
parties, these lay therapists were
empty while an underperson who The other was about a girl,
11 things start. Bright it was. Red appeared with good conditions, kept on with the robot patients, the songs was important; but be-
square, dead square, clear square, accidents dwindled down to noth- who went through endless repe- tween them they influenced his-
ing, medical work became insti-
under a yellow sun. titions of the human patterns of tory, first a little bit and then
This was Earth Original, Man- tutional.
injury or disease.) This left no very much.
home itself, where Earthport Who wants a witch, even a work for witches, bred and train- The musician had plenty of
way up through hur- good witch, when a thousand-bed
thrusts its ed. time to practice. He had not had
are higher hospital waiting with its staff
is
ricane clouds that Yet the ruby had trembled; to meet a real emergency in aU
eager for clinical experience . . .
than the mountains. the program had indeed made a his seven years. From time to
An-fang was near a the
city, and only seven out of its thou- mistake; the birth-number for a time the machine made reports
only living city with a pre-atomic
sand beds filled with real people? ‘lay therapist, general, female, to him, but the musician just
name. The lovely meaningless (The remaining beds were filled
immediate use” had been order- told the machine to correct its
with lifelike robots on which the
name was Meeya Meefla, where ed for Fomalhaut III. own errors, and it infallibly did
the lines of ancient roadways, staffcould practice, lest they lose
so.
untouched by a wheel for thou-
sands of years, forever paralleled
the warm, bright, clear beaches
their morale. They could, of
course, have worked on under-
people —animals in the shape of
M uch
was
later,
all
when the
done down
last historic detail, there
story
to
was an
its
On day that the accident^
the
of Elaine happened, he was try-
ing to perfect his finger work on
of the Old South East. human beings, who did the heavy investigation into the origins of the guitar, a very old instrument
The headquarters of the People and the weary work which re- Elaine. When the laser had trem- believed to date from the pre-
Programmer was at An-fang, and mained as the caput mortuum of
there the mistake happened: a really perfected economy — bled, both the original order and
the correction were fed simul-
space period. He was playing
The Big Bamboo for the hun-
A ruby trembled. Two tourma- but it was against the law for taneously into the machine. The dredth time.
line nets failed to rectify the laser animals, even when they were
machine recognized the contra- The machine announced its
beam. A diamond noted the error. underpeople, to go to a human
diction and promptly referred mistake with an initial musical
Both the error and the correc- hospital. When underpeople got
both papers to the human super- chime. The
supervisor had long
tion went into the general com- sick, the Instrumentality took
visor, an actual man who had
puter. care of them — in slaughter-
been working on the job for seven
since forgotten all the instruc-
tions which he had so worri-
Theerror assigned, on the gen- houses. It was easier to breed years. somely memorized seven long
eral account of births for Fomal- new underpeople for the job than He was studying music, and years ago. The alert did not
GALAXY
8 THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 9
really and truly matter, because peat, please state and repeat, The supervisor sighed hopeful- It selected a fertilized human
the machine invariably corrected please state and repeat.” ly. He was young. “Guess it embryo, tagged it with the freak-
“Do shut up,” said the man, doesn’t matter,” he thought, pick- ish name“Elaine,” irradiated the
its own mistakes whether the su-
was on duty or not.
pervisor but he knew the machine would ing up his guitar. genetic code with strong apti-
not obey this. Without thinking, (Thirty-seven years later, he tudes for witchcraft and then
The machine, not having its
chime answered, moved into a he turned to his other tune and found out that it did matter. The marked the person’s card for
second-stage alarm. From a loud- sang the first two lines twice Lady Goroke herself, one of the training in medicine, transporta-
chiefs of the Instrumentality, sent tion by sailship to Fomalhaut III
speaker set in the wall of the over:
a subchief of the Instrumentality and release for service on the
room, it shrieked in a high, clear
to find out who had caused D’- planet.
human voice, the voice of some Elaine. Elaine,
This word, too late, jolted the was referred to Lady Goroke, and useless years of her own
Hastily the machine set its supervisor away from his music. who instructed the authorities existence. She was well fed, rich-
memory banks and computers to “Accepted what?” he asked. that the musician be told the ly clothed, variously housed. She
work, looking for the code refer- There was no answering voice. whole horrible, beautiful story of had machines and robots to serve
ence to “bamboo,” trying to make There was no sound at all except D’joan at Fomalhaut — the very her, underpeople to obey her,
that word fit the present context. for the whisper of slightly-moist- story which you are now being people to protect her against one
There was no reference at all. ened warm air through the ven- told — and he wept. He was not another or against herself, should
The machine pestered the man tilators. punished otherwise, but the Lady the need arise. But she could
some more. The supervisor looked out the Goroke commanded that those never find work; without work,
“Instructions unclear. Instruc- window. He could see a little of memories be left in his mind fct she had no time for love; without
tions unclear. Please correct.” the blood-black red color of the so long as he might live.) work or love, she had no hope
“Shut up,” said the man. Peace Square of An-fang; beyond The man picked up his guitar, at all.
“Cannot comply,” stated the lay the ocean, endlessly beau- but the machine went on about If she had only stumbled int«
machine. “Please state and re- tiful and endlessly tedious. itswork. the right experts or the right au-
M uch later,
made songs about the
when
At the top of the steps she shrank away. Elaine knew the The window spoke to her, copy, and I died, and they shot
stood, door closed behind her, meaning of those handsome “You might as well come on over. my body into space with all the
the sunset gold of the unknown brown eyes, of that muscular sup- You will, you know.” usual honors, but here I was. It
city streaming out in front of her. plication of trust, that recoil It was the wise mature voice felt pretty odd inside this con-
She could see where the great from people. was not a child at
It
of an experienced woman a — traption, me looking at things
shell of the New City of Kalma all —just some animal in the voice with a bubble of laughter
underneath its phonic edge, with
and talking to people and giv-
arched out toward the sky; she shape of a person, a dog per- ing good advice and staying busy,
could see that the buildings here haps, which would later be taught a hint of sympathy and en- until they built the new city. So
were older, less harmonious than to speak, to work to perform use- thusiasm in its tone. The com- what do you say? Am I me or
the ones she had left. She did not ful services. mand was not merely a com- aren’t I?”
know the concept “picturesque,” The little girl rose, standing mand. It was, even at its begin- “I don’t know, ma’am.” Elaine
or she would have called it that. as though she were about to run. ning, a happy private joke be- stood back.
She knew no concept to describe Elaine had the feeling that the tween two wise women. The warm voice lost its humor
the scene which lay peacefully at littledog-girl had not decided Elaine was not surprised when and became commanding. “Give
her feet. whether to run toward her or a machine spoke to her. Record- me your hand, then, so I can
There was not a person in from her. She did not wish to get ings had been telling her things identify you and tell you what to
sight. involved with an underperson — all her life. She was not sure of do.”
Far in the distance, a fire- de- what woman would? but — this situation, however. “I think,” said Elaine, “that
tector throbbed back and forth neither did she wish to frighten “Is there somebody there?” I’ll just go back upstairs and go
appetites, she walked downward. Elaine was surprised. Since “are you a person or are you a there was loneliness too. The
With quiet, unknown purpose. when did animals command? machine?” lonelinessdecided Elaine. She
“Depends,” said the voice. stepped up to the window and
16 GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 17
put her hand flat on the ledge.
“You’re Elaine,” cried the win- T 'he window must have been
watching her in some way, be-
Apparently the question was
repeated. “Did you know you
were coming?” said the voice
ed one, not till I’ve done some
of my lifework, and I haven’t
even found my lifework yet. I’m
dow. “You’re Elaine! The worlds cause the voice of the lady
wait for you. You’re from An- Pane Ashash became tender. from the window. not the kind of girl who would
fang, where all things begin, the “Sit down my dear,” said the “Of course not.” Elaine shrug- go ask a Subchief for the dream-
Peace Square at An-fang, on old voice from the window. “When I ged. “There was just this door, ies, not when I’m not entitled to
Earth itself!” was me, Iused to be much more and I didn’t have anything speci- the real thing. I may not be much
"Yes,” said Elaine. polite. I haven’t been me for a al to do, so I opened it. And of a person, but I have some
The voice bubbled over with long, long time. I’m a machine, here was a whole new world in- self-respect.” Elaine got so mad
enthusiasm. “He is waiting for and still I feel like myself. Do side a house. It looked strange that she shifted her position on
you. Oh, he has waited for you a sit down, and do forgive me.” and rather pretty, so I came the bench and sat with her face
long, long time. And tlie little girl Elaine looked around. There down. Wouldn’t you have done turned away from the all-watch-
you met. That rras D’joan her- was the roadside marble bench the same thing?” ing window.
self. The story has begun. ‘The behind her. She sat on it obedi- “I don’t know,” said the voice The next words gave her goose-
world’s great age begins a new.’ ently. The happiness which had candidly. “I’m really a machine. flesh down her arms, they were
And I can die when it is over. been in her at the top of the I haven’t been me for a long, uttered with such real earnest-
So sorry, my dear. I don’t mean steps bubbled forth anew. If this long time. Perhaps I would have, ness, such driving sincerity.
to confuse you. I am the lady wise old machine knew so much when I was alive. I don’t know “Elaine, Elaine, do you really
Pane Ashash. You’re Elaine. about her. perhaps it could tell that, but I know about things. have no idea of who you are?”
Your number originally ended her what to do. What did the Maybe I can see the future, or Elaine pivoted back on the
783 and you shoudn’t even be on voice mean by “wrong planet”? perhaps the machine part of me bench so that she looked toward
this planet. All the important By “lover”? By “he is coming computes such good probabili- the window. Her face was caught
people here end with the num- for you now,” or was that what ties that it just seems like it. I redly but the rays of the setting
bers 5 and 6. You’re a lay thera- the voice had actually said? know who you are and what is sun. She could only gasp.
pist and you’re in the wrong “Take a breath, my dear,” said going to happen to you. You had “I don’t know what you
place, but your lover is already the voice of the lady Pane Ash- better brush your hair.” mean . .
.”
on his way, and you’ve never ash. She might have been dead “Whatever for?” said Elaine. The inexorable voice went on.
been in love yet, and it’s all too for hundreds or thousands of “He is coming,” said the happy “Think, Elaine, think. Does the
exciting.” years, but she still spoke with old voice of the lady Pane Ash- name ‘D’joan’ mean nothing to
Elaine looked quickly around the authority and kindness of a ash. you?”
her. The old lower town was great lady “Who is coming?” said Elaine, “I suppose it’s an underperson,
turning more red and less gold Elaine breathed deep. She saw almost irritably. a dog. That’s what the D
is for,
as the sunset progresssed. The a huge red cloud, like a pregnant “Do you have a mirror? I wish isn’t it?”
steps behind her seemed terribly whale, getting ready to butt the you would look at your hair. It “That was the little girl you
high as she looked back, the door rim of the upper city, far above could be prettier, not that it isn’t met,” said the lady Pane Ash-
at the top very small. Perhaps her and far out over the sea. She pretty right now. You want to ash, as though the statement
it had locked on her when she wondered if clouds could pos- look your best. Your lover; that’s were something tremendous.
closed it Maybe she wouldn’t sibly have feelings. who is coming, of course.” “Yes,” said Elaine dutifully.
ever be able to leave the old low- The voice was speaking again. “I haven’t got a lover,” said She was a courteous woman, and
er city. What had it said? Elaine. “I haven’t been authoriz- never quarreled with strangers.
to say she did not want a drink tiful young woman. use. a million years ago.” makes everybody feel inferior.
of water.
Mabel, relieved from the ten- “They weren’t here on Fomal- We think she is a valuable mem-
She waited. They waited. sion wh’ch had seized her when haut III a million years ago,” ber of the group. We all have our
By now, her eyes had become she had asked if Elaine were snapped Elaine. Why, she won- pride, which is hopeless anyway,
accustomed to the darkness. She “death,” babbled "with a sociabil- dered, did she snap at him? He but Crawlie has her pride all by
could see that the main corridor ity which was outre in this en- wasn’t a person, just a talking herself, without doing anything
was painted a yellow, faded and vironment. “That’s Crawlie.” animal who had missed being whatever about it. She sort of re-
stained, and a contrasting light “What does she do?” asked dropped down the nearest incin- minds us. If we leave her alone,
brown. She wondered what pos- Elaine. erator. she leaves us alone.”
sible human mind could have se- “She has her pride,” said “I’m sorry, Elaine,” said Char- Elaine thought. You’re funny
lected so ugly a combination. Mabel, her grotesque red face ley-is-my-darling. “I should things, so much like people, but
Cross-corridors seemed to open now jolly and eager, her slack have said, a long time ago. We so inexpert about it, as tiiough
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 27
26
harley-is-my-darling stared at after another named D’joan,
you all had to “die” before
what
you
be
took the cup from Elaine, stop-
ping her in med-gesture and us-
C her as though he could not waiting for a hundred years. Now
really learned it is to believe her question. Mabel you show up. Maybe you are the
alive.Aloud, she could only say, ing the tongs, so that the cup frowned as though she could not one. You don’t look very com-
“I never met anybody like that.” would not be contaminated by think of the right words to put petent to me. What are you good
Crawlie must have sensed that the touch of an underperson. for?”
forth her opinions. Baby-baby,
they were talking about her, be- “That’s right. Baby-baby,” “I’m a witch,” said Elaine.
who had glided back to the group
cause she looked at Elaine with said Charley-is-my-darling, “we Crawlie could not keep the sur-
with swift mouselike suddenness,
a short quick stare of blazing can talk. It is our custom not to from showing on her face.
looked around as though she ex- prise
hatred. Crawlie’s pretty face talk with a newcomer until we “A witch? Really?”
pected someone from the rear to
locked itself into a glare of con- have offered our hospitality. Let “Yes,” said Elaine, rather hum-
speak. She was right. Crawlie
centrated hostility and scorn; me be frank. We may have to kill turned her face toward Elaine bly.
then her eyes wandered and you, if this whole business turns “I wouldn’t
and said, with infinite condescen- be one,” said Craw-
Elaine felt that she, Elaine, no out to be a mistake, but let me
sion: lie. “I have my pride.” She
longer existed in the thing’s mind, assure you that if I do kill you, turned her face away and locked
“I did not knowthat real
except as a rebuke which had I will do it nicely and without
people were ill-informed or her features in their expression
been administered and forgotten. the least bit of malice. Right?”
Elaine did not know what was
stupid. You seem to be both. We of perennial hurt and disdain.
She had never seen privacy as have all our information from the Charley-is - my - darling whis-
impenetrable as Crawlie’s. And so right about it, and said so. She pered to the group nearby, not
lady Pane Ashash. Since she is
yet the being, whatever she might visualized her head being twisted
dead, she has no prejudices caring whether Elaine heard his
have been made from, was very off. Apart from the pain and the
against us underpeoole. Since words or not, “That’s wonderful,
lovely in human terms. degradation, it seemed so ter-
she has not had much of any- wonderful. She is a v.-itch. A
A fierce old hag, covered with ribly messy —
to terminate life
thing to do, she has run through human witch. Perhaps the great
mouse-gray fur, rushed up to in a sewer with things which did day is here! Elaine,” said he hum-
billions and billions of probabil-
Elaine. The mouse-woman was not even have a right to exist.
itiesfor us. All of us know what bly, “will you please look at us.”
the Baby-baby who had been He gave her no chance to ar- —
most probabilities come to Elaine looked. When she
sent on the errand. She held a gue, but went on explaining,
sudden death by disease or gas, stopped to think about where she
ceramic cup in a pair of long “Suppose things turn out just
or maybe being hauled off to the was, it was incredible that the
tongs. Water was in it. right. Suppose that you are the empty old lower city of Kalma
slaughterhouses in big police
Elaine took the cup. Esther-Elaine-or-Eleanor that we
But the lady Pane should be just outside, just be-
Sixty to seventy underpeople, have all been waiting for —
the
orinthopters.
Ashash found that perhaps a yond the wall, and the busy new
including the little girl in the blue person who will do something to
person with a name like yours city a mere thirty-five meters
dress whom she had seen out- D’joan and bring us all help and
would come, a human being with higher. This corridor was a world
side, watched her as she sipped. deliverance —
give us life, in
an oldname and not a number
The water was good. She drank short, real life —
then what do
name, that that person would
to itself. It felt like a world, with
the ugly yellows and browns, the
it all. There was a universal ex- we do?” meet the Hunter, that she and the dim old lights, the stenches of
halation, as though everyone in “I don’t know where you get
Hunter would teach the under- man and animal mixed under in-
the corridor had waited for this all these ideas about me. Why child D’joan a message and that tolerably bad ventilation. Baby-
moment Elaine started to put am I Esther-Elaine-or-Eleanor?
the message would change the baby, Crawlie, Mabel and Char-
the cup down but the old mouse- What do I do to D’joan? Why
worlds. We have kept one child ley-is-my-darling were part of
woman was too quick for her. She me?”
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 29
28 GALAXY
fhi s world. They were real; but hands. Right here. Right now. I
they were outside, outside, so far could give you another clean within an hour or two at the not even to you true humana
as Elaine herself was concerned. drink of water first. But that is longest. Would that matter to with your four hundred years oi
“Let me go,” she said. “I’ll all. There isn’t much choice for you, ma’am and Elaine?” to us animals with the slaughter-
you, human being Elaine. What “And,” added Charley-is-my- house around the corner. Death
come back some day.”
“they would disconnect is a when, not a what. It’s the
Charley - is - my - darling, who do you think would happen if darling,
spoke you went outside?” the lady Pane Ashash, so that same for all of us. Don’t be
was so plainly the leader,
as if in a trance: “You don’t un- “Nothing, I hope,” said Elaine. even the recording of that dear scared. Go straight ahead and
dead lady would be gone at last, you may find mercy and love.
derstand, Elaine. The only ‘go- “Nothing!” snorted Mabel, her
face regaining its original indig- and there would be no mercy at They’re much richer than death,
ing’you are going to go is death.
all left upon this world.” if you can only find them. Once
There is no other direction. We nation. “The police would come
can’t let the old you go out of flapping by in their ornithop- “What is ‘mercy’?” asked you do find them, death won’t
this door, not when the lady Pane ter —” Elaine. be very important.”
“And they’d pick your “It’s obvious you never heard “I still don’t know mercy,” said
Ashash has thrust you in to us. brains,”
of it,” said Crav/lie. Elaine, “but I thought I knew
Either you go forward to your said Baby-baby.
destiny, to our destiny too, either “And they’d know about us,” The old mouse-hag Baby- what love was, and I don’t ex-
J
1
terruptioii with a wave of her “Don’t you even know who con-
hand-paw. The old mouse face trolsFomalhaut III?” ponder the mystery of
who has shown
life and yellows, the strange shapes d
was on fire with sheer expressive- “The Instrumentality,” said kindnesses to un- the lawless and untended under-
ness. Elaine could suddenly im- Elaine. “But do we have to go on derpeople, as long as the kind- people, the stenches and the thick
agine what Baby-baby had talking? Let me go or kill me or nesses were lawful ones. And heavy air, Elaine felt as if she
looked like to a mouse-under- something. This doesn’t make there is the Lady Arabella Un- were leaving all known worlds
man when she was young and sense. I was tired when I got here, derwood, whose justice no man behind.
sleek and gray. Enthusiasm and I’m a million years tireder can understand. Nor underpeople In fact, she was doing precise-
flushed the old features with now.” eitlier,” he added with a chuckle. ly that, but it did not occur to
youth as Baby-baby went on, “I Mabel said, “Take her along.” “Who is she? I mean, whfere her that her own suspicion might
don’t mean love for a lover, girl. “All right,” said Charley-is- did she get the funny name? It be true.
I mean love for yourself. Love my-darling. “Is the Hunter doesn’t have a number in it. It’s
for life.Love for all things liv- there?” as bad as your names. Or my V
ing. Love even for me. Your love The child D’joan spoke. She own,” said Elaine.
for me. Can you imagine that?” had stood at the back of the “She’s from Old North Aus- A the end of the corridor there
t
group. “He came in the other tralia, the stroon world, on loan was a round gate with a
swam through fatigue way when she came in the front.” to the Instrumentality, and she door of gold or brass.
E laine
but she tried to answer the Elaine said to Charley-is-my
darling, “You lied to me. You
follows the laws she was bom to.
The Hunter can go through the
Charley-is-my-darling stopped.
question. She looked in the dim “I can’t go further,” he said.
light at the wrinkled old mouse- said there was only one way.” rooms and the slaughterhouses of “You and D’joan will have to go
hag with her filthy clothes and “I did not lie,” said he. “There the Instrumentality, but could on. This is the forgotten ante-
is only one way for you or me or you? Could I?” chamber between the tunnel and
her little red eyes. The fleeting
image of the young
beautiful for the friends of the lady Pane “No,” said Elaine. the upper palace. The Hunter is
mouse-woman had faded away; Ashash. The way you came. The “Then forward,” said Charley- there. Go on. You’re a person. It
there was only this cheap, use- other way is death.” is-my-darling, “to your death or is safe. Underpeople usually die
less old thing, with her inhuman “What do you mean?” to great wonders. May I lead the in there. Go on.” He nudged her
demands and her senseless plead- “I mean,” he said, “that it way, Elaine?” elbow and pulled the sliding door
ing. Peoole never loved under- leads straight into the slaughter- Elaine nodded wordlessly. apart.
people. They used them, like houses of the men you do not The mouse-hag Baby-baby “But the little girl,” said
chairs or doorhandles. Since when know. The Lords of the Instru- patted Elaine’s sleeve, her eyes Elaine.
did a doorhandle demand the mentality who are here on Fom- alive with strange hope. As “She’s not a girl,” Charley-is-
Charter of Ancient Rights? alhaut III. There is the Lord Elaine passed Crawlie’s chair, my-darling. “She’s just a dog —
“No,” said Elaine calmly and Femtiosex, who is just and with- the proud, beautiful girl looked as I’m not a man, just a goat
evenly, "I can’t imagine ever lov- out pity. There is the Lord Lim- straight at her, expressionless, brightened and cut and trimmed
ing you.” aono, who thinks that under- deadly and severe. The dog- girl to look like a man. If you come
“I knew it,” said Crawlie from people are a potential danger D’joan followed the little proces- back, Elaine, I will love you like
her chair. There was triumph in and should not have been started sion asif she had been invited. God or I will kill you. It de-
the voice. in the first place. There is the They walked down and down pends.”
Charley-is-my-darling shook Lady Goroke, who does not know and down. Actually, it could not “Depends on what?” asked
his head as if to clear his sight. how to pray, but who tries to have been a full half-kilometer. Elaine. “And what is ‘God’?”
But with theendless browns and Charley-is-my-darling smiled
32 GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 33
ficult, since he stood four or five The child smiled and relaxed
the quick tricky smile which over-the-shoulder purses when steps above them. She managed for the first time since Elaine had
was wholly insincere and com- she went in the other end of to keep her voice even when she seen her. The dog-girl was really
pletely friendly, both at the same Clown Town. That was the usual said; strikingly beautiful when the ten-
time. It was probably the trade- dress on Fomalhaut III at that “You know, then?” sion went out of her. The war-
mark of his personality in or- time. She had done nothing at “What?” iness, the quietness, the potential
dinary times. “You’ll find out all to spoil her clothes, so she “All those thin.gs they said.” disquiet — these were dog quali-
about God somewhere else, if you must have looked the same when “Sure I know them,” he smil- ties. Now the child seemed
do. Not from us. And the de- she came out. And D’joan — ed. “Why not?” wholly human and mature far
pending something you’ll know
is well, everyone knows what “But,” stammered Elaine, beyond her years. Her white face
for yourself. You won’t have to D’joan looked like. “about you and me being lovers? had dark, dark brown eyes.
wait for me to tell you. Go along The Hunter met them. That too?” “I’ve seen you lots of times.
now. The whole thing will be “That too,” he smiled again. Hunter. And you’ve told me what
over in the next few minutes.’’ '^he Hunter met them, and “I’ve been hearing it half my would happen if I turned out to
“But D’joan?” persisted Elaine. new worlds began. life.Come on up, sit down and be the D’joan. How I would
“If it doesn’t work,’’ said Char- He was a shortish man, with have something to eat. We have spread the word and meet great
ley-is-my-darling, “we can al- black curly hair, black eyes that a lot of things to do tonight, if trials. How I might die and might
ways raise another D’joan and danced with laughter, broad history is to be fulfilled through not, but people and underpeople
wait for another you. The lady shoulders and long legs. He walk- us. What do you eat, little girl?” would remember my name for
Pane Ashash has promised us ed with a quick sure step. He said he kindly to D’joan. “Raw thousands of years. You’ve told
that. Go on in!’’ kept his hands quiet at his side, meat or people food?” me almost everything I know —
He pushed herroughly, so that but the hands did not look tough “I’m a finished girl,” said Except the things that I can’t
she stumbled through. Bright and calloused, as though they D’joan, “so I prefer chocolate talk to you about. You know
light dazzled her and the clean had been terminating lives, even cake with vanilla ice cream.” them too, but you won’t talk,
air tasted as good as fresh water the lives of animals. “That you shall have,” said will you?” said the little girl im-
on her first day out of the space- “Come up and down,” he
sit the Hunter. “Come, both of you, ploringly.
ship pxid. greeted them. “I’ve been wait- and sit down.” “I know you’ve been to
The little dog-girl had trotted ing for you both.” They had topped the steps. A Earth,” said the Hunter.
in beside her. Elaine stumbled upward and luxurious table, already set, was “Don’t say it! Please don’t say
The door, gold or brass, clang- forward. “Waiting?” she gasped. waiting for them. There were it!” pleaded the girl.
ed to behind them. “Nothing mysterious,” he said. three couches around it. Elaine “Earth! Manhome itself?”
Elaine and D’joan stood still, “T had the viewscreen on. The looked for the third person who cried Elaine. “How, by the stars,
side by side, looking forward and one into the tunnel. Its connec- would join them. Only as she sat did you get there?”
upward. tions are shielded, so the police down did she realize that he The Hunter intervened. “Don’t
There are many famous paint- could not have peeped it.” meant to invite the dog-child. press her, Elaine. It’s a big sec-
ing of that scene. Most of the Elaine stopped dead stiU. The He saw her surprise, but did ret, and she wants to keep it.
paintings show Elaine in rags with little dog-girl, one step behind not comment on it directly. You’ll find out more tonight than
the distorted, suffering face of a her, stopped too. She tried to Instead, he spoke to D’joan. mortal woman was ever told be-
witch. This is strictly unhistori- draw herself up to her full “You know me, girl, don’t fore.”
cal. She was wearing her every- he ght. She was about the same you?” “What does ‘mortal’ mean?”
day culottes, blouse and twin tallness that he was. It was dif- THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 35
34 GALAXY
asked Elaine, who disliked anti- “He never calls himself that. pen right away, as soon as I the child, slapped her gently on
que words. Other people, underpeople I came up here with you.” the cheek, shouted again. D’joan
“It just means having a term- mean, call him that.His name is “How can anything happen,” continued to stare at the intricate
ination of life.” Balthasar, but nobody uses it.”
I
said little D’joan, “if you keep design.
“That’s foolish,” said Elaine. “What does itmatter, little
j
talking all the time?” “Now,” said the Hunter, “you
“Everything terminates. Look at girl?” said Elaine. “I’m talking The Hunter smiled. and I make love. The child is
those poor messy people who about my life. Your friend said I
“That’s right,” he said. “We’ve absent in a world of happy
went on beyond the legal four he would take my life from me if talked enough. Now we must be- dreams. That design is a man-
hundred years.” She looked something did not happen.” come lovers.” dala, something left over from
around. Rich black-and-red cur- Neither D’joan nor the Hunter Elaine jumped to her feet, “Not the unimaginable past. It locks
tains hung from ceiling to floor. said anything. with me, you don’t. Not with her the human consciousness in
On one side of the room there Elaine heard a frantic edge go here. Not when I haven’t found place. D’joan will not see us or
was a piece of furniture she had into her voice, “You heard it!” my work to do. I’m a witch. hear us. We cannot help her go
never seen before. It was like a She turned to the Hunter, “You I’m supposed to do something, toward her destiny unless you
table, but it had little broad flat saw it on the view screen.” but I’ve never really found out and I make love first.”
doors on the front, reaching from The Hunter’s voice was sereni- what it was.” Elaine, her hand to her mouth,
side to side; it was richly orna- ty and assurance: “We three “Look at this,” said the Hun- tried to inventory symptoms as
mented with unfamiliar woods have things to do before this ter calmly, walking over to the a means of keeping her familiar
and metals. Nevertheless, she night is out. We won’t get them wall, and pointing with his fin- thoughts in balance. It did not
had more important things to done if you are frightened or ger at an intricate circular de- work. A relaxation spread over
talk about than furniture. worried. I know the underpeo- sign. her, a happiness and quiet that
ple, but I know the Lords of the Elaine and D’joan both looked she had not once felt since her
he looked directly at the Hun- Instrumentality as well —
all four at it. childhood.
S ter (no organic disease; of them, right here. The Lords The Hunter spoke again, his “Did you think,” said the Hun-
wounded in leftarm at an ear- Limaono and Femtiosex and the voice urgent. “Do you see it, ter,“that I hunted with my body
lier period; somewhat excessive Lady Goroke. And the Norstilian, D’joan? Do you really see it? and J.illed with my hands? Didn’t
exposure to sunlight; might need too. They will protect you. Char- The ages turn, waiting for this anyone ever tell you that the
correction for near vision) and ley-is-my-darling might want to moment, little child. Do you see game comes to me rejoicing, that
demanded him:
of take your life from you because it? Do you see yourself in it?” the animals die while they
“Am I captured by you, too?” he is worried, afraid that the Elaine looked at the little dog- scream with pleasure? I’m a tele-
“Captured?” tunnel of Englok, where you just girl.D’joan had almost stopped path, and I work under license.
“You’re a Hunter. You hunt were, will be discovered. I have breathing. She stared at the cur- And I have my license now from
things. To kill them, I suppose. ways of protecting him and your- ious symmetrical pattern as the dead lady Pane Ashash.”
That underman back there, the self as well. Have confidence though it were a window into Elaine knew that they had
goat who calls himself Charley- in me for a while. That’s not so enchanting worlds. come to the end of the talking.
is-my-darling — ” hard, is it?” The Hunter roared, at the top Trembling, happy, frightened, she
“He never does!” cried the dog- “But,” protested Elaine, “the of his voice, “D’joan! Joan! fell into his arms and let him
girl, D’joan, interrupting. man —or the goat —
or what- Joanie!” lead her over to the couch at
“Never does what” said ever he was, Charley-is-my- The child made no response. the side of the black-and-gold
Elaine, cross at being interrupted. darling, he said it would all hap- The Hunter stepped over to room.
36
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
i
37
;
thousand years later, she no hint in him of telepathic He had kept her right hand in
A was kissing his ear and mur- power. his left hand. Now he released
“And
her,
you, Elaine,” said he to
“have nothing to do but to
muring loving words at him, He sang to her the song which her suddenly. He stood up. love me and to stand very stiH.
words that she did not even re- we know as I Love You and Lost “Let’s work first Eat later. Do you understand? You will se«
alize she knew. She must, she You. Someone is near us.” tremendous things, some of them
thought, have picked up more He walked briskly over to the frightening. But they won’t be
from the story-boxes than she 1 knew you. and loved you, who was still seat-
little dog-girl, real. Just stand still.”
and won you, In Kalma.
ever realized. 1 loved you, and won you,
ed on the chair looking at the Elaine nodded wordlessly.
“You’re my love,” she said, and lost you, my darling! mandala with open, sleeping “In the name,” said the Hun-
The dark skies of Waterroclc
“my only one, my darling. Never, swept down against us. eyes. He took her head firmly ter, “of the First Forgotten One,
never leave me; never throw me Llghtnlng-lit only and gently between his two hands in the name of the Second For-
by our own love, my lovely!
away. Oh, Hunter, I love you and turned her eyes away from gotten One, in the name of the
so!” Our time was a short time, the design. She struggled mo- Third Forgotten One. For the
“Wepart” he said, “before to- a sharp hour of glory — mentarily against his hands and
We tasted delight love of people, that will give
morrow is gone, but shall meet and we suffer denial. then seemed to wake up fully. them life. For the love that will
The tale of us two
again. Do you realize that all this She smiled. “That was nice. give them a clean death and
is a bittersweet story.
has only been a little more than Short as a shot
but as long as death.
I rested. How long was it five — true .” His words were
. .
clear
an hour?” minutes?” but Elaine could not understand
Elaine blushed. “And I,” she We met and we loved,
“More than that,” said 'the them.
stammered, “I —
I’m hungry.” and vainly we plotted
To rescue beauty
Hunter gently. “I want you to The day of days was here.
“Natural enough,” said the from a smothering war. take Elaine’s hand.” She knew it.
Hunter. “Pretty soon we can Time had no time
the minutes, no mercy.
for us, A few hours ago, and Elaine She did not know how she
waken the little girl and eat to- We have Ipved and lost, would have protested at the knew it, but she did.
And then history will and the world goes on. grotesquerie of holding hands
gether. The lady Pane Ashash crawled
happen, unless somebody walks We have lost and have kissed,
with an underperson. This time, up through the solid floor, wear-
in and stops us.” and have parted, my darling! she said nothing, but obeyed: ing her friendly robot body. She
Ail thatwe have,
“But, darling,” said Elaine, we must save in our hearts, iove. she looked with much love came near to Elaine and mur-
“can’t we go on — at least for The memory of beauty
and the beauty of memory . . .
toward the Hunter. mured :
a while? A year? A month? A I’ve loved you and won you “You two don’t have to know “Have no fear, no fear.”
and lost you, in Kalma. much,” said the Hunter. “You,
day? Put the little girl back in Fear? thought Elaine. This is
the tunnel for a while.” D’joan, are going to get every- no time for fear. It is much too
“Not really,” said the Hunter, His fingers, moving in the air, thing that is in our minds and in interesting.
“but I’ll sing you the song that produced a soft organ-like music our memories. You will become
came my mind about you in the room. She had noticed us, both of us. Forevermore. You
into A s if to answer Elaine, a clear,
and me. I’ve been thinking bits music-beams before, but she had will meet your glorious fate.” strong, masculine voice spoke
of it for a long time, but now it never had one played for herself. The little girl shivered. “Is out of nowhere
has really happened. Listen.” By the time he was through this really the day?” This is the time for the daring
He held her two hands in his singing, she was sobbing. It was “It is,” said the Hunter. “Fu- sharing.
so wonderful, so
two hands, looked easily and all so true, ture ages will remember this When these words were spoken,
frankly into her eyes. There was heartbreaking. night.” was
it as if a bubble had been
38
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 39
pricked. Elaine felt her personali- This is the time for you and him. to her that she should take her Elaine saw the black-and-gold
Elaine realized that she was
ty and D’joan mingling. With hands away from the hands of room clean and untroubled for a
ordinary telepathy, would have
it responding to hypnotic sugges- Hunter and the dog-child. moment before the green white-
been frightening. But this was tions which the Lady Pane Ash- But then fire came . . . topped ocean rushed in. The
not communication. It was being. ash had put into the mind of the water poured over the three of
She had become Joan. Sh^ felt little dog-girl — suggestions
VI them without getting them wet
the clean little body in its tidy which were triggered into full po- in the least. The greenness wash-
clothes. She became aware of tency the moment that the three ire came up from the floor, ed around them without pressure,
the girl-shape again. It was oddly of them came into telepathic con-
tact.
F burning about them intangi- without suffocation.
pleasant and familiar, in terribly bly. Elaine felt nothing . . . but Elaine was the Hunter. Enor-
faraway kinds of feeling, to re- For a fraction of a second, she she could sense the touch of the mous dragons floated in the sky
member that she had had that perceived notliing but astonish- little girl’s hand. above Fomalhaut III. She felt
shape once — the smooth, inno- ment within herself. She saw Flames around the dames, herself wandering across a hill,
cent flat chest; the uncompli- nothing but herself — every de-
games, said an idiot voice from singing with love and yearning.
cated groin; the fingers which tail, every secrecy, every thought She had the Hunter’s own mind,
nowhere.
stillfelt as though they were and feeling and contour of flesh. Fire around the pyre, sire, said his own memory. The dragon
separate and alive in extending She was curiously aware of how another. sensed him, and flew down. The
from the palm of the hand. But her breasts hung from her chest, Hot is what we got, tot, said a enormous reptilian wings were
the mind — that child’s mind! the tension of her belly-muscles third. more beautiful than a sunset,
It was like an enormous museum holding her female backbone Suddenly Elaine remembered more delicate than orchids. Their
illuminated by rich stained-glass straightand erect — Earth, but it was not the Earth beat in the air was as gentle as
windows, cluttered with variega- Female backbone? she knew. She was herself the breath of a baby. She was
ted heaps of beauty and treasure, Why had she thought that she D’joan, and not D’joan. She was not only Hunter but dragon too;
scented by strange incense which had a female backbone? a tall, strong monkey-man, in- she felt the minds meeting and
moved slowly in unpropelled air. And then she knew. distinguishable from a true the dragon d5ring in bliss, in joy.
D’joan had a mind which reached She was following the Hun- human being. She/he had tre- Somehow the water was gone.
all the way back to the color ter’s mind as his awareness rush- mendous alertness So too were D’joan and the Hun-
in her/his
and glory of man’s antiquity. ed through her body, drank it up, heart as he/she walked across ter. She was not in the room.
D’joan had been a Lord of the enjoyed it, loved it all over again, the Peace Square at An-fang, She was taut, tired, worried
monkey-man this time from the inside out. the Old Square at An-fang, where
Instrumentality, a Elaine, looking down a nameless
riding the ships of space, a friend She knew somehow that the all things begin. She/he noticed street for hop>eless destinations.
of the dear dead lady Pane Ash- little dog-girl watched every- a discrepency. Some of the build- She had to do things which could
ash, and Pane Ashash herself. thing quietly, wordlessly, drink- ings were not there. never be done. The wrong me,
No wonder the child was rich ing in from them both the full The real Elaine thought to her- the wrong time, the wrong place
and strange: she had been made nuance of being truly human. self, “So that’s what they did — and I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m
the heir of all the ages. Even with the delirium, she with the child —
printed her with alone, her mind screamed. The
This is the time for the glar- sensed embarrassment. It might the memories of other underpeo- room was back again so too were
;
ing top of the truth at the wear- be a dream, but it was still too ple. Other ones, who dared things the hands of tiie Hunter and the
ing sharing, said the nameless, much. She began to close her and went places.” little girl.
clear, loud voice in her mind. mind and the thought had come The fire stopped. Mist began rising —
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
40 41
Another I'ream? thought The surprise came from the lit- brass door, Elaine heard the voice and-yellow corridor. Most of the
Aren't we done? tle dog girl. of the Lady Arabella say to the underpeople were awaiting them.
Elaine.
But there was another voice I am
youT sister Joan, she said, Hunter Dozens stared at them. The
somewhere, a voice which grat- and no animal to you. “What are you doing here all heavy animal -human smells (rf
|
ed like the rasp of a saw cutting The lady Arabella seemed to by yourself? The room smells the old tunnel rolled against
through bone, like the grind of a have trouble hearing. (Elaine 1
funny. Have you had animals them like
thick, slow waves.
ruinous top speed. It was an evil she was hearing spoken words or thing?” headache at her temples, but she
voice, a terror-filling voice. taking the message with her “Yes, ma’am,” said the Hun- was much too alert to care.
Perhaps this really was the mind.) ter as D’joan and Elaine step- For a moment, D’joan and
“death” which the tunnel under- I am Joan and I love you. ped through the door. Elaine confronted the underpeo-
people had mistaken her for. The lady Arabella shook her- “What?” cried the Lady Ara- ple.
’
The Hunter’s hand released self as though water had splash- bella.
hers.She let go of D’joan. ed on her. “Of course you’re Hunter must have raised his TV/Tost of you have seen paint-
There was a strange woman in Joan. You love me. And I love voice to a point of penetrating ings or theatricals based
the room. She wore the baldric you.” .
emphasis because he wanted the upon this scene. The most famous
of authority and the leotards of People and underpeople meet other two to hear him, too: of all is, beyond doubt, the fan-
on the terms of love. “I have killed, ma’am,” he tastic “one-line drawing” of San
a traveler.
Elaine stared at her. “Love. Love, of course. You’re 1
said, “as always — with love. Shigonanda — the board of the
a good little girl. And so right.” This time it was a system.” background almost uniformly
tt''^ou’ll be punished,” said You will forget me, said Joan, They slipped through the door gray, with a hint of brown and
* the terrible voice, which until we meet and love again. while the Lady Arabella’s pro- yellow on the left, a hint of black
now was coming out of the wo- “Yes, darling. Good-by for testing voice,heavy with authori- and red on the right, and in the
^
now.” ty and inquiry, was still sweeping center the strange white line, al-
man. i
do. Elaine had better come with ing of all the underpeople who Charley-is-my-darling was, of
know who you are, but the Hun-
me. We you soon. Hun-
will see had been imprinted on her. Elaine course, the first to find his voice.
ter should know better. The ani-
mal will have to die, of course,” ter — if we live.” could not understand it, because (Elaine did not notice him as a
said the woman, looking at little Elaine looked at the Lady Joan was still the little dog-girl, goat-man any more. He seemed
Arabella who stood stock still, but Joan was now also Elaine, an earnest, friendly man of mid-
D’joan.
staring like a blind women. The also Hunter. There was no doubt dle age, fighting poor health and
Hunter muttered, half in greet-
Hunter nodded at Elaine with about their movement; the child, an uncertain life with great cour-
ing to the stranger, half in ex-
his wise, kind, rueful smile. no longer an undergirl, led the age. She now found his smile per-
planation to Elaine, as though he
did not know what else to say: The little girl led Elaine down, way and Elaine, human or not, suasive and charming. Why,
down, down to the door which led followed. thought Elaine, didn’t I see him
“Lady Arabella Underwood.”
Elaine could not bow to her, back to the tunnel of Englok. The door closed behind them. that way before? Have I chang-
though she wanted to. Just as they went through the They were back in the brown- ed?)
her one tremendous slap. She “Not at all,” said Elaine, “un- slightly, to see if the mind still have to tear myself to pieces, to
dropped to the floor unconscious. less these human medicines functioned. As she reached for break my brains on the wall, to
The knife, stained with blood, poison your dog blood.” Crawlie’s head to attach the it, do — ” The laughter changed
to
“Who did it?” unconscious girl sprang suddenly sobs, but Crawlie managed to
fell on the old worn carpet.
(Elaine automatically
thought “Crawlie.” to life, jumped to her feet and resume talking: “You things are
restorative for her later; check “Why?” said the child. “Why? said: so stupid that you don’t even
Is she hurt too? Where is she?” “No, you don’t! you don’t peep know that you’re monsters.
neck vertebrae; no problem of
“Not as hurt as she is going to me, you dirty human!” You’re not people. You never
bleeding.)
be,” said the goat-man, Charley- “Crawlie, stand still.” will be people. I’m one of you
For the first time in her life,
is-my-darling. “If she lives, we’ll “Don’t boss me, you monster!” myself. I’m honest enough to ad-
Elaine functioned as a wholly ef-
fix her up and try her and put “Crawlie, that’s a bad thing to mit what am. We’re we’re
ficient witch. She helped the I dirt,
clothing from her to death.” say.” It was eerie to hear such a nothing, we’re things that are
people pull the
little Joan. The tiny body, with “No, you won’t,” said Joan. commanding voice coming from less than machines. We hide in
the heavy purple-dark blood “You’re going to love her. You the throat and mouth of a small the earth like dirt and when
must.” child. Small she might have been, people kill us they do not weep.
pumping out from just below the
rib-cage, looked hurt and fragile. The goat-man looked bewild- but Joan commanded the scene. At least we were hiding. Now
Elaine reached in her left hand- ered. “I don’t care what I say. You you come along, you and your
bag. She had a surgical radar He turned in his perplexity to all hate me.” tame human woman —
” Crawlie
The bear-man had moved up person in the corridor stopped alone. That goes for you, too, tening to the conversation. She
close to Crawlie, unnoticed by breathing. They all stared at the you soft human woman. I am not cut in.
her, and was ready to slap her snake-woman. She hissed again, afraid of you either. You there,” “The Lady Pane Ashash, of
down again if she moved against looking straight at Crawlie. The said she to the bear-man, “pick course.The dead one. Do you
little Joan. sound was an abomination in littleJoan up and carry her to a think that a living Lady of the
Joan looked straight at him that narrow space. Elaine saw quiet bed. She must rest. She Instrumentality would do any-
and with a mere movement of her that Joan tightened up like a must be quiet for a while. You be thing but kill us all?”
eyes she commanded him not to little dog, Charley-is-my-darling quiet too, all you people, or you
strike. looked as though he was ready to will meet me. Me.” Her black A s the snake-woman and Or-
“I’m she said, “I’m
tired,” leap twenty meters in one jump, eyes roved across their faces. The son carried Joan away,
tired, Crawlie. I’m a thousand and Elaine herself felt an im- snake-woman moved forward Charley-is-my-darling came up
years old when I am not even pulse to strike, to kill, to destroy. and they parted in front of her, to Elaine and said, “Do you want
five. And I am Elaine now, and The hiss was a challenge to them as though she were the only solid to go?”
I am Hunter too, and I am the all. being in a throng of ghosts. “Where?”
Lady Pane Ashash, and I know The snake-woman looked Her eyes rested a moment on “To the Lady Pane Ashash, of
a great many more things that I around calmly, fully aware of Elaine. Elaine met the gaze, but course.”
thought I would ever know. I the attention she had obtained. itwas an uncomfortable thing to “Me?” said Elaine. “Now?”
have work to do, Crawlie, be- “Don’t worry, dear people. do. The black eyes with neither said Elaine, even more emphat-
cause I love you, and I think I See, I’m using Joan’s name for eyebrow nor lashes seemed full ically. “Of course not,” said
will die soon. But please, good aU of us. I’m not going to hurt of intelligence and devoid of Elaine, pronouncing each word as
people, first let me rest.” Crawlie, not unless she hurts emotion. Orson, the bear-man, though it were a law. “What do
The bear-man was on Crawlie’s Joan. But if she hurts Joan, if followed obediently behind. He you think I am? A few hours
right. On her left, there had anybody hurts Joan, they will carried little Joan. ago I did not even know that you
moved up a snake-woman. The have me to deal with. You have As the child passed Elaine she existed. I wasn’t sure about the
face was pretty and human, ex- a good idea who I am. S- We tried to stay awake. She mur- word ‘death.’ I just assumed that
cept for the thin forked tongue people have great strength, high mured, “Make me bigger. Please everything terminated at four
which ran in and out of the intelligence and no fear at all. make me bigger. Right away.” hundred years, the way it should.
mouth like a dying flame. She You know we cannot breed. “I don’t know how , . .” said It’sbeen hours of danger, and
had good shoulders and hips but People have to make us one by Elaine. everybody has been threatening
no breasts at all. She wore empty one, out of ordinary snakes. Do The child struggled to full everybody else for all that time.
golden brassiere cups which not cross me, dear people. I awakening. “I’ll have work to do. I’m tired and I’m sleepy and I’m
swung against her chest. Her want to learn about this new Work . . . and maybe my deatii dirty, and I’ve got to take care
hands looked as though they love which Joan is bringing, and to die. It will all be wasted if I of myself, and besides ” —
48 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 49
She stopped suddenly and bit “Oh, yes, I do,” she said. “Not yet,” smiled the goat- in. They will follow. They will
her lip. She had started to say, “Then help us just a little bit man, with his quick crooked in- kill all ofyou, even Joan. Where
and besides, my body is all worn more.” telligent smile. “I may not be is the Hunter? Shouldn’t I sleep
out with that dream-like love- With death? she thought. With educated, but I am pretty smart.” first?” She felt her lips go thick
making which the Hunter and I murder? With violation of law? He reached toward the inner with fatigue: she had not rested
had together. That was not the But —
but it was all for Joan. gate, glanced back at Elaine ap- or eaten since she took that
business of Charley-is-my-dar- It was thus that Elaine went praisingly, and then shoved a chance on the strange little door
ling:he was goat enough as he to the camouflaged door, went man-sized robot through the between Waterrocky Road and
was. His mind was goatish and out under the open sky again, door. the Shopping Bar.
would not see the dignity of it all. saw the great Saucer of Upper “There it goes, a sweeper about “You’re safe, Elaine, you’re
The goat-man said, very gent- Kalma reaching out over the Old your size. No memory bank. A safe,” said Charley-is-my-dar-
ly, “You are making history, Lower City. She talked to the worn-out brain. Just simple mot- ling, his slysmile very warm and
Elaine, and when you make his- voice of the Lady Pane Ashash, ivations. If they come down to his smooth voice carrying the
tory you cannot always take care and obtained certain instructions, see what they thought they saw, ring of sincere conviction. For
of all the little things too. Are you together with other messages. they will see this instead. We himself, he did not believe a word
happier and more important than Later, she was able to repeat keep a bunch of these at the of it. He thought they were all in
you ever were before? Yes? them, but she was too tired to door. We don’t go out much, but danger, but there was no point
Aren’t you a different you from make out their real sense. when we do, handy to have
it’s in terrifying Elaine. Elaine was
the person who met Balthasar She staggered back to the these to cover up with.” the only real person on their side,
just a few hours ago?” place in the wall where she He took by the arm.
her except for the Hunter, who was
Elaine was taken aback by the thought the door to be, leaned “While you eat, you can tell me. a strange one, almost like an an-
seriousness. She nodded. against it, and nothing happened. Can we make her bigger . .
.?” imal himself, and for the Lady
“Stay hungry and tired. Stay “Further down, Elaine, further “Who?” Pane Ashash, who was very be-
dirty. Just a little longer. Time down. Hurry! When I used to be “Joan, of course. Our Joan. nign, but who was, after all, a
must not be wasted. You can talk me, I too got tired,” came the That’s what you went to find out dead person. He was frightened
to the Lady Pane Ashash. Find strong whisper of the Lady Pane for us.” himself, but he was afraid of fear.
out what we must do about little Ashash, “but do hurry!” Elaine had to inventory her Perhaps they were all doomed.
Joan. When you come back with Elaine stepped away from the own mind to see what the Lady In a way, he was right.
further instructions, I will take wall, looking at it. Pane Ashash had said on that
care of you myself. This tunnel A beam of light struck her. subject. In a moment she re- VII
is not as bad a town as it looks. The Instrumentality had found membered.
We will have everything you her. “You need a pod. And a jelly ^
I
'ae Lady Arabella Underwood
could need, in the Room of Eng- bath. And narcotics, because it had called the Lady Goroke.
lok. Englok himself built it, long Ohe rushed wildly at the wall. will hurt. Four hours.” “Something has tampered with
ago. Work just a little longer, and ^ The door gaped briefly. The “Wonderful,” said Charley-is- my mind.”
then you can eat and rest. We strong welcome hand of Charley- my-darling, leading her deeper The Lady Goroke felt very
have everything here. T am the is my-darling helped her in. and deeper into the tunnel. shocked. She threw back the in-
citizen of no mean city.’ But first “The light! The light!” cried “But what’s the use of it,” said quiry. Put a probe on it.
you must help Joan. You love Elaine. “I’ve killed us all. They Elaine, “if I’ve ruined us all? The “I did. Nothing.”
Joan, don’t you?” saw me.” Instrumentality saw me coming ^
Nothing?
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLO.VVN TOWN 51
More shock for the Lady Gor- “Police fever, one degree. One The third time this happened, have the advantage. They can
oke, Sound the alert, then. degree only. Till rescinded. the robot in the ornithopter put show the machine with all sorts
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no. It was a Clear?” a disabling slug through it, flew of improvements —
flashing
friendly, nice tampering.” The “Clear, my lady. The entire down and picked it up with the myster-
lights, bits of lightnight,
Lady Arabella Underwood, be- planet?” claws of his machine. ious rays. Actually,
it looked
ing an Old North Australian, was “Yes,” she said. He saw it in close view. like bathtub full of boiling
a
rather formal she always thought
: “Do you wish to give a rea- “Birdbrain. Old model. Bird- brown jelly, completely covering
full words at her friends, even in son?” his voice was respectful brain. Good they don’t use those Joan.
telepathic contact. She never sent and routine. any more. The thing could have Elaine, meanwhile, ate hun-
mere raw ideas. “Must I?” hurt AMan. Now, I’m printed grily in the palatial room of Eng-
But that’s utterly unlawful. “Of course not, my lady.” from a mouse, a real mouse with lok himself. The food was very,
You’re part of the Instrumental- “None given, then. Close.” lots and lots of brains.” very old, and she had doubts, as
ity. It’s a crime! thought the He saluted and his image fad- He flew toward the central a witch, about its nutritional val-
Lady Goroke. ed from the wall. junkyard with the worn-out ue, but it stilled her hunger. The
She got a giggle for reply. She raised her mind to the sweeper. The sweeper, crippled denizens of Clown Town had de-
You laugh she inquired.
. . .? level of a light clear call. Instru- but still conscious, was trying to clared this room “off limits” to
“I a new Lord
just thought mentality Only —
Instrumental- pick dust off the iron claws which themselves, reasons which
for
might be here. From the Instru- ity Only. I have raised the Police held it. Charley-is-my-darling could not
mentality. Having a look at me.” fev- level 1° by command. Rea- Below them, the Old City make plain. He stood in the
The Lady Goroke was very son, personal disquiet. You know twisted out of sight with its odd doorway and told her what to do
proper and easily shocked. We my voice. You know me. Goroke. geometrical lights. The new city, to find food, to activate the bed
wouldn’t do that! Far across the city —
a police bathed in its soft perpetual glow, out of the floor, to open the bath-
The Lady Arabella thought to ornithopter flapped slowly down shone out against the night of room. Everything was very old-
herself but did not transmit, the street. Fomalhaut III. Beyond them, fashioned and nothing responded
“Not to you, my dear. You’re a The police robot was photog- the everlasting ocean boiled in its to a simple thought or to a mere
blooming prude.” To the other raphing a sweeper, the most elab- private storms. slap.
she transmitted, “Forget it orately malfunctioning sweeper A curious thing happened.
then.” he had ever seen. /^n the actual stage the actors Elaine had washed her hands,
Puzzled and worried, the Lady The sweeper raced down the cannot do much with the had eaten and was preparing for
Goroke thought: Well, all right. road at unlawful speeds, ap- scene of the interlude, where her bath. She had taken most of
Break? proaching three hundred kilom- Joan was cooked in a single night her clothes off, thinking only
“Right-ho. Break.” eters an hour, stopped with a from the size of a child five years that Charley-is-my-darling was
The Lady Goroke frowned to sizzle of plastic on stone, and be- old to the tallness of a miss fif- an animal, not a man, so that it
herself. Sheslapped her wall. gan picking dust-motes off the teen or sixteen. The biological did not matter.
Planet Central, she thought at it. pavement. machine did work well, though Suddenly she knew it did mat-
A mere man sat at a desk. When
the ornithopter reached at the risk of her life. It made ter.
“I am the lady Goroke,” she it,the sweeper took off again, her into a vital, robust
young per- He might be an imderperson
said. rounded two or three corners at son, without changing her mind but he was a man to her. Blush-
“Of course, my lady,” he re- tremendous speed and then set- at all. This is hard for any ac- ing deeply all the way down to
plied. tled down to its idiot job. tress to portray. The storyboxes her neck, she ran into the bath-
52 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 53
IlDoinand called back to him: she have known it? The brown- ’"couldn’t come in here with all ing too. Now we are all going to
“Go away. I will bathe and and-yellow corridor, with its the thought shielding?” do something, even though we
Wake me when you
ttien sleep. gloomy old yellow lights, was just The Lady Pane Ashash lifted may be terminated for it. “May
have to. not before.” as dim and stench-ridden as ever. a wire which trailed back from be” thought she: “shall be” is
“Yes, Elaine.” The people all seemed to have her robot body, “I rigged this up the word. But it is worth it if
“And — and —
”
changed. so that I could use the body. Joan can change the worlds, even
“Yes?” Baby-baby was no longer a Precautions are no use any more. a little bit, even for other
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank mouse-hag, but a woman of con- It’s the other side which will need people.
you very much. Do you know, I siderable force and much tender- the precautions now. A revolution Joan spoke up. Her voice had
never said ‘thank you’ to an un- ness. Crawlie was as dangerous is a way of changing systems and grown with her body, but it was
derperson before.” as a human enemy, staring at people. This is one. You go first, the same dear voice which the
“That’s all right,” said Char- Elaine, her beautiful face gone Elaine. This way.” little dog-girl had had sixteen
ley-is-my-darling with a smile. bland with hidden hate. Charley- “To die? Is that what you hours (they seem sixteen years,
“Most real people don’t. Sleep is-my-darling was gay, friendly mean?” thought Elaine) ago, when Elaine
well, my dear Elaine. When you and persuasive. She thought she The lady Pane Ashash first met her at the door to the
awaken, be ready for great things. could read expressions on the laughed warmly. “You know me tunnel of Englok.
We shall take a star out of the faces of Orson and the S’woman, by now. You know my friends Joan said, “Love is not some-
skies and shall sets thousands of odd though their features were. here. You know what your own thing special, reserved for men
worlds on fire .”
. . After she had gotten through life has been down to now, a alone.
“What’s that?” she said, put- some singularly polite greetings, useless witch in a world which “Love is not proud. Love has
ting her head around the comer she demanded, “What’s happen- did not want you. We may die, no real name. Love is for life
of the bathroom. ing now?” but what we do before we
it’s itself, and we have life.
ones in Clown Town are all worn who was that with her? “You mean, all these people know that, but will we say the
out. But since we haven’t used Even as she asked herself the are going too?” Joan looked at name?”
this room, yours ought to work.” question, Elaine knew the an- the ranks of the underpeople, who There was a murmur of no and
“Which is it?” she said. swer. It was Joan, grown, only were beginning to form into two never from the crowd.
“The red lid with the gold half a head less tall than the queues down the corridor. The “You have waited for me. I
handle. Just lift it.” On that dom- Lady Pane Ashash or herself. It queues bulged wherever moth- have waited too. It is time to die,
estic note he left her to rest, was a new Joan, powerful, happy, ers led their children by the hand perhaps, but we will die the way
while he went off and plotted the and quiet; but it was all the dear or carried small ones in their people did in the beginning, be-
destiny of a hundred billion lives. old D’joan too.
little arms. Here and there the line fore things became easy and
“Welcome,” said the lady Pane was punctuated by a giant under- cruel for them. They live in a
T hey
ing
told her it was mid-morn-
when she came out
How
of
Ashash, “to our revolution.”
“What’s a revolution?” asked
^aine. “And thought you
person.
They have been nothing,
thought Elaine, and I was noth-
stupor and they die in a dream.
It is not a good dream and if they
awaken, they will know that we
tiie room of Englok. could I
poem about people and under- Perhaps they are people. They loves me!” look?”
people getting all mixed up. The mu.st have a trial. The Lord Femtiosex, who com- “Why look?” said the Lord
mixup came much later, even af- The manded the inflying soldiers, Femtiosex, who was as blonde as
Joan dropped to
dog-girl
ter the time of C’mell. The poem her knees. “I have succeeded, 1 bound Joan with cord despite her the ancient pictures of Baldur,
is pretty, but is it dead wrong, as have succeeded, I have suc- talking. and oftentimes that arrogant as
you can see for yourself ceeded! You can kill me, dear Grimly he answered her: “Of well. “The Lord Limaono is ar-
people, but I love, love, love course you love me. You’re a riving. That’s all of us. We can
You should ask me. you!” good dog. You’ll die soon, doggy, have the here and now.”
trial
Me. me, me, Elaine felt cords bite into her
Because I know — The Lady Pane Ashash said but till then, you’ll obey.”
I used to live quietly to Elaine, “I thought I “I’m obeying,” said Joan, “but wrists; she heard the Hunter
On the Eastern Shore. I’m a dog and a person. Open murmur comforting words to her,
Men aren’t men. would be dead by now. Really
And women aren’t women, dead, at last. But I am not. I your mind, man, and you’ll feel words which she did not quite
And people aren’t people any more. understand.
hpve seen the worlds turn, Elaine, it.”
and you have seen them turn Apparently he did open his “They will not kill us,” he
There is no Eastern Shore on mind and felt the ocean of love murmured, “though we will wish
with me.”
Fomalhaut III anyhow; the peo- him. It shocked they had, before this day is out.
The underpeople had fallen riptiding into
ple/underpeople crisis came much Everything is happening as she
quiet as they heard the high- him. His arm swung up and back,
later than this. The revolution
volume telepathic exchange be- the edge of the hand striking at said it would, and —
had failed, but history had reach- Joan’s neck for the ancient kill. “Who is that she?” interrupted
tween the two great Ladies.
ed its new turning-point, the “No, you don’t,” thought the Elaine.
The real soldiers dropped out
quarrel of the two Ladies. They Lady Arabella Underwood. “That “She? The lady, of course. The
of the sky, their ornithopters
left their' minds
open out of sheer
whistling as they hawked down child is going to get a proper dear dead Lady Pane Ashash,
surprise. Suicidal robots and who has worked wonders after
to the ground. They ran up to trial.”
world-loving dogs were unheard-
the underpeople and began bind- He looked at her and glared, her own death, merely with the
was bad enough to have il-
of. It
Chief doesn’t strike Chief, my print of her personality on the
ing them with cord.
legalunderpeople on the prowl,
One Lady. Let go my arm. machine. “Who do you think told
but these new things ah — I
at the robot
soldier took a single look
body of the Lady Thought the Lady Arabella at me what to do? Why did we wait
62 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 63
for you to condition Joan to see something which would ease '
shows in her smile: it is con- The words of the trial, they too
greatness? Why did the people the boredom of perfection and fident. have survived. Many of them
way down in Clown Town keep time. They all had numbers or And the judges! have became famous, aU across
on raising one D’joan after an- number- codes instead of names. The artist has them, too. The the worlds.
Lord Femtiosex, calm again, his Joan said, during inquiry, “But
other, hoping that hope and a They were handsome, well, dully
narrow sharp lips expressing per- it is the duty of life to find more
great wonder would occur?” happy. They even looked a great
petual rage against a universe than life, and to exchange itself
“You knew?” said Elaine. “You deal alike, similar in their hand-
which has grown too small for for that higher goodness.”
knew before
. . .it happened?” someness, their health and their
“Of course,” said the Hunter, underlying boredom. All of them him. The Lord Limaono, wise, Joan commented, upon sen-
“not exactly, but more or less. had a total of four hundred years twice-rebom, sluggardly, but tence. “My body is your proper-
She had had hundreds of years to live. None of them knew real alert as asnake behind the sleepy ty, but my love is not. My love
after death inside that computer. war, even though the extreme eyes and the slow smile. The is my own, and I shall love you
Lady Arabella Underwood, the fiercely while you kill me.”
She had time for billions of readiness of the soldiers showed
thoughts. She saw how it would vain practice of hundreds of tallest true-human present, with When the soldiers had killed
be if it had to be, and I — years. The people were beautiful, her Norstrilian pride and the ar- Charley-is-my-darling and were
rogance of great wealth, along trying to hack off the head of the
“Shut up, you people!” roared but they felt themselves useless,
with the capricious tenderness of S’woman until one of them
the Lord Femtiosex. “You are and they were quietly desperate
making the animals restless with without knowing it themselves. great wealth, showing in the way thought to freeze her into crys-
your babble. Shut up, or I will This is all clear from the paint- that she sat, judging her fellow- tals, Joan said:
stun you!” ing, and from the wonderful way judges instead of the prisoners. “Should we be strange to you,
Elaine fell silent. that San Shigonanda has of form- The Lady Goroke, bewildered at we animals of earth that you
The Lord Femtiosex glanced ing them in informal ranks and last, frowning at a play of for- have brought to the stars? We
around at her, ashamed at hav- tune which she does not under- shared the same sun, the same
letting the calm blue light of day
stand. The artist has it all. oceans, the same sky. We are all
ing made his anger naked before shine down on their handsome,
another person. He added quiet- hopeless features. And you have the real view- from Manhome. How do you
tapes, too, if you want to go to a know that we would not have
ly: With the underpeople, the ar-
‘museum. The reality is not as caught up with you if we had all
“The trial is about to begin. tistperforms real wonders.
dramatic as the famous painting, stayed at home together? My
The one that the tall Lady or- Joan herself is bathed in light.
but it has value of its own. The people were dogs. They loved
dered.” Her light brown hair and her
doggy brown eyes express soft- voice of Joan, dead these many you before you made a woman-
centuries, is still strangely mov- shaped thing out of my mother.
IX ness and tenderness. He even
ing. It the voice of a dog-
is Should I not love you still? The
conveys the idea that her new
carved-into-man, but it is also miracle is not that you have
X/'ou all know about the trial, body is terribly new and strong,
so there is no need to linger that she is virginal and ready to the voice of a great lady. The made people out of us. The mir-
image of the Lady Pane Ashash acle is that it took us so long to
over it. There is another picture die, that she is a mere girl and
must have taught her that, along understand it. We are people
of San Shigonanda, the one from yet completely fearless. The pos-
with what she had learned from now, and so are you. You will be
his conventional period, which ture of love shows in her legs:
Elaipe and Hunter in the ante- sorry for what you are going to
shows it very plainly. she stands lightly. Love shows in
chamber above the Brown and do to me, but remember that I
The street had filled full of her hands: they are turned out-
Yellow Corridor of Englok. shall love your sorrow, too, be-
real people, crowding together to ward toward the judges. Love
64 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 69
cause great and good things will highest servants of man. This perfection of the Old Common Femtiosex accepts the responrf-
come out of it.” would have been hard to do, giv- Tongue. We know a lot of things bility for the notion of fire; the
The Lord Limaono slyly ask- en the bewildering events of the which the Lords Femtiosex and Lord Limaono agrees that he
ed, “What is a ‘miracle’?” last few hours, even from one Limaono did not, and before we concurred in the decision. Both
And her words were, “There is Chief of the Instrumentality to consider them stupid or cruel, we of them, many years later, re-
knowledge from Earth which another; for the general public, must remember that centuries viewed the tapes of the scene and
you have not yet found again. it was almost impossible. The passed before mankind finally agreed that something which the
There is the name of the Name- outpouring from the Brown and came to grips with the problem Lady Arabella Underwood had
less one. There are secrets hidden
in time from you. Only the dead
Yellow Corridor was wholly un-
expected, even though the Lady
of the underpeople and decided said or thought —
what “life” was within the limits Something had made them do
and the unborn can know them Goroke had surprised D’joan; of the human community. it.
right now: I am both.” the mutiny of the robot police Finally, we have the testimony But even with the tapes to re-
posed problems which would of the two Lords themselves. freshand clarify their memories,
^^he scene is familiar, and yet have to be discussed halfway They both lived
very ad-
to they could not say what.
we will never understand it. across the galaxy. Furthermore, vanced ages, and toward the end We have even put computers
We know what the lords Fem- the dog-girl was making points of their lives they were worried on the job of cataloguing every
tiosexand Limaono thought they which had some verbal validity. and annoyed to find that the word and every inflection of the
were doing. They were maintain- If they were left in the form of episode of D’joan overshadowed whole trial, but they have not
ing established order and they mere words without proper con- all the bad things which had not pinpointed the critical point ei-
were putting it on tape. The text, they might affect heedless happened during their long ther.
minds of men can live together or impressionable minds. A bad careers — bad things which had And the Lady Arabella — no-
only if the basic ideas are com- idea can spread like a mutated labored to forestall for the pro- body ever questioned her. They
municated. Nobody has, even germ. If it is at all interesting, tection of the planet Fomalhaut didn’t dare. She went back to her
now, found out a way to record- it can leap from one mind to an- III — and they were distressed own planet of Old North Aus-
ing telepathy directly into an in- other halfway across the universe to see themselves portrayed as tralia surrounded by the im-
strument. We
get pieces and before it has a stop put to it. casual, cruel men when in fact
,
lians said they did not wish to Corridor was not by any means origin, because she had septup- tape, can stand it no longer. He
discuss the matter, and if we do the only one of its kind. We even lets in closely matching form. clubs his weapon, knocks the
not wish to go back to living a know what happened to the Hun- The tape shows us the picture woman down; the babies scatter
mere seventy years we had better ter. of the soldier getting ready. on the groimd. We
see his booted
not anger the only planet which For the other underpeople — The rat-woman greets him heel rise up and crush down
produces stroon. Charley-is-my-darling, Baby- with a smile and holds up her against their heads. We hear the
And the Lady Goroko — she, baby, Mabel, the S’woman, Or- seven babies. Little blondes they wet popping sound of the little
poor thing, went mad. son and all the others —
we have are, wearing pink or blue bon- heads breaking, the sharp cut-off
People did not know it till the tapes of the trial itself. They nets, all of them with glowing of the baby wails as they die. We
later, but there was no word to were not tried by anybody. They cheeks and bright little blue eyes. get one last view of the rat-
be gotten out of her. She per- were put to death by the soldiers “Put them on the ground,” woman herself. She had stood up
formed the odd actions which we on the spot, as soon as it was said the soldier. “I’m going to again by the time the seventh
plain that their testimony would kill you and them too.” On the baby She offers her
now know to be a part of the is killed.
dynasty of Lords Jestocost, who not be needed. As witnesses, they tape, we can hear the nervous hand to the soldier to shake. Her
forced themselves by diligence could live a few minutes or an peremptory edge of his voice. He face is dirty and bruised, a trickle
and merit upon the Instrumen- hour; as animals, they were al- added one word, as though he of blood running down her left
tality for two hundred and more ready outside the regulations. had already begun to think that cheek. Even now, we know she
years. But on the case of Joan he had to justify himself to these is a rat, an underperson, a modi-
we know all about that underpeople. “Orders,” he added. fied animal, a nothing. And yet
she had nothing to say.
The trial is therefore a scene A h,
now, and yet know nothing. “It doesn’t matter if I hold
them, soldier. I’m their mother.
we, even we across the centuries,
feel that she had somehow be-
about which we know everything Dying is simple, though we tend
— and nothing. to hide it away. The how of dy- They’ll feel better if they die come more of a person than we
—
We think that we know the ing is a minor scientific matter; easily with their mother near. I are that she dies human and
physical facts of the life of D’joan the when of dying is a problem love you, soldier. I love all peo- fulfilled. We
know that she has
ple. You are my brother, even triumphed over death: we have
who became Joan. We know to each of us, whether he lives on
about the Lady Pane Ashash who the old-fashioned 400-year-life though my blood is rat blood and not.
whispered endlessly to the under- planets or on the radical new yours is human. Go ahead and We see the soldier looking
people about a justice yet to ones where the freedoms of dis- kill them soldier. I can’t even straight at her with eerie horror,
hurt you. Can’t you imderstand as though her simple love, were
come. We know the whole life ease and accident have been re-
introduced; the why of it is still it? I love you, soldier. We share a some unfathomable device from
of the unfortunate Elaine and of
her involvement with the case. as shocking to us as it was to common speech, common hopes, an alien source.
We know that there were in pre-atomic man, who used to common fears, and a common We hear her next words on the
those centuries, when underpeo- cover farmland with the boxed death. That what Joan has
is tape:
ple first developed, many war- bodies of his dead. These under- taught us all. Death is not bad, “Soldier, I love all of you —
rens in which illegal underpeople people died as no animals had soldier. It just comes badly, His weapon could have killed
used their near-human wits, their ever died before. Jo5dully. sometimes, but you will remem- her in a fraction of a second, if
animal cunning and their gift of One mother held her children ber me after you have killed me he had used it properly. But he
speech to survive even when up for the soldier to kill them and my babies. You will remem- didn’t. He clubbed and
mankind had declared them sur- alL ber that I love you now — as though his heat-remover
it hit her,
had
meet in the excitement of battle. man. There is no death. Not for dier could not use pellets or heat-
been a wooden club and himself
All the underpeople died that love. Ho, ho, ho, poor fellow, reducers on him without hurting
a wild man instead of part of the
guard of Kalma. way. Most of them died smiling, don’t be afraid of me. Shoot! an actual human being. He ran
elite
You’re the unlucky one. You’re and jumped and dodc,ad,
We know what happens then. saying the word “love” or the fight-
name “Joan.” going to live. And remember. ing passively but desperately for
She falls under his blows. She
points. Points straight at Joan, The bear-man Orson had been And remember. And remember. his life.
wrapped in fire and smoke. kept to the very end. I’ve made you human, fellow.” At last one of the spectators —
The rat-woman screams one He died very oddly. He died The soldier croaks, “What did
you say?”
a tall man with a silver hat —
last time, screams into the lens laughing. tripped him up. The fox-boy fell
The his pellet- “I’m saving you, man. I’m to the pavement, skinning his
of the robot camera as though soldier lifted
thrower and aimed straight at turning you into a real human palms and knees.
she were talking not to the sol- it Just as he
forehead. The pellets being. With the power of Joan. looked up to see who might be
dier but to all mankind: Orson’s
“You can’t kill her. You can’t were 22 millimeters in diameter The power of love. Poor guy! go coming at him, a bullet caught
kill love. I love you, soldier, and had a muzzle velocity of ahead and shoot me if it makes him neatly in the head. He fell
love you. You can’t kill that. only 125 meters per second. In you uncomfortable to wait. You’ll a little way forward, dead.
Remember — that manner, they could stop do it anyhow.” People die. We know how they
recalcitrant robots or evil under- This time we do not see the die. We
have seen them die shy
His last blow catches her in
people, without any risk of pene- soldier’s face, but the tightness of and quiet in the Dying Houses.
the face.
trating buildings and hurting the his back and neck betray his own We have seen others go into the
She falls back on the pave-
true people who might be inside, internal stress.
ment. He thrusts his foot, as we 400-year-rooms, which have no
can see by the tape, directly on out of sight. We see the big broad bear face door-knobs and no cameras on
Orson looks, on the tape the blossom forth in an immense the inside. We have seen pic-
her throat. He leaps forward in
robots made, as though he knows splash of red as the soft heavy tures of many dying in natural
an odd bringing his full
little jig,
weight down on her fragile neck. perfectly well what the weapon pellet plow into it. disasters, where the robot crews
He swings while stamping down- is. (He probably did. Underpeo- Then the camera turns to took picture-tap^3 for the record
ward, and we then see his face, ple used to live with the danger something else. and the investigation later on.
full on in the camera. of a violent death hanging over A little boy, probably a fox, Death is not uncommon, and it
It is the face of a weeping them from birth until removal.) but very finished in his human is very unpleasant.
He shows no fear of it. in the shape. But
child, bewildered by hurt and this time, death itself was
shocked by the prospect of more pictures we have; he begins to He was bigger than a baby,
but not big enough, like the
different. All the fear of death —
hurt to come. laugh. His laughter is warm, gen- except for the one little fox-boy,
He had started to do his duty, erous, relaxed —
like the friendly larger underchildren, to have un- too young to understand and too
laughter of a happy foster-father derstood the deathless import- old to wait for death in his moth-
and duty had gone wrong, all
wrong. who has found a guilty and em- ance of Joan’s teaching. er’s arms —
had gone out of the
barrassed child, knowing full well He was the only one of the underpeople. They met death
group who behaved like an or-
poor man. He must have been that the child expects punish- willingly, with love and calm-
ment but will not get it. dinary underperson. He broke ness in their bodies, their voices,
one of the first men in the
“Shoot, man. You can’t kill
and ran. theirdemeanor. It did not mat-
new worlds who tried to use
weapons against love. Love is a me, man. I’m in your mind. I He was clever: He ran among ter whether they lived long
the spectators, so that the sol- enough to know what happened
sour and powerful ingredient to love you. Joan taxxght us. Listen
Crawlie, with her pride, had very difficult to copy when they
whole story of
had no idea that they were going J protesting, dog-like wail, us-
missed it all.
tried to put the to miss the greatest atrocity in ing the off-key plainsong which
The investigators later found Joan and Elaine into a single about which a thousand
history, the underpeople had sung just
the body of Crawlie in the cor- drama. (In fact, he had no more I
and more grand operas would be before their hour of decision
ridor. It was possible to recon- idea that future ages would be written. when they left the Brown and
studying his casual appearance
}
struct who she had been and Femtiosex then moved to the Yellow Corridor. Her words were
what had happened to her. The than did the others. The whole j
L
the stink of burning meat before. The Lord Femtiosex became “Now!” whispered the Hunter. She opened her eyes for a last
Joan gasped. aware of the man and of what He began to hunt the Lord Fem- time, opened her mouth, sucked
In the ensuing seconds of sil- he was yelling. He came out of tiosex as sharply as he had ever in the raw flame and slumped
ence, Elaine heard something his deep concentration and said, sought thealien, native minds of forward. The soldier, who had
she had never expected to hear mildly for so wild a time: Fomalhaut III. kept his nerve while his clothing
before — the
weeping of grown “What do you mean?” The crowd could not tell what and body burned, ran out of the
human beings. Men and women “This is a crazy show. There had happened to the Lord Fem- fire, afire himself, toward his
stood there sobbing and not is no girl here. No fire. Nothing. tiosex. Had he turned coward? squad. A shot stopped him and
knowing why they sobbed. You are hallucinating the whole Had he gone mad? (Actually, the he pitched flat forward.
Femtiosex loomed over the lot of us for some horrible reason Hunter, by using every gram of The weeping of the people was
crowd, obsessed by the failure erf of your own, and I’m challeng- the power of his mind, had mo- audible throughout the streets.
his demonstration. He did not ing you for it, you animal, you mentarily taken Femtiosex court- Underpeople, tame and licensed
know that the Hunter, with a fool, you coward.” ing in the skies; he and Femtio- ones, stood shamelessly among
thousand kills behind him, was sex were both male bird-like them and wept too.
committing the legal outrage of n normal times even a Lord beasts, singing wildly for the The Lord Femtiosex turned
peeping the mind of a Chief of I had to accept a challenge or beautiful female who lay hidden wearily back to his colleagues.
the Instrumentality. adjust the matter with clear talk, in the landscape far, far below.) The face of Lady Goroke was
The Hunter whispered to This was no normal time. Joan was free, and she knew a sculptxired, frozen caricature of
Elaine, “In a minute I’ll try it. The Lord Femtiosex said, “All she was free. sorrow.
She deserves something better this is real. I deceive no one.” She sent out her message. It He turned to the Lady Arabel-
than that . “If it’sJoan, I’m with
real, knocked both Hunter and Fem- la Underwood. “I seem to have
Elaine did not ask what. She you!” shrieked the young sold- tiosex out of thinking; it flooded done something wrong, my lady.
too was weeping. ier. He jumped in front of the jet Elaine;- it made even Fisi,the Take over, please.”
The whole crowd became aware of oil before the other soldiers Chief of Birds, breathe quietly. The Lady Arabella stood up.
that a soldier was calling. It took could turn it off and then he She called so loudly that within She called to Fisi, “Put out that
them several seconds to look leapt into the fire beside Joan. the hour messages were pouring fire.”
away from the burning, dying Her hair had burned away but in from the other cities to Kalma, She looked out over the crowd.
Joan. her features were still clear. She asking what had happened. She Her hard, honest Norstrilian fea-
The was an ordinary
soldier had stopped the doglike whining thought a single message, not tures were unreadable. Elaine,
one. Perhaps he was the one who shriek. Femtiosex had been in- words. But in words it came to watching her, shivered at the
had been unable to tie Joan with terrupted. She gave the soldier, this: thought of a whole planet full of
bonds a few minutes ago, when who had begun to burn as he “Loved ones, you kill me. This people as tough, obstinate and
the Lords decreed that she be stood voluntarily beside her, the is my
fate. I bring love, and love clever as these.
taken into custody. smiles. Then she frowned, the must die to live on. Love asks “It’s over,” said the Lady Ara-
He was shouting now, shouting gentlest and most feminine of nothing, does nothing. Love bella. “People,go away. Robots,
frantically and wildly, shaking smiles. Then she frowned, as thinks nothing. Love is knowing clean up. Underpeople, to your
his fist at the Lord Femtiosex. though there were something yourself and knowing all other jobs.”
“You’re a liar, you’re a cow- which she should remember to people and things. Know — and She looked at Elaine and the
ard, you’re a fool, and I chal- do, despite the pain and terror rejoice. I die for all of you now, Himter. “I know who you are
lenge you—” which surrounded her. dear ones —” and I suspect what you have
76
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 77
The Lady Goroke already and why. And he, or his son, or better. Joan did say, “It’s the
been doing. Soldiers, take them
his son will bring justice back in- mission of life always to look for
away.” there ... It became a nightmare
the world and solve the puzzle something better than itself, and
The body of Joan was fire- in the weeks that followed. She to
had gotten over her grief and of the underpeople. What do you then to try to trade life itself for
blackened. The face did not look
think of that? On second thought, meaning.”
particularly human any more; was conducting an inquiry into
don’t think. It’s none of your At last, the Lady Goroke called
the last burst of fire had caught the case of Elaine and D’joan.
her in the nose and eyes. Her The Lady Goroke already business, and I am going to do it them in and said, “Good-by, you
an5nvay.” two. It’s foolish, saying good-by,
young, girlish breasts showed there . . . She was waiting when
Her image, or perhaps
They stared at her sympathet- when an hour from now you will
with heart-wrenching immodesty they slept.
ically, but they were too wound remember neither me nor Joan.
that she had been young and herself, sat in on all the endless
female once. Now she was dead, interrogations. She was particul- up in the problems of their own You’ve finished your work here.
just dead. arly interested in the chance
survival to extend her much I’ve set up a lovely job for you.
sympathy or advice. The body of You won’t have to live in a city.
The soldierswould have meeting of the dead lady Pane
Ashash, the misplaced witch Joan had been pulverized and You will be weather-watchers,
shoveled her into a box if she had
non-adjusted blown into the air, because the roaming the hills and watching
been an imderperson. Instead, Elaine, and the
man, the Hunter. Lady Goroke was afraid that the for all the little changes which
they paid her the honors of war
underpeople would make a good- the machines can’t interpret fast
that they would have given to The Lady Goroke already
She asked them every- vlace out of it; she felt that way enough. You will have whole life-
one of their own comrades or to there . . .
herself, and she knew that if she times of marching and picknick-
an important civilian in time of thing, but she told them noth-
herself were tempted, the under- ing and camping together. I’ve
disaster. They unslung a litter, ing.
people would be even more told the technicians to be very
put the blackened body on
little Except for once.
tempted. careful, because you two are very
it and covered the body with Once she burst out, violently
Elaine never knew what hap- much in love with each other.
their own flag. No one had told personal after endless hours of
them to do so. formal, official work, “Your
pened to the bodies of all the When they re-route your synap-
other people who had turned ses, I want that love to be there
minds will be cleansed when we
themselves, under Joan’s leader- with you.”
\ s their own soldier led them get through, so it wouldn’t matter
ship, from animals into mankind, They each knelt and kissed her
up the road toward the how much else you know. Do
and who had followed the wild, hand. They never wittingly saw
Waterrock, where the houses and you know that this has hurt me
offices of the military were lo- — me! —
all the way to the
foolish march out of the Tunnel
of Englok into the Upper City of
her again. In later years they
sometimes saw a fashionable
cated, Elaine saw that he too depths of .everything I believe
Kalma. Was it really wild? Was ornithopter soaring gently ovei'
had been crying. in?”
it reallyfoolish? If they had theircamp, with an elegant wom-
She started to ask him what They shook their heads.
stayed where they were, they an peering out of the side of it;
he thought of it, but Hunter “I’m going to have a child,
might have had a few days or they had no memories to know
stopped her with a shake of the and I’m going back to Manhome
months or years of life, but soon- that it was the Lady Goroke, re-
head. He later told her that the to have it. And I’m going to do
er or later the robots would have covered from madness, watching
soldier might be punished for the genetic coding myself. I’m go-
found them and they would have over them.
talking with them. ing to call him Jestocost. That’s
been exterminated like the ver-
When they got to the office, one of the Ancient Tongues, the
they found the lady Goroke al-
ready there.
Paroskii one, for ‘cruelty,’ to re-
mind him where he comes from.
min which they were. Perhaps
the death they had chosen was T heir
life.
new life was their final
80 GALAXY 81
trilobite died under circumstan- Recherches sar les ossemens tos-
ces which made it possible for it siles, or in English, Researches DEPTH IN FEET BELOW
to become a fossil. The second on Fossil Bones. It appeared in
accident was that the fossil was Cu-
1824, only eight years before
found. And the third was that it vier’s death. Cuvier had done
was foimd by somebody who wonders with the scant material
recognized it for what it was.” he had at his disposal and it
The whole discussion had was only natural that he noticed
started with the chance remark that among his fossils there,
that we don’t know yet whether fishesand amphibians, reptiles
the human race originated in and mammals, crustaceans and
Asia or in Africa. The fossil finds, worms, but that fossils of humans
I had said, are inconclusive so were conspicuous by their ab-
far, mainly because there are so sence. Man, Cuvier reasoned,
few of them. Of course, it would must have been a late arrival on
have been appropriate if I could earth. The Bible, he pointed out,
have handed my visitor a fossil also said that Man had been No. 1 The cliff of the Neanderthal Valley before became
It a limestone
human skull to illustrate my created last. Hence Man had not quarry.
point. I couldn’t do that because been present when the other crea- Baron von Schlotheim had re- stone which was not only big but
there are so few of them, and tures became fossils and for that ported the same situation from easily accessible. Near the small
for that reason they are where reason it was actually useless to a place near Gera in Central Ger- city of Mettmann in western Ger-
they belong, in museums and in look for human fossils. As Cuvier many some time earlier (in 1820) many a river, the Dussel, had
university collections. Only about put it: Thomme fossil n' exists he probably had the same ex- cut
a century ago no museum any- pas — “fossil man does not ex- planation for both cases. Early
itselfa deep and narrow can-
yon into soft limestone. The gorge
where had a human fossil. As a ist.” settlershad buried their dead in even had a name. Three centur-
matter of fact no director of a Just one year after Cuvier’s the debris covering cave floors — ies earlier a man by the name of
museum would have expected to death a Belgian paleontologist and the human bones had there- Toachim Neumann had fallen in
see one. by the name of Schmerling fin- by in death acquired companions love with the romantic beauty of
And that brings me to my ished a voluminous work with they had never known when the gorge and had visited it again
story. the title. Account of the fossil alive. and again. Since he became fa-
bones found in caves in the Prov- For more than three decades mous as the author of Christian
paleontology, the science of fos- ince of Lieie. In it he pointed nothing happened to disturb hymns which he wrote under the
^ sils and extinct life forms, out that he had found human re- these assximptions. If people did name of Joachim Neander, the
is one of the sciences that were mains in the same layers as not insist on building stone canyon was named in his honor
found essentially by one man. bones of cave bears, mammoths houses there might have been an- after his death. It was named
He was Georges Leopold, Baron and so forth, so that it seemed other three or four decades of Neander Valley, or in German,
Cuvier, a French naturalist, born logical to assume that they had peace and quiet. But people Neanderthal.
at Montb^liard in 1769; and the lived during the same period. build,and one of the things they
work which became the foxmda- If anybody who read Schmer- need for building is limestone. Tt was in 1856 that the limestone
tion of the new science was his ling’s work remembered that the There was one source of lime- cliffs that formed the walls
82 GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORAAAUON
83
canyon became a quarry. He noted that the whole skull guessed that it might be a Cos-
of the
knew that there was shallow with a receding fore- sack who had taken part in the
Local people
were several natural caves in the head. He considered the femurs final campaign against Napoleon.
face of the cliff. They had even to be unusually heavy and—
concluded that he looked at the Enter now Dr. Rudolf Virchow,
been given separate names. Two
remains of a more primitive type professor of pathology, having
neighboring caves were called,
man. been appointed director of the
nobody knows why, the Churches of
In a lecture he delivered soon Pathological Institute in Berlin
of Feldhof.
afterwards (it was printed with during the same year workers
The workmen began their task
and some delay in 1859), he said so. began cleaning out the caves of
by cleaning out the caves,
But while Fuhlrott could con- the Neanderthal.
just dumped the loose debris
down the cliff to the bottom of sider himself a naturalist he knew Since what I have to report
No. 2. Skull of a Neanderthal man
the valley, some 70 feet below. that his knowledge of anatomy about Virchow will sound as if he (old male) from La Chapello'
While cleaning out the smaller was restricted. But he also knew had not been too bright, I must auX'Saints, France. In the original
of the two “churches” they found that Professor Schaaffhausen of say first that he was justly fa- skull from the Neander Valley
only the portions above the line
bones and felt obligated to re- the University of Bonn an ex- mous as a medical researcher. He A — A were preserved.
port the fact to the owner of the pert in human anatomy was in- reformed the sanitation system To Virchow the remains from
quarry. terested in new discoveries. of Berlin, and he (somewhat un- the Neanderthal were just one
The owner suspected that this He sent the bones to Schaaff- usually) was also very active
more case of what he had been
might be important. Since the hausen, who examined and meas- politically. For years he was the
observing for years. He did not
cave had been all cleaned out by ured them with utmost care and leader of the Progressive Party
guess at nationality or tribe. All
the time he arrived, he ordered published a report in 1858, stat- of Prussia and was even elected
he could say that this man had
that the dumped material be ing that he agreed with Fuhlrott; a member of the Reichstag on
been sick all his life. One could
carefully searched. this was an individual with the Liberal Party slate. But he
see the marks of his fonner suf-
Then he handed all the recov- strangely primitive characteris- had limitations. He had carefully fering clearly.
ered bones to the locally famous tics. Being a careful man, investigated the tubercles in hu-
To begin with, this individual
Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a high Schaaffhausen did not attempt to man lungs and written an excel-
happened to be born with an un-
determine its age, saying that he lent description in a highly liter-
school teacher, with the remark usually long skull and greatly
that these seemed to be bones of hoped that further discoveries ary style. But when it was sug-
reduced sinus cavities. In his
the cave bear of which he had would provide definite clues. gested to him that these tuber-
early childhood he had suffered
For a while Fuhlroot and cles might be caused by a micro-
heard so much. Fuhlrott saw im- severely from rachitis. But some-
mediately that the remains were Schaaffhausen stood alone. A Dr. organism he had nothing but how he got over it and grew to
human consisting of the two up- PrunerBey in Paris said that sarcasm for the little country manhood, probably to be a war-
per arm bones fragments of other these were probably just the re- doctor who advanced this non- rior since some minor thickenings
arm bones both femurs a frag- mains of an old Celt who had sensical idea. (The little country might be due to battle injuries.
ment of the pelvis and the top of died during a tribal migration. doctor later became a famous However, the main features of
the skull —the latter was one of Professor Andreas Wagner in bacteriologist. His name was the skull which had misled Fuhl-
the bones that had been dumped. Gottingen considered it more Robert Koch, and in Sweden rott (only a high school teacher,
Fuhlrott looked at the heavy likely that they were the bones they awarded him a Nobel Prize
after all) and Schaaffhausen (a
bony ridges over the eye sockets. of a Dutch sailor, while others for medicine.)
fine anatomist but not a path-
84 GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION 85
one specimen had belonged to a
sickly individual.
had been foimd earlier in France cepted — maybe somebody
— in a place named Le Moustier
In the meantime — in 1864 and had been provisionally lab-
would find a
many
still
scientists
But
older form.
were willing to go
at least definite proof that Man elled the Moust6rian Culture. along with the suggestion Homo
and extinct mammals had been We now know that it is typical diluvianus. The geological period
contemporaneous had been for the Neanderthalers. But we preceding the present period was
found. also know that Lartet’s mam- then generally called Diluvium,
Jacques Boucher de Cr6ve- moth drawings belongs
No. 3 Plihecanfbropus erecfus. Skull No. to a later so that the name was suggestive
coeur de Perthes had for some time, the
1 from Trinil Magdalenien, which of the time. (Now the geological
had been produced by years asserted that the stone arti- was not “Neanderthal”.
ologist) present is called the “holocene”
arthiitis deformans and old age.
facts he had found had been Other finds followed. Then and the preceding period, for
The outer layers of the skull had weapons used by primitive man some began to feel that
scientists which “Ice Age” is another syn-
to hunt mammoths. But while name
been reduced as a result of old the given by professor onym, goes under the name of
these shaped stones, which might King was too specific. One of the
age and new layers had formed “pleistocene.”)
easily have been spearpoints, did suggestions made was Homo
on the inside with ossification of As for the still older form it
exist, who could say what had
enclosing the brain. primigenius (or Homo primo-
the skin
What was left of the arms been hunted with them? —if
genitus') but by then everybody
already had a name. Professor
Ernst Haeckel, reasoning that at
showed signs of severe arthritis. they had been hunting weapons was careful. Since the name one time a form halfway between
Schaaffhausen; and at all. (And one could always means
So said “first”man it was not ac- ape and man must have existed,
point out that Boucher de Per-
all this was not advanced as a
thes had written tragedies for
possibility, or even a probability.
the stage, novels for amusement
It was preceded by the sentence:
“We can conclude with absolute and diplomatic notes for decep-
certainty —” tion. In short, that he had en-
the “upright apeman”. not. They did not deny that an near Tulin in Austria.
Now we know much more, but thal man, but with less pro- that theory, the Neanderthal (B) Homo erectus, with a
aren’t so sure any more. nounced special features. Some type originated in eastern Asia brain capacity of 775 to 1200
the one hand we have
On researchers have assumed that and performed a westward mi- cc;
they are hybrid forms. But it is gration to Europe rather late in (C) Homosapiens, with a
more reason to think that Pithe-
canthropus was ancestral to just as possible that they are an their history. But no decision on brain capacity of over 1200 cc.
Neanderthal man. On the other older and not yet so specialized whether thistheory or rival This sorting scheme puts
hand there is a great deal of form of Neanderthalers. theories are correct can be made Pithecanthropus into the Homo
i
I doubt whether Neanderthal man The history of the discoveries at the moment. erectus group, but puts the late
is ancestral to us. of human fossils since Dubois European neanderthalers (a s
unearthed Pithecanthropus Cince the question of who is well as the neanderthaler from
I
T et me take the latter prob- would make a very long article ~ ancestral to whom cannot yet Rhodesia) into the Homo sapi-
lem first, only because I
if by but at this point we
itself, be decided, researchers have sort- ens group. To repeat, this is
I
sometimes encountered a sur- need only the most pronounced ed all human fossils into three essentially a method of sorting,
prised reaction when I say so. highlights. In 1929 Dr. Davidson groups, once more using brain and does not necessarily indicate
I
How could Neanderthal man Black discovered skulls near volume as the criterion. They actual relationships. To clear
! not be ancestral, since he was Peking which were subsequently distinguish that question up we need many
around a long time earlier? I labelled Sinanthropus pekinensts, (A) the australopithecines, more of the “triple accidents.”
think that a comparison with with a brain capacity higher with a brain capacity .of 450 to
dog-breeding will illustrate the than that of Pithecanthropus but 700 cc; — WILLY LEY
E>oint. The animal which was to still less than Neanderthal.
become the domesticated dog More specimens of Pithecant-
was probably a small jackal-like thropus were added from San-
form. Slowly it was bred larger giran (Java) by Dr. G. H. R. von
Koenigswald. A very large Nean-
into forms somewhat resembling
today’s greyhound, though smal- derthal man turned up in Rhode-
sia, Africa. And southern Africa
FORECAST
ler. Then (this is just an example,
not dog-breeding history) let us added a whole series of small
say that breeders produced the forerunners of Man which are A couple of years ago Gordon R. Dickson wrote a novel called The
English bulldog, a dog of speci- collectively called the australo- Genetic General —
its title as a serial was Dorsal! —
which added a good
bit to his already very high stature as one of science-fiction's best-liked and
alized shape. Much later other pithecines. (The word has noth-
most prolific authors. Ever since we've been after him to tell us more of
ing do with the Australian
I
breeders went after another shape
of dog, say a poodle.
to
continent, it merely means
his strange and wonderful words of the future — the Dorsal and the
I
Friendlies, the parts of humanity that have given themselves to the stars
I
But they would start with the “southern monkeys”.) and ore now coming together again in a brilliant synthesis of divergent
! original stock, not with the speci- One theory has it that our heredities . . and the man has finally come through for us. The title is
,
alized bulldog. own ancestors originated in Soldier, Ask Not; it's a short novel; it's complete in the next issue of Galaxy.
Neanderthal man would cor-
respond to the bulldog of this ex-
Africa and migrated northward
to Europe to turn into early
Inthe saime issue —
The Children of Night (scheduled for this issue,
but squeezed out to make room for Wyman Guin's timely and delightful
ample, an early and specialized Europeans. Those who
stayed on a new Philip
return), K. Dick story, Willy Ley's fine column . . . and much
offshoot. Some skulls have been Africa were the ancestors of the more. See you then!
found that look like Neander- Africans of today. According to
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
92
You thinking something you that you mustn’t see the sun guments. This third deck of the dealing with error than were hu-
shouldn’t do?” through a pane of glass. Now you bus was full of men, mostly in mans. Dunshinnan had been con-
“It’s nothing.” wouldn’t count your specs as a working one - pieces, haggling structed with its base a meter
“You worrying about seeing pane of glass would you, so over little things. Well, you took lower than the main city and
the sun through glass? You don’t you’re okay.” your choice: you haggled over with a gulf of a hundred and
have to. You’re wearing your Old Sam Hedging dug his son little things, or you kept quiet. thirty meters separating the two
spectacles —
that makes two lots hard in the ribs, and with a There did not seem to be any sections. It was a large error;
of glass. The superstition says downward droop to his mouth other alternatives. but bridges were built to span
you only die if you see the sun indicated he was to say as little the gulf, no harm was done —
through one bit of glass.” as possible. He then turned to rr^hey were passing over and every morning Robin got
“That means I’m going to die, look at the intruder. Dunshinnan Bridge now. his stomach-wrenching view of
Father. I opened the window Ovine was a sad baggy man Robin braced himself. As the midnight.
and saw it through my spectacles with a square face on which the great lighted palace of the bus The first stop over the bridge
alone.” Robin spoke with as patina of old eczema papules was trundled forward at its statutory was where the Hedgings and
much of a sneer as he could mus- partly concealed below a strag- twenty miles an hotir, he looked Ovine and one or two others —
ter, but a pang tore at his heart. gling moustache. His one-piece down into the canyon. Yes, night the pallid Farven, the choleric
He had not thought enough. But suit was new, and of course
sharp blue. Both Hedgings dread-
was still down there, impervious Claysbank —
got off. They
he’d seen the sun through one to the lights on the bridge, night climbed down onto the walk, old
thickness of glass before and not ed his presence, on the bus and the ancestral earth. He Sam Hedgings and Ovine still
died .Only maybe then there’d
. .
or in the Distributive Point, but thought he saw something white joined in grumbling talk. It was
been some extenuating circum- were afraid to say so. crawl down there —
but it would not far to the edge of the Dun-
stances Maybe he’d seen a ro-
. . .
“What are spectacles if they have been a sheet of paper if it shinnan, but high walls prevent-
bot before seven . . aren’t panes of glass?” Sam was anything. ed one looking over. At first, be-
His father’s pouchy face shook. asked. Though the population was fore the walls had been erected,
“You’re a careless young fool, “I’m only trjdng to help the held steady now, the government people had thrown themselves
Robin. You’ll cost me my job boy.” had deemed it necessary to ex- over the railings into the drop.
yet.” “Well, I’m asking you, O, what pand the city. That had been There was still a mystique about
“You know what happens to are spectacles if they aren’t over four — or was it five? — it. Particularly on Kennedy and
people who voice their greatest panes of glass?” centuries ago, but Robin had Vareller Days, dedicated parties
fear?” “I suppose you’re right.”
urbography during his
studied would scale the walls and sacri-
That was a remark to provide Ovine turned his face away, and year at school. He still recalled fice themselves over the drop.
a row in any company, but a then, struck by a sudden some of the details. You heard about it in whispers.
man sitting behind the Hedgings thought, said, “But in that case The new Dimshinnan,
sector, Robin checked himself at Dis-
leaned forward and tapped Rob- they are two panes of glass, so had been built up on piles to tributive Point D
2’s door. Far-
in on the shoulder. your son’s all right.”
“Don’t mind me butting in, “I’m the best judge of that — join the rest of the city. But an
error had’ been made. Always
ven laid a hand on his arm.
“You’re dreaming again,
young H, but I could hear what Robin tried not to listen to the
there were errors, in govern- young H,” he said, smiling with
you and your dad were saying. I argument. He liked the journey
ment, in engineering, in life. One a nervy twitch. “F’s go before
don’t think you’ve got anything to work, but these older men al- understood that. The cybos and H’s under a threshold, or they
to worry about. The saying is ways spoilt it with their tiny ar- robos were no more effective at used to when I was a boy.”
94 GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 95
Robin apologized and stepped As always, the answer was neg. hands, stacking the cans with its The whole city was humming
back. The little group went in ative. auxiliary hands so that they with activity. It was the same
in alphabetical order, those who stood separately on the conveyor sort of activity,did Robin but
knew their alphabet helping the ^^he Hedgings climbed into belt behind it and were carried know it, that characterized
others. This was an important their gallery; already the one by one into the distance. a chicken’s rushing around
juncture, the beginning of work, first deliveries of goods were ar- In response to the an- when its head is cut off. The me-
when obviously one had to be riving. Claysbank waddled nouncement, Sam shifted a bead chanical business of city
careful. Demons were most ac- round, switching on the auxil- along a thin wire. Supervisor life ground on, mindlessly.
tive in the early morning. iary robos. The first one he ac- would be keeping exact de- No conscious government was
The lights came on in D 2. Su- tivated rolled behind him, clat- the entry; Sam’s was just
tails of left. Men capable of governing
pervisor stood there awaiting tering to itself as it checked the a rough double-check. died or were killed or shot them-
the men. He was the only cybo output of its fellows, recharging “Grocery consignment Two. selves or escaped centuries ago.
who remained switched on dur- them from its own power sup- DP D2. Five hundred twenty- The machinery of government
ing the night, a large and immo- plies if necessary. As more and eight twenty-ounce cans mary- ground on with no human hand
bilebulk of a machine. His sides more machines came alive, the cake pudding, two hundred nine to steer it. In the steel palm of
and the containers on his sides hall filled with noise and light ten-ounce cans marycake pud- the city, life crawled thought-
had become plastered with no- For Robin, it was a cheering ding.” lessly, and obeyed the laws
of a
tices, waybills, delivery slips and noise. This was life. No ill- “Milk consignment. DP D2. metal jungle. A million witless
chalked figures. It was consid- omens; everything working with Two hundred nine-ounce con- robos kept the system going, and
ered unlucky to remove these as much efficiency as could be tainers Grade A milk. Six hun- each year became a little more
until Renovation Day. humanly expected. He fol- dred sixty-two eighteen-ounce entangled with the system.
“Come in, humans. Equality lowed his father into their little containers Grade A milk. Three From his vantage point,
and happiness in your day’s hut up on the catwalk. Already hundred ninety-three twenty- Sam saw the newscart trundle in.
w-w-work.” they had a light on their switch- eight-ounce containers Grade A It was a red vehicle with auto
Supervisor had developed board. It was a sign of plenty. milk.” tracks on either side, and very
a slight stammer with his w*s. The spirits were harmless. Laconically Sam moved two noticeable among the subdued
Farven, the mech, was unable to Old Hedging acknowledged more beads across the wire. colors of the other vehicles.
remedy it; when the robomech the signal, settling himself down Business was warming up. More “I’m going down onto the
arrived on his bi-monthly in- into their battered chair as he robotrucks were arriving with floor, Robin. Do you think you
spection of the point, he would did so. more of the day’s supplies for can manage?”
repair it. “Grocery consignment One. Dvmshinnan Second District. “Of course. Father. Luck!”
Robin followed his father up DP D2. One thousand two hun- They called their orders method- “And you, boy.”
to Supervisor. They asked the dred sixty-five nine-ounce cans ically as they entered. The auto- They both circled them-
traditional question, “ Is there marrow soup.” matic cop jockeyed them into selves with inpointing forefin-
any special w-w-work you re- Down on the floor, they could place, his hand-sized fliers lead- gers, and Sam moved along the
quire of us today?” It was reck- see the robotruck that had an- ing them to allotted bays, where catwalk and down to the floor.
oned judicious to imitate the nounced had drawn in
itself. It they were unloaded. The big hall Moving carefully so as not to
speech of Supervisor, thus gath- to the first bay, where one of the was humming and stutter- touch any of the robos with —
ering for oneself some of his point’s loaders hauled off its ing with the activity of robots good reason, for it was consid-
power. freight with padded metal and humans. ered a sign of forthcoming in-
house that missed out each time. swept into the metal maws of the lets between them. The printed caught Ovine looking at him.
cleaners; much of it was perfect- circuits lay on the floor in a scat- “Are you wanting to speak to
II ly good food and such like, ter of glass. The misfortime had me?”, he asked.
which had tumbled off the con- been handed back to its instiga- —
“No er, no, young H. I was
utting the tablets in his veyor and could still be used. tor. merely thinking how busy we
P pocket, Hedging
old For some reason probably
— the
—
clean-
Although Ovine had been de- are today,” Ovine said, fingering
strolled to the far end of the a design flaw feated, Sam was unsettled by the his moustache. “I am not quite
bay. Always, if the day had be- ers found difficulty in distin- incident.He strolled round the used to the routine yet, being
gun well, he liked this little ex- guishing such articles from gen- floor, grumbling to the other new here.”
ercise, liked to see that every- uine trash. But Ovine could, so men, with whom Ovine was just “Where did you work before?”
thing was going smoothly, liked Ovine had a genuinely function- an unpleasant newcomer. Sooth- “I was on structure mainte-
to smell the sweet oil and warm al job, and was therefore regard- ed by the S3rmpathy he gained, nance.”
metal and the occasional tang of ed by supers like the Hedgings Sam retmned to the little cabin Robin had no desire to talk.
bad food, where something had and Farvan with suspicion and up in the roof. He moved away, and went along
GALAXY The beads were piling up on the other side. Farvenpopped
98
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 99
hundred such Services below busy feeding movements of the
out of a companionway and laid most. The steps wound down for four hundred such avenues, some arms and mouths there was a
a hand on his arm; Robin was a long way; there were also ele- longer, some shorter than this. symbol of some colossal and un-
none too fond of the way Far- vators, but only robos used them. The city proper, of course, was ending greed bigger than a hu-
ven clutched arms, but he greet- He emerged into what was a bigger proposition altogether. man greed.
ed the old man civilly enough. known as the Services. The Ser- From the roof appeared the The Services maintenance
“You don’t want to talk to that vices had one' overriding attrac- conveyor belt that had been trucks came round less frequent-
O too much, young H,” Farven tion for him. They were on the loaded in the distributive point ly than they should do (in fact
said, putting his pale nose up to- ground, the real ground, Robin had just left. It worked to some heretics whispered that the
wards Robin’s eyes, as if to peck the Earth, the territory he the lower level in steps, feeding city was slowly running to a
at them. “He’s got the evil eye. glimpsed when crossing Dun- its contents onto another and standstill). The arms and jaws
He upset your father not ten shinnan Bridge. It lay beyond synchronized belt that ran at eye developed minor eccentricities.
minutes ago. And see that mous- the concrete walls. level all along the Services. Cy- Some snatched too soon, some al-
tache on his face —
isn’t that a The Services formed a com- bocheckers fussed at this trouble most too late; many squeaked or
sign of Neg?” plex series of sub-roads, entirely point. Quick btlrsts of code whined as they did their task —
“You are being old-fash- enclosed, entirely lit by selumce. flashed up to Supervisor, squat- and at this time of day they were
ioned,” Robin protested. Robin was careful not to get in ting impeturbably somewhere kept busy. No. 634 had greedy
“Am I? Am I now? We shall the way of the purely automatic above. arms that snatched 632 ’s gro-
see. But remember this: tomor- traffic that moved by. Its reac- Chugging further, the slinker ceries as well as its own. No. 987
row night is Wellpurgers’ Night tionswere not always as fast as moved beneath the houses. Here regularly broke its fruit juice
. . , O may get his name burnt if they should be, which was why Robin felt less comfortable, al- jars. These foibles were known
he isn’t too careful.” everything was geared down to though the gloom they had en- to the robos, and allowed for
travel at no more than twenty tered held itsown kind of fear- where possible.
miles an hour. At twenty miles
R obin sucked in his breath.
Something cold tingled down an hour, human and robo reac-
maximum
ful pleasure. This was a region
of stretching hands, lit only by
T he clatter of falling goods
his back. He hated these old tions work at efficien- the EL of the bulkhead above. and the buzz of alarmed cy-
men with their relish of the rites; cy together. . As the eye-level belt rumbled bos came to Robin. He called to
A slinker with a large D2 down the ten-mile stretch, little the slinker to stop, jumped out
they seemed to see it less as a
grim necessity than as a pleas- painted on its side moved up photoelectric eyes winked secret and looked back down the som-
ure. and offered itself. Robin jumped signals to the bulkhead above. ber subway.
“He’s new. We
must try to into the small cab, grateful to be A load for House 549 signalled “City sprites, the main supply
make allowances,” he said, and out of the rancid wind that blew itself to House 549. As it rode belt has stopped!” he exclaimed.
moved off before Farven could down here. They chugged down beneath the house, autoarms The eye-level belt was still on
answer. The old man became the straight road that was D2. came down, scooping hands lift- the move. The belt coming down
garrulous and addressed you like That straight road ran for an ed the load, bore it up and into from above had lurched to a
a public meeting if he was upset. uncurving ten and a half miles. chute mouths that gaped open in halt. He heard men’s voices
Dodging an empty truck rat- Above it was the double row of the bulkhead. Circling himself, shouting, his father’s among
tling towards the exit, Robin dwellings, one thousand two Robin watched the process. He them.
climbed down the nearby com- hundred and sixty-five of them, had watched it for years. It nev- A figure appeared, running
panionway. This was the section that made the D2 Avenue. In er ceased to hold him. In the down the steps of the stopped
of the point that fascinated him Dunshinnan there were four
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 101
100
GALAXY
conveyor belt. It was Ovine. He One of the cybos had stepped when two robos hit each other,”
slipped among rolling cans, into the path of the running Sam said in a fearful imdertone.
threw up his hands and fell on- men, its arms spread. Claysbank “Some human has put them at
hit it across the shoulder. It lost cross purposes. Who’d do that
to the moving belt knees first.
He buckled and stayed there. its balance and fell. Something but Ovine? That’s why we de-
it sizzled and flashed. termined to have his blood. Oth-
Clattering feet sounded down inside
the companionway. The red- Robin stood before Ovine. He erwise the spirits might have had
faced Claysbank appeared, bran- had no weapon, but he could not ours.”
dishing a stick. Farven and Sam let the man be killed without go- “So we should have had him,”
Hedging were not far behind ing to his rescue. Gasping, Ovine agreed Farven from the seat in
him. Above their voices echoed picked himself up, half-hearted- front,“but for that sign of the
the voice of Supervisor, calling ly attempting to explain as he circle. What’s it mean? The
for order. stood behind Robin. Robin was powers of metal must be on
Although he knew they were not listening. For the attackers Ovine’s side.”
not after him, Robin felt alarm. had stopped. Beyond the cybo “They’re against us right
they stood, staring at its length, enough,” Robin agreed. “We’ve
These sudden persecutions were a
common; whether or not he was and at the smoke curling from it thousand man-hours in overtime
to do now, to make up
their victim, they scared him. the value
III of that cybo. You
As his pursuers arrived in the shouldn’t have
Services, Ovine pulled himself
knocked him down.”
way home,
up. The belt had carried him
some way towards where Robin
A ll the
Hedging talked
old
of the in-
from
tion, Farven
to ignore this asser-
said merely, “It’s
Wellpurging Night tomorrow. If
stood.He got onto his knees, and cident. The smoke issuing
above him mouths opened and the metal body had formed the Ovine is fool enough to show
his
mechanical hands reached down sign of the circle. He had seen face tomorrow, we must
have his
it, and the others thought they
blood.” His nose was as sharp
for him. Robin shouted. as
In that moment he was no had too. It must mean some- a dagger.
Power had heart as well as hands walking carelessly across the Avenue C378. They had some
of metal. floor, had got in the way of a way to walk down the pedes-
His scream acted as a warning robotruck. The truck had trian path to their home. The
to Ovine. The retriever looked swerved and bowled into anoth- city, large though it was, was vir-
Together, the
up in time. As the arms came er vehicle. tually without architecture. Ev-
down, he jumped. He landed al- two trucks had jammed into the erything had been spread out,
most at Robin’s feet. conveyor belt and stopped it. with several low buildings tak-
“Don’t let them get me I” “You know what it means ing the place of the large dty
102
GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 103
Hps; though he spoke to Gina, the city he thought a fire burned.
Their wants for the day had he knew his mother was listen- He desperately needed the com-
blocks that had been the fashion ing, and feared that she would
a score of centuries ago,
back in come up through the Services fort of Gina’s bed, but had not
construe something evil from his the courage
hatch and lay in the delivery to leave his tiny
the days of improperly mechan- to tale. Was some prohi-
there not cabin.
baskets. Robin shuddered
ized groimd cities. The central- bition about retelling bad events?
ization that created the need for think of what would have hap-
In the night, he had a vile work
big buildings, as well as traffic
pened to Ovine if the metal \t in the Distribu-
dream. People he knew took on
problems, had also been done hands had caught him and tried tive Point next morning,
two-foot- a sudden menace and closed in he remained ill at ease. The
away with. Civic centers had to force him into that
square hatch. Death was every-
on him. They extended steel omens had set against him.
been dispersed. The Ser-
He saw how necessary it claws at him. He fell through He told nobody, but he had
vices supply routes solved the
where.
the ground. He fell through seen a cloud like a cross in the
need for conven- was to propitiate it.
old pressing space. But space had a floor. On
He lost some of his unease as sky, and his spectacles had mist-
ient shopping centers. Govern- the floor stood his parents. He
he talked to Gina. She was beau- ed when he drank his morning
itself took place in fully
ment
automated hutments. There was tiful with her trim
black hair fell towards them. They opened beverage —a sure presenti-
that came almost to a peak
above their mouths. The inside of their ment that there were things hid-
no core to the city, only a logic mouths was pocked and rough- den from him, awaiting their
and a finite number of streets. her eyes; and her conversation,
guarded by formal- ened by eczema. As he fell, their time. Walking moodily about
home
The front wall of their
of col-
though
had an unusual qual- tongues — the floor, behind one of the un-
was adorned with a motif ity,
He woke. In the dark, an abys-
about that interested Rob- packing bays, he came across
ored geometrical designs, func- ity' it
felt she was mal rumble came. The rubbish Ovine’s vest.
in. Instinctively he
tional as well as decorative, for
“unsafe”, without knowing
quite hatch was emptying auto- Its sharp blue rendered it in-
the motif served as an addition-
what he meant by that. He He shied at
felt matically into the Services, stantly identifiable.
al means of identifying the
where would be collected in and looked about to see if
nothing but pleasure when
his it it,
house beside the number. It was morning. Throughout the
father moodily retired to
the sit- the anyone was watching.
said that no two houses in the and Dunshinnan, thou-
ting room and turned on
the iUi- city, John Ovine had not arrived
entire city bore the same
pat-
sands, millions, of hatches that morning. The men had
tern. Otherwise they
were all scop. .
sitting would be vomiting their muck cursed and demanded his address
alike.
bench down into the cavernous depths. of Supervisor. Supervisor had
together on the kitchen
The fact became part sent them stonily back to work.
when Mrs. Hedging arrived. She
of his
on the
T hey genuflected
threshold, waited until no- had won herself some reputation
as a hag, and spent much
of ev-
nightmare. He could hardly
struggle out of it.
The mood in the place was bad.
Even up in the cosy little hut on
body wearing a black suiting Stranded at last on the muddy the catwalk, which had been
ery day going among her
neigh-
was in sight, and went in. Robin shore of wakefulness, Robin handed down through four gen-
bours, counselling them. As
her
was glad to see that Gina Lom- wiped his brow and gulped for erations of Hedgings, ten-
popularity spread further afield,
•
bard was in. Since breath. He climbed from his sion reigned in every creak of
L, you are back her days became longer.
“Hello, bunk and peered out of the win- Sam’s swivel chair.
special
promptly.” They were not yet the morrow was to be a
supper dow. Robin plunged in his hand in-
familiar enough to call each day, she opened the
without a word. All was utterly quiet, utterly to the breast pocket of Ovine’s
other by their first initial.
Robin felt his account of what
dark — but somewhere across garment. He brought out a note-
“I was arranging your gro-
ceries. I hope you don’t mind.
happened at the DP die on his JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 105
GALAXY
104
book. He retired to the men’s His father held documents of was a super. It was no term of him. But the clerks talking
room to investigate it, making inheritance for the checking job, praise; it probably meant super- the seat behind him reminded
the sign of the circle over it. it was true. But the agreement fluous. him that captivity could not be
The notebook bore stamped was with the family, had been Though Robin was not a per- eluded by a bus ride. They were,
initials on its cover, GIB, and for over two centxuies. If the ceptive man, a vision came to talking about the Dark Thing
Distributive Point cancelled him. It came in the form of a that flew over the city on Well-
beneath it the words for which
the initials stood. Government the arrangement, there would be question: how long ago did the purging Night. He might have
Investigation Bureau. nothing they could do about it. present state of affairs crystal- been sitting with his workmates!
It fell from Robin’s hands. Who owned the DP? He didn’t lize? As they crawled over Dun-
Trembling, he picked it up know — the government pre- His education in the robo and shinnan Bridge, he looked down
again and leafed through it. sumably. But who was the gov- illiscop classeshad been of the and saw the earth far below. It
The contents were obscure, be- ernment? Who owned the Gov- most rudimentary during his was in shadow and no features
ing mainly in note form, or in ernment Investigation Bureau? year at school. He had no con- were discemable. On sudden im-
words that defied Robin’s simple Obviously, those same faceless cept of history, but after the pulse, Robin pulled Ovine’s
reading standards. But their in- people ... or powers. question came the reflection: notebook out of his pocket, fling-
tent was clear enough, even to His dream came back to him. things can’t always have been ing it wide of the bus.
him. Ovine had been watching The ground was opening be- like this. Fluttering like a tiny live
them for the government, and neath him sure enough. He did not know what a large thing, it fell below the level of
was making a report on them. mental step he had taken. the bridge. The parapet cut it
He had found all the supers re- IV First, he needed someone to from view.
dundant. Of the humans working talk to. He thought of the youths Alighting at C378, he became
in the Distributive Point, only
the functional job Ovine was
—
H e stuck
tive
it in the Distribu-
until midday. His fa-
and the other men only
I
he played football with once a
week; there was nobody there he
cared to confide in. He thought
suddenly cautious.
excitement
last perscMi
left
Some
him.
of his
aloud. The job was threatened. bar, he slipped out. caught a bus home. to run. People did not run. The
There were rumors about what Supervisor would not miss It was strange, moving round two women he passed kept their
happened to people who could h im or if he was missed would the town at this time of day; he eyes to themselves. He let him-
not find jobs, just as there was
,
glum tattle about what hap- never realized it till now — customed freedom that carried “Mother! L!” he called in a
pened to the aged who were tak- redundant, as the watching eyes him back to his early boyhood whisper, hearing his heart beat.
en into homes. of Ovine had quickly seen. He before civilization closed in on Something moved in the kitch-
circle, he went at a run into tential, poor lad, but a savage, bring himself to touch her. Sud- it slowly, his eyes on the GIB
Gina’s tiny cabin. just a savage.” denly strength came back to his building. He he
realized
He was making little uncouth chilled muscle fiber. He up and was lonely and frightened. He
t was better there. A faint sounds to himself, trying to take ran. had broken territorial tabus; he
I prurient interest strength- the shape of these new things. had committed matricide; if the
ened him when he opened her His first impulse was to escape V Dark Thing flew tonight, it
tiny closet and saw her dress but there was nowhere to es- would have a call for him.
cape to. So he had to go and con- n the way to the GIB ad- People were beginning to leave
there. He touched its fabric.
“Gina!” he said, but there was front Gina.
A dress, he argued with him- the building opposite. Robin
no answer. A sound came that was not self. She’d had no right to come grew more undecided. At last he
Mouth jerking open, he sneaking up to him like that. rose to go, and at that moment
She had so few possessions. In his.
her suitcase under the pink face turned. A terrible thing stood She should have taken that ter- he saw Gina in the street.
just inside the doorway, a thing rifying mask off, apeing the She was walking towards the
towel he came on the leather
notebook with the initials GIB with an idiot metal face and puissance of robos. His guilt re- GIB. Hurriedly, Robin removed
body of fur, tatty fur that ended mained, whatever he told him- his spectacles and mbbed them
stamped on the cover.
When he had uttered a few in human feet. self. on his shirt before taking anoth-
He screamed hate and fear at Yet he felt no love or regret. er look. It was Gina. Her head
broken noises, he opened it.
with all his lungs’ strength as His mother had always been was down, and she carried de-
Written inside was her name, it
and the address of the Govern- he flung himself upon it. He had aloof,wrapped in the mysteries pression in every line of her
the girl’s open suitcase held by of her hagdom. He might have sleek body. As she entered the
ment Investigation Bureau. He
had seen the same address in the handle. He struck the thing behaved foolishly, but he had modest door of the GIB, Robin
with the comer of it. had the sense to take a small crossed the road after her.
Ovine’s notebook, without tak-
ing it in. The thing shrieked and fell steak knife from the kitchen as In the doorway, a cluster of
Now the whole business was back, striking its head on the he left. He clutched it in his people leaving work got in his
doorpost. Then it slid slowly to pocket like a ju-ju. way. They saw him and made
on a different footing. Finding
The metal mask The GIB stood on a comer of the quick gestures of covering
Ovine’s notebook had shown the floor.
went upstairs. dead. The hag had lived long stead, you’re indoctrinated into When men shaped themselves to
enough to drag herself a little tying your minds up with a tis-
The interior of the GIB was fit into a computerized world,
shabby and utilitarian, even by way for help. Shocked, Robin sat sue of superstitions! Robin, can’t they became fools them-
on Gina’s table and told her you see how man is lost in this selves,they sank back into this
the standards to which the
Hedgings were accustomed. A what had happened. As he fin- city, ruling himself by fear and sort urban savagery, this
of
robot stood at the top of the ished, lights came automatically mob law and gobbledy-gook?” ghastly mixture of automation
on in the room. Shaking his head as if to avoid and ancestral skulls!”
stairs, but it seemed to be out of
commission. Doors with glass Looking round in surprise, he her words, he grasped her wrist. Dazed, he groped for an an-
panels stood open, the rooms be- saw the tawdry little room for “You don’t say why you were swer. There was, must be an an-
the first time. It was recogniz- spying on us. You were working swer. He knew the necessity for
yond for the most part deserted.
When he came to a door that able as a room that had been in- with Ovine, weren’t you?” ancestral skulls. They in-
was closed, he threw it open. habited for centuries; the atmo- “Let go of me! Listen, never sured one’s inheritance, and —
It was a tiny cabin with one
sphere reminded him so much of mind what was doing. Just be-
I From outside, a shriek came
window, giving a view across to the Hedging hut in DP2 that he lieve this —
I have more reason from the drab sky, growing loud-
felt a momentary nostalgia. to suspect you than you me. If er fast
the canteen in which he had eat-
en. It was empty, but over by the Nodding to the line of ancestors’ you will trust me, I will get you
window was a closet, the door of skulls on the shelf above the out of here.” t was almost night. It was
which was open. Faint sounds — door, he a^ed, “You hold this Where was out? I Wellpurging Night. The few
gasping or weeping —came room by inheritance?” “You’re Government,” he
said. “You’re going to have me
clouds in the sky were dappled
from it. For a second, skin “No. I’m temporary here with the last stains of sundown.
crawled along Robin’s neck; while the boss is on an investiga- dissected.” In the north, a thing with spread
then he moved forward. tion elsewhere. Robin, why do “You savage! Can’t you see wings rose. It was black. It tra-
Gina turned and came into you tell me all this? You must there is no government as you veled unwaveringly, and slow-
see I’m yoxu- enemy.” understand the term? The peo- ly as if to survey every soul in
his arms. He thrust a hand over
her mouth, though fetish objects “Sometimes you’re closer ple left in this city are incapable the city. Two red eyes blinked
like lips and teeth touched his to your enemies than your of rational thought. Reasoning down. The Dark Thing was in
W hen
gling
she stopped strug-
and her eyes looked
“Robofficers’ll get
do something,” he said.
me unless
GALAXY
I He made a
ing his
big error then, think-
machines were
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE
efficient,
struggled to break free and rise
up to that shape of retribution.
Ill
no
She was tugging his hair and Miss L, you must take me with
canteen burned; silhouetted by but nothing would have hap-
crying to him to get up, smack- you, out of the city. I want to get
them was a knot of men. Robin pened. The report would have
ing his face, twisting his ear, cry- away from here. Take me with
held the girl back. He recognized been filed in the entrails of
I’ll shoot you both and
ing. In pain, he hit back,
bur-
you or
swear it was my duty.”
some of the men. His father was some idiotic machine — and
grasped her round the legs,
there. next generation the work would
ied his face in her warm thigh. “Turn your torch off,” she or-
“I gave my
address away to have been done all over again,
She fell on top of him. dered. Her voice was calm. “You,
them by eating in the canteen,” just as it was last generation by
She was half-laughing. can’t come. Ovine. Resign your-
he whispered. “They aren’t look- Ovine’s father, and the genera-
“Get up, you great savage! self to the fact.”
ing this way. Can we get round tion before that by his grandfa-
Come on. I’ll take you out of In a humble voice he said, “I
the back?” ther. You see, the GIB itself is
here —
away from the city.” can’t bear this GIB job.Miss L.
They investigated a side alley redundant!”
He was sober at once. He rose I’m no good at it. It’s been in my
running between the GIB build- “But then—”
and helped her to her feet. family over four centuries, but
ing and the next. It led nowhere. “AU humans in the city are
“I want to get out of the city,” I’m just a failure. Wherever I go
As they worked their way back. redundant. They’ve got no
he said. It was all he had ever to investigate, they always dis-
Ovine emerged from the build- meaning and no purpose. The
wanted —
and it had taken him cover me. I’m an outcast. I’m al-
ing, still clutching his stomach, machines just find them little
till now to realize it. ways chased and beaten.
and staggered out into the road. jobs to keep ’em quiet.”
As the Dark Thing shrieked I can’t—”
A cry went up from the group of
overhead —
there were cries Robin’s blow caught him in
men as they recognized him. VI
from the streets to mark its pas- the midriff. He doubled up,
Ovine turned and ran down
sage; people would be dying out dropping the torch and slipping
the avenue towards the bonfire. XT^hen they got off the bus,
there —
they hurried into the to the floor.
With whoops and shrieks, the ’ ’ she led the way to a near-
gloom of the passage. A man Gina seized Robin’s arm and
others gave chase. Sam Hedging by door.
stood there with a gun. led him along the corridor. “My
and Claysbank were in the lead. “Is this a trap, Gina?”
He flashed a torch in their big brave savage!” she mur-
Taking advantage of the distrac- She opened the front door im-
eyes and they came to a shocked mured.
tion, Robin anci Gina hurried patiently, stepping aside to let
halt. “You were pretty calm,
onto the trafficway and jumped him in before her.
“I’ve been listening to every- weren’t you?”
aboard a tram. “You’d better come in
thing you said.” His voice was “Yes. I happened to know that
After a silence, he said, “You and see.”
lesssteady than his gim. “You that gun of his was an old family
are both guilty of crime talk. I heirloom, but he had no —
shots,
must have known Ovine well.”
“No. I told you, I was not per-
Annoyed
doubting
with himself
her, he walked
for
in.
saw you in the canteen, young or whatever the word is. No fuel
manent there. One day you’ll un- Heavy padded hands came up
H. I saw you through this win- for it. Gun fuel isn’t available
derstand the hopelessness of the and grasped his head.
dow when you put your light on. any more.”
network of this city’s life. The In the dark he fought with
I just what you are up to.”
know GIB was carrying out an investi- fear and fury. But the thing was
Robin recognized the sad and '^hey came out of the build-
gation to find how many men in of metal that held him, and had
ing. Distantly down the ave-
baggy face. DP2 are redundant. Ovine — more than one pair of hands. In
“Ovine!” he exclaimed.
“O to you, thanks., I still be-
nue a bonfire burned. Figures
danced round it and there was
had all gone well —would have no time he was hamstrung. They
made his report. You would all were in utter dark, and then a
lieve in the law, if you don’t some shouting. The lights of the
have been declared redimdant. light filled his eyes. The robo
112 GALAXY
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 113
and climbed through the She broke in, “I can’t leave above; at the same time, Gina
was revealed in outline for a it
hatch onto the ladder. you now. Get a grip of yourself had the lock open and they tum-
brief second, as a writhing illu-
relaxed ‘Tollow me, and be sure to and come on.” bled out into darkness.
niination covered it. It
close the hatch behind you. “No, you don’t understand! It
grip on Robin and fell.
its
sorry about There’s a stout bolt on this side.” may be true, all you say about f T^en vision returned to
“I’m terribly ~^
that,” Gina said, clinging to “What are we going down in- our having been taught a lot of his eyes, Robin saw they
guessed that to the Services for?” superstition, but you don’t were indeed on the ground.
him. “I should have
“Oh, hurry, Robin, hurry!” just throw off a lifetime’s habit It was not as he had imagined
they’d get after me as well as you
Reluctantly, he climbed into in one go.” it. The dark made it a terrifying
when your mother was discov- “You do if you’re determined
I’ve been careless. Since the well. As he did so, there world in two tones of black.
ered.
came a knocking at the front enough. Listen, even today the Massive pillars and strute and
the mindless fools were ex-
door of the house, a knocking centuries when man was a crea- cross girders bit a confusing pat-
pecting only me, they sent only
that changed into a pounding. ture living on the edge of end- tern out of the sky. They stum-
one robofficer for me. We’d bet-
As he slammed the hatch to, he less forests and jungles is not far bled over uneven ground littered
ter before more come.”
move
heard a door panel splinter. He enough behind him. We never with stone and the occasional
did you do to him?”
“What
climbed hurriedly down into managed to throw off the super- trench. A wind blew, hooking
Robin asked as they stepped over
the depths, preceded by the jigg- stitions of thosetimes before we bits of paper out of the shadow
the metal hulk.
ing circle of Gina’s torchlight. took to building our own jimgle- and back, in a lunatic chase.
“A sort of gun that really
substitutes, the cities. So as well Robin thought of the white
works. They don’t make them in
as being centers of civilization, things he had seen moving from
this city. But they do where I
they’ve always been centers of Dunshinnan Bridge. Instinctive-
come from.”
had happened to the Services, ignorance and fear as well. The ly he looked up. The black mon-
“Hag’s sake, Gina, where do
and realized that the concrete greatest cities in the world have ster of the dty crouched over
you come from?”
fast!” beyond the ladder was new; they sheltered more savages than sa- them, huge and cruel and sense-
“Where we’re going to,
had bypassed the Services level vants. This city has no savants! less as an ancient curse.
In the kitchen, she shut the
door and switched on the light, They could only be going to one It’s a stone and steel jungle, and He tripped and fell.
you’re a savage. Choose! Are you “I’ve got a half - track parked
grumbling because the windows place.
“Steady now,” she cautioned. going back into the trees or out where it’s smoother,” Gina said.
of the city did not have curtains.
He came down and stood be- into the light with me?” “Don’t keep falling over.”
Outside, with its blood-separ-
ating screech, the Dark Thing side her as she fumbled with a As he stood there, a series of He had hurt his shin and]
blows soimded from above their was angry. Broken ground was a]
sailed over again. It was close, lock.
“Wait a moment,” he said, heads. The robos were breaking new experience.
but Robin paid no attention.
Gina was opening up her refuse grasping her hand. She turned in the kitchen hatch. “Why don’t you put your
to see his face shining with Robin laughed hoarsely. “It damned torch, on?”
well. Behind the disposal chute,
sweat His chest heaved as he seems I’m on your side.” “Because there’s someone or
the regulation pattern had been
altered. The rotor that mashed forced the words out, “I know Distantly over their heads, a something ahead.”
the refuse as it went down had where we are —
it’s the ground lightshowed. He knew then how They moved round a massive
can’t go out far they had climbed. They leg of _ metal. Out in the open,
been removed. A metal ladder outside, isn’t it? I
there. see you out, then I’ll would be on the ground now crouched on the rough ground,
hung into the depths. Inside the I’ll . .
door, a torch dangled. Gina took go back upstairs to face —” A searchlight flashed on from was a machine, with two robos
GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 115
114
the lip of the city came up, us, Robin! They can’t do with-
near it. Gradually, the two hu- “Wait!” He looked cautious-
black and ponderous, then they out us the way we can do with-
mans distinguished between ly round the buttress. The robos saw the city itself, canting at an out them. We may be redundant
shadow and substance. Rob- had their backs turned. Their angle, a tangle of light and dark, in the city, but in the world,
in felt his legs shake. lights shone through a maze of
a smaller place than he knew, a they are redundant. You shall
“It’s the Dark Thing!” he girders onto a vehicle. He pulled
place it was very easy to escape see —
we’re heading for my city,
whispered. There it lay, its red Gina up. “That’s what they’re from. where robos are back in their
eyes closed. shouting about. Is that your She was laughing, and he en- proper place.”
“They’re waiting till it’s time car?” joyed the sight of it. She said something else more
to do another circuit of the city. She nodded. Above the noise, she" shouted, gently, so that he could not hear
And they’re in our way. Oh, “There’s a chance, Robin. Fol- “One last scare for them for the noise.
Robin, and I’ve got lost ... I low me.”
She was running out into the
— I can’t switch the banshee si- “What did you say?”
can’t remember where I parked ren off!” Again he missed her shouted
the half-track. Perhaps it was open. He followed without hesi-
“Why do they need all this reply. Only her smile was clear
the other side. All this darkness tation; he had to be with her. spook apparatus?” he yelled. “If as they sped over the featureless
— it’s so confusing!”
They ran out towards the Dark they don’t want man, why don’t plain, howling like a banshee all
She began to weep. He held Thing.
He was not afraid. If robos
they —
just wipe him out?” the way.
her, confused and yet grati-
worked it, it was another ma-
“They need men! They need —
Brian W. Aldiss
fied by her weakness. Her sobs
sounded horribly loud. He chine.
stared out at the Dark Thing A lively, illusfrafed explanation of a useful
with a dry mouth, watching to t was bigger than he had
and fascinating branch of mathematics
see if the robos had heard any- I expected. They pulled up
thing. Then a stab of light from' together, sheltered under one
behind made him turn.
The pursuit had climbed
wing from the robos now exam-
ining her vehicle.
Experiments [
down the well from Gina’s house “Can you work this thing?” he
and was looking for them. One, asked. It was half a prayer.
my
in Topology
two, three heavy robos appeared,
flashing their lights among the
superstructure of city supports.
The robos by the Dark Thing
“Now’s
“Good girl!”
chance to leam.”
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
If a bad planet.
wasn't
The food was good once —
you managed to eat iU
Jeffries laughed.
But I still feel
“So do we
had been cast away by the muti- all.It’s something in the atmo-
122
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 123
tures. He claimed he had a Chi- said, with a glance at the bod-
circling outside against the there was no need for building. double pneumonia and the oth-
nese bullet in his left arm and a ies
unfamiliar sky. The mutineers Nothing went up in the glade. er had to say he’d once had a
piece of Russian shrapnel in his
right leg. Though he never men- could easily add five more gris- The medics had put up their terrible case of triple pneumo-
ly satellites. Or four more, keep- place in a smaller clearing be- nia.”
tioned them except in print, his
scars had been plain to see ing Cindy for themselves. hind a low hill and out of sight “I see. A sort of one-upman-
when he went for a swim at Wal- No, it would be best to take of the glade. They called it a dis- ship —
over nothing.”
what was offered and to ask no pensary. It actually had served “Over nothing important, any-
lops Island before the Patton
leapt away to fling itself across questions, such as what the mu- as a hospital for Ralph Nevins way,” Ralph said.
tinyhad been about. until he recovered from his “And the kiss-and-make-up
six light-years to the vicinity of
Barnard’s Oph, to fight the war “Very sensible, Mr. Jeff- fever. went on out of sight.”
ries,” the chiefmutineer told But Jeffries called the fairy
it “If there was any. We’re just
of the particles.
So Ramsey Hunter naturally him. “Now you pioneers go back palace. He was positive that guessing, aren’t we?”
to your cabins and pack what Captain Larcom and Lieutenant “Gossiping,
said to the mutineers that he I’d call it. But
you want to. Stay there till we Raney were homosexuals and there’s nothing much
would join them, in a pro- else to do,
of course. let you know. It’ll be a few hours that they had built their dispen- is there? Not until mealtime,
fessional capacity,
There would be many
a column yet before we get you to your sary not because they were anyway.”
in the experience, and probably new home.” concerned about the health of “When is mealtime?”
their fellow castaways but be- “Whenever Hunter
a better chance of getting back gets
to Earth.
“No, you won’t,” the mutineer
T he warm climate, where the
temperature did not vary by
cause they were the only two
people on the planet who were
having any kind of sexual rela-
back,” Jeffries said.
“Back from where?”
chief said. “We’re taking our a degree day or night, and the “It’s interesting how we’ve ad-
own and nobody else. This is a lack of rain made shelter un- tions. justed to eating only one meal a
uninhabited planet we necessary. “Ihave no proof,” Jeffries day. Like the family dog.”
nice
Captain Larcom and Lieuten- told Ralph. “It could be just my Ralph said: “This is the sec-
picked out for you. It’s got air
ant Raney, the medics, had built nasty mind. You spent a fort- ond time you’ve evaded one of
and everything.” He had a sense
of humor, of a kind, this scarred a chemical privy near the little night there. In your lucid mo- my questions about what Hunt-
house they put up. ments, how did they strike you?” er goes out for. Why?”
mutineer.
“But that’s inhuman!” Arthur The mutineers had let them Ralph shrugged. “There’s “Why have I evaded your
“Who would ever have pre-formed material out of nothing overt about them, but question? I’ll keep on evading
Cadman said.
the stores. The mutineers also there are signs, if they mean for a while.”
find us?”
“Nobody, maybe. On the oth- had left enough material for each anything: the fussy way they
of the correspondents to have fight with each other, for one T>y then it was dark, or as
er hand,
going,
if we get where we’re
and if we feel like it, we’ll built himself a fair-sized hut, had thing.” ^ dark as it ever got. Hunter,
send a message to Earth and tell he wished to. But none had. Per- “You don’t mean physically who all this time had been jog-
them where you are. If you co- haps if Cindy Garth had singled fight?” ging aroimd the track, increased
operate and don’t make any out one of them there would “No; I mean argue. It’s a pet- his pace for a final lap, then
trouble, that is.” have been some carpentry. But ty sort of contradiction or a — sped away from the glade until
“I don’t think we can ask for with the medics’ toilet available vying for superlatives. It’s as if he disappeared among the tall,
that,” Justin Jeffries to all and with Cindy gone mad. one of them said he had once toad-stool-shaped trees.
more than
treated a very difficult case of Arthur Cadman, whose typing
GALAXY
124
THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 125
though ear- hovered there, concentrical- tentatively, fearfully, not look- others were being so profoundly
had finally stopped,
ly ringed, like a thin onion-slice ing at her, he stretched out a moved made him seek harder for
lier it had continued despite the
gathering gloom; in the dark sky.
hand to her, ready to withdraw clues to what was really happen-
The was it instantly if it were rebuffed. ing on the ridge where Ramsey
Cindy Garth, wary-eyed and far-off stage filled
aloof, but obviously in need, vnth ever-changing shapes. Oc- But it was not rebuffed. It was Hunter and the other silhouett-
casionally, although the move- ignored for a time; then Cindy ed creatures were acting out
now, of having people around
ments had to be
of the figures reached out, without looking, their macabre ballet.
her;
Lieutenant John Raney, a purely random, Ralph was and grasped Cadman’s hand Those others on the stage-like
man, apparently in his late tempted to ascribe rational mo- and clung to it as she watched ridge now drew away from
thin
the distant tableau. Hunter as if he were contamin-
twenties, whose hair was rapidly tives to them.
turning gray; Even as a dedicated sky- ated. It was as if those who ap-
Captain Brian Larcom, a watcher must inevitably find O alph looked away to the proached Hunter from the right
once-trim figure in his early for- meaning in a cloud-shape, so did others. Larcom and Raney, did so with the greatest reluc-
ties who was now beginning to Ralph find significance in the who had entered the glade so tance. But approach they must,
bulge above the belt and below motions of these others with conspicuously apart, were sitting Ralph thought, because they
the chin; and whom he and his fellow cast- on a hummock. As Hunter ap- were on a treadmill. No, not so
Justin Jeffries, who led Ralph aways shared the planet. peared on the ridge they moved much a treadmill as one of those
Nevins to the center of the glade And as they watched intent, — closer together, as if in fear. little hand-cranked merry-go-
as if initiating him into a rite. involved, apprehensive, fear- Then slowly, unconsciously per- rounds you used to see in the
The medics arrived in single ful— a new figure appeared at haps, Larcom’s right hand
reached out and gripped Raney’s
city, on the back of a truck,
file, several feet apart, from out the left of the double-moon-illu- where the horses and swans and
of the toadstool wood beyond minated stage. It was Ramsey left and they clung to each oth- ostriches moved with strobo-
er, their eyes fixed on the drama
the circular glade of grass. The Hunter, instantly recogniz- scopic haltingness both from left
But then, as Hunter’s pres- being enacted on the far ridge. to right and right to left. All that
glade had lost its yellow-orange able.
daytime fire and was now the ence made the move-
itself felt, Justin Jeffries, having brought was lacking was the music, the
color of a steak which had lain ments on the stage,
of the others Ralph to the center, sat apart imitation-calliope sound.
too long in the supermarket heretofore calm and ordered, if from him. Jeffries watched as While the figures approaching
freezer-shelf. swift, became frenzied and fran-
intently as any of the others, but —
Hunter did so haltingly fear-
No one spoke. They arranged tic, as if menace had entered seemingly wi&out the need for fully? —those fleeing from him
another’s support. Yet toward went in a wild plunge, as if
themselves on hummocks, almost from the wings.
ceremoniously, facing the far- Then Ralph noticed Cindy. the end of the drama he too had strung on elastic, almost as if ex-
off rise where the silhouetted As Hunter joined the group become tensely involved. As he ultant at having been spared.
figures persisted in their silent, across the valley and became one watched, his right hand made a The weird dance became even
fist and slowly bored into his left more frenzied. It must have
tireless dance. Ralph, his ques- of the silhouettes, Cindy became
tions hushed by the obvious so- less aloof. Her hands began to
palm. been Ralph’s delusion but Hunt-
lemnity of the occasion, sat flutter, to her hair, to her face, Ralph, not knowing what any er, the hunter, had become
down where Jeffries indicated to her breast.
of this meant, was less personal- shninken and had assumed the
he should. Cadman, who was sitting near ly involved, though the obvious shape of a wolf. Or had he mere-
The moon-moon had risen Cindy, watched her with con- emotion of the others was affect- ly dropped down on all fours?
ing him. His realization that the But at the same time the oth-
just so far over the horizon and cern. He moved closer and then.
human form and mock. Cadman looked after her “You mean it’s always Hunter
soon as they were able. er re-assume
strike with a knife, with a dra-
for amoment, then took a small who goes out?”
With arms they gestured
their
matic upflung and downthrust notebook from his pocket and “He’s a volunteer. Never mind
to each other and to their foe,
arm. But Hunter attacked from
began to write busily, bending now. Here comes the killer with
making plain their fear and dis-
close to the page so he could see his kill.”
gust. They did not hold each near the ground and used no
in the dimness. Hunter strode into the glade
other’s nor did they
hands weapon that Ralph could see.
The one taken from the midst Larcom and Raney unclasped with some awful thing over his
strike out against the wolf-shape
of the others threw up its arms
hands and self-consciously with- shoulder.
of the hunter who menaced
one final hopeless gesture. Its drew to opposite sides of the
them. Their arms appeared de- in
signed less for offense or self- head went back on its neck in a same hummock, where each sat
stiffly upright.
O amsey Hunter, chronicler of
defense than to express their silent scream of despair. Then it wars, castaway of fate, killer
withered. It simply collapsed Justin Jeffries, the cool one, of aliens, strode into the glade
otherwise unvoicable emotions
— their terror at being attacked and was borne away across the stopped turning his fist in palm
and stood up, thrusting hands
with a confident step and a proud
He went directly to
by this alien creature. shoulder of the man who had bearing.
hunted could
of the now risen to his full human into pants pockets. He looked at Cindy Garth and kneeled before
The faces
Ralph, who shook his head and her.
not be distinguished, but there height.
was enough in the way they A great sigh, whether of relief gave a smile of no meaning. “I have returned, O my Queen,
shame Ralph could not Jeffries walked to Ralph’s with food for your subjects,” he
turned their heads, this way or or tell,
rose from the watchers in the hummock. He said with forced said. His expression was a mix-
that, or held them at an angle,
glade. Ralph himself felt chiefly lightness: “What do you think ture of haughtiness and mock
to persuade Ralph that only in-
of our amateur theatricals?’’
telligence could have directed release from tension. The others servility, overshadowed by a
had not sighed in unison, but Ralph, putting his voice to- look which laughed at everyone
such movements.
each individual sigh had been of gether, said: “You sound like the and everything.
It was appalling to watch,
actor who asked Mrs. Lincoln Cindy ignored the look, if she
GALAXY
128
THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 129
grave. “Carry on, Cadman, and plied. “I’ve offered before, you
and She stretdied them, then went off beyond the remember the old precept: Nev- remember, but you’ve never ac-
saw it, stood.
glade to their infirmary er mind the facts, but be sure cepted.”
out a tentative hand which did
(or fairy palace), Larcom you spell the names right.” He “You’d
not quite touch Hunter on the first willing go?” Hunter
and Raney carrying the food. kept an absolutely straight face. asked, as
forehead. “Rise, mighty hunter,” if in disbelief. “You’d
she said. “Thou hast done well.” No words were exchanged. A little frown appeared on risk the perils, the psychic ter-
Cadman was the next to go up. Cadman’s forehead. He said:
Hunter rose and tossed down rors?”
Hunter, a benevolent smile on “Forgive me for asking, but is it “Ah, bull,” Jeffries said. “It’s
the thing he had been carrying.
Ralph djdn’t know what he his lips, waited for him to ap- Hunter with a capital H
or is it not so terrible as all that. I par-
had expected —
perhaps a clat- proach. Ralph, watching, thought small-h hunter? I mean in the
generic sense. I do get confused.”
•
ticularly want to put my offer
ter of skeletal bones or the thud of Hunter as heir apparent and on the record because we have a
of a body. What he heard was wondered how he would treat And Hunter said, again more new arrival today: Ralph
poor Cadman as he claimed his kindly than Ralph would have Nevins.”
the faintest rustle, as if Hunter
pound of grain, or whatever the expected: “It depends entirely “I am
had dropped an autumn corn- glad to welcome him,”
stuff was that lay, inert, on the
on your point of view, Arthur. Hunter said. “Out of courtesy to
stalk. And when he looked he
ground. You’re the historian; you’re He- him I overlook all the ways you
saw a leafy bundle, a sheaf,
To Ralph’s surprise. Hunter rodotus, you’re Toynbee. And the have attempted to subvert my
hose plucking would have been
historian is the referee. Call ’em authority
no more traumatic than the (Hunter the hunter, dispenser of and belittle my
as you see ’em, Arthur, and
picking of an apple. life) treated Cadman very de- achievement.”
cently. “How are you, Cad- damn the dissenters.” Ralph, who had drawn close
“Will Your Highness honor
man?” he said. “Everything all Cadman, his notebook out, to the two, said: “Surely Hunt-
me by accepting the first of the
as busy recording it all, his
servings?” Hunter asked. right?” er hasn’t forgotten that we were
“Fine, Hunter,” Cadman said. face close to the paper, as he all together aboard the Patton.”
“We accept,” Cindy said and.
“I’m keeping it up to date.” backed away from Hunter, the “I’m afraid he has,” Jeffries
Hunter leaned down and broke
“That’s the way,” Hunter said. man on the Queen’s hummock; replied under his breath. “He’s
off a piece. It was about as long
“Take some chow so you’ll have Hunter, the acting chief. completely absorbed in this he-
as a leg of lamb and not quite
as thick. the strength for it.” He put a roic drama he’s playing. Try him
piece Cadman’s pocket ’^hen it was Justin Jeffries’ out you like.”
Cindy grabbed it out of his in if
“Here, have another little some- turn. Jeffries went with a Ralph thought for a
“I will.”
hand and ran to her place at the
thing for later, in case you get combination of bravado and sub- moment while Hunter stared
edge of the glade, calling over
bogged down in the middle of servience, a mingling of defiance coldly at Jeffries. Then he said:
her shoulder: “Serve the others,
mighty hunter, and thyself.” the night while you’re doing the and dependence. He said: “Hail, “Hunter, what do you plan to do
history. It’s amazing how a little Chief. Congratulationson a suc- when
Hunter reached down again the rescue ship comes?”
and broke off a piece which he something to nibble on stimu- cessful hunt. What can
I, your Hunter went into the first per-
humble servant, do for you?” son plural, as if Cindy no long-
put in his pocket. Then he beck- lates the creative juices.”
“Thank you,” Cadman Hunter regarded him coldly. and said: “Our fealty
oned to the medics, who seemed said er existed,
gravely. “Having been a writer “You can hunt in my place to- to our subjects. Naturally we
the most eager to be fed. Cindy is
Hunter, you un- morrow night. How would that shall stay here with them.”
had seemed more eager to leave yourself.
suit you, wise guy?”
them than to eat. derstand our problems. I appre- Jeffries put left ear to left
ciate that” “Perfectly,” Jeffries re- shoulder and rolled his eyeballs
Larcom and Raney accepted
the portion Hunter tore off for “Quite,” Hunter said, equally
THE WATCHERS IN THE GUDE 131
130
GALAXY
Com- “But they’re shaped like peo- Cindy Garth was eating as if now that Ralph Nevins was the
up as if to say: You see?
there might never be tomorrow,
ple.” sole member of the audience.
pletelymad. man. cramming food
empty talk,” “So’s a gingerbread into her mouth But then, for no apparent rea-
“Enough of this
“Here is your You’ve got to be realistic. The in an orgy of self-gratification. son, Hunter clutched his belly,
Hunter said. Ralph stared
Nev- only other stuff that grows here at her for a time groaned and ran. Like anyone
share, Jeffries, and yours, but she either did not see him
that is impossible. It has no
nourish- who is about to vomit, he head-
ins. Now get thee hence, or chose to ignore him.
the hunter may enjoy what is ment and it makes you sick. ed away from his fellow crea-
“Maybe we could build up an His gaze went next to Arthur tures. He went a little beyond
left to himself, before the
great
immunity to it.” Cadman, the fortunate one who the perimeter and stood there,
sleep descends.” had held the Queen’s hand and
“Don’t think we
haven’t tried. facing out from them, his body
Ralph watched Hunter detach who had been spoken civilly to
It’s like eating a poison ivy sal- heaving as his stomach worked
a piece which he handed to Jeff- by Hunter. But Cadman was to rid itself of that which of-
ries. He gave another
to Ralph ad.”
Saying no more, Jeffries went even less responsive. He had eyes fended it.
and stuffed what was left under for nothing but his journal. He To Ralph, who had not yet
the off to his own hummock, clutch-
his arm and loped off to
ing the meal that Hunter had wrote steadily, a pencil in his eaten, this was a discouraging
edge of the glade, halfway be- right hand and his eyes close to
given him. sight. If the great hunter could
tween Cindy and Cadman. the page, his left hand only oc-
“He talks not stomach his own provender,
Ralph told Jeffries;
moment’s
a casionally bringing a bite who else could be expected to?
like a
James
cross
version
between the King
and Edgar Rice
R alph,
hesitation,
after
took
own
his share
place, near
of supper to his mouth.
Ralph looked next to Jeffries, Ouddenly Ralph had no ap-
and v/ent to his
Burroughs.”
a dozen feet away. Jeffries, for- petite. He took his share to
“Really?” Jeffries said with a the perimeter.
There, sitting beside his hum- mer man-about-London, so- Cadman. (His firstimpulse had
minimum of interest now that
phisticate, sometimes adviser of
dinner had been served. “I’m mock, which so accommodating- been to go to but Jeff-
Jeffries,
prime ministers, was so en-
ly fitted its edge to the back
of ries’ gluttony had disgusted
hungry, so I suggest you go and
his neck, Ralph examined
his grossed in his meal that Ralph, him.) Cadman
looked up from
eat, privately, while I do the
ration.
shocked, looked away quickly. his notebook and said
same. Don’t be self-con-
was ominous than he
less At the moment there was noth- “Thanks.”
scious. No one will watch.”
It
There was nothing ing to be learned from Jeffries “Does Hunter always get sick
As Ralph hesitated. Jeffries, had feared.
about was the least like
that except gluttony. like that?” Ralph asked.
though, obviously anxious to go, it
134 GALAXY
every- where the vegetation stood mo- gathering took place after the
fresh,’’ Jeffries said, as if
and the creatures which
hilltop, tionless under the brilliant sky. sun-sun had set.
had been hunted were about as body should have known that.
Step by dogged step he
“All the good goes out of it over-
lively as a cornfield. "O alph felt a bright light in- brought himself to the base of
night.”
Ralph’s companions sat on or side his skull. Although the ridge where the crop, or
weak.”
lay against their hummocks
in a “I feel
there was a visual impression of whatever it was, grew. It stood
seeming stupor, except Cadman,
“You should have eaten last
great heat the temperature was there in stalks, like a dusty corn
Cadman was al- night. Last night it had the crun-
who was writing. no higher than it had been the field, yellowy-tan, silent, unmov-
chiness of celery, the juiciness of
most always writing. previous night. He was not per- ing.
Ralph stood up, then good rare steak, the crumbly
spiring. But there was no breath In a final burst of forced en-
consistency of cheese. I enjoyed
staggered as he tried to walk. He of motion to the air, and the un- ergy, Ralph went up the rise and
was weak, like any hospital pa- it.Mad or not. Hunter gave me filtered light hurt his eyes so cut a single stalk.
back a particularly fine piece.
But to-
tient who had been on his that he had to close them to slits. His machete sliced through it
for a long time. knew then,
He day it would be like eating an The glare also seemed to focus There was no excite-
effortlessly.
medics old cowflop.”
as well as if one of the on his brain, cooking it without ment or danger,as there had
“I’m hungry,” Ralph said.
had explained it to him, that he heat. seemed to be when Hunter was
He felt him- “Isn’t there anything else I
needed food. He envied the others their tor- here last night.
could eat?”
self toppling and guided
his fall por and their full bellies. Well,
ivy Nobody, nothing, grimaced at
Jeffries shrugged. “Poison
toward the little pile of food the sooner he got to the ridge Ralph, or threw up his-her-its
Cadman had persuaded him to salad.”
I’d drag
and cut himself a meal, the hands in despair.
“If I had the strength
keep and to try to eat. sooner he’d be able to lounge Nobody, nothing, screamed;
Lying on his left side where myself over to the ridge and cut
against his own hummock and or opened a mouth (or anything
myself a fresh piece. I don’t
he had gone down (none of the experi- wait for it to be a more bearable like a mouth) to scream, silent-
others had made the slightest ef- think it’s as traumatic an time of day. ly or otherwise.
fort to help him, Ralph
reached ence as Hunter made out. Ralph stopped at the medics’
again. He It was He felt a
dull, in fact.
But Jeffries shrugged
for one of the food pieces. Ralph s to borrow a machete. No one an- little disappointed because there
looked bored with
even before he brought it to his swered his call, so he helped had been no dashing back and
realized he couldn’t troubles. “Suit yourself.”
mouth he go. himself to the heavy jungle forth of humanoid plants, no
there was “I suppose I’ve got to
eat it. It was not that knife which hung outside and mystery or drama. Each of the
Ralph tried a jest; “I can’t sit
anything psychologically wrong, went on through the wood. other faded-tan stalks had
as there had been last night, around starving until the next The toadstool - shaped, umber- drooped dutifully, dully in its
the stuff was literally inedi- safari leaves, can I?
now Jeffries
colored trees gave some relief place while he cut down its
could no more have got “It’s your stomach,”
ble. He He from the stabbing light, but the brother.
vastly uninterested.
nourishment from the thing he said,
glare was so much more intense The stuff didn’t even wave, as
leaned back against his hum-
was holding than he could have when there were gaps between wheat was said to do. It certain-
got marrow from a stone. mock and closed his eyes. the tall trees that it seemed al- ly hadn’t waved at Ralph, either
Feebly, he threw it away. It Hating him suddenly, Ralph most worse
bounced toward Jeffries, who fi-
— *•
to his knees, then stood erect
random
to
protection.
have had their with affection or fear.
Giddy because of his hunger
and, carefully putting one foot
nally looked up, rousing himself His brain cooking, Ralph and the piercing light in his
ahead of the other, started out
from his torpor. could understand why the food skull but pleased with himself,
of the glade toward the far ridge
“You have to eat it while it’s
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 137
136
_Jl
” ”
Ralph looked across the v. ley Hunter looked down at it, “Go ahead, Cindy,” Cadman “Try it and see,” Cindy said
to the glade where his fellow then at Ralph. “Back with your said. softly.
castaways sat or lay, locked in kill, are you, Nevins?” he asked Captain Larcom said: “Don’t With histriumph turned to
ennui. They had certainly made sardonically. excite yourself, Cindy. It’s not straw, Ralph’s hunger could no
a big problem out of this harvest- Ralph replied modestly; “Oh, worth it.” longer be denied. Finally, em-
ing, this bringing in of the I wouldn’t call it a ‘kill.’ It Cindy said to Ralph: “You’re barrassed and in gnawing pain,
sheaves. wasn’t all that hard.” new here and we can forgive he tried it. There was no nourish-
He couldn’t make out the ex- “Was it easy?” Jeffries asked. that.” It wasn’t the royal “we” ment in it. No juice or even mois-
pressions on their faces, but all “Well, I did what I had to do. she was using now. “Of course ture in the silly little stalk he had
of them seemed to be watching It was easy, frankly, and not at we were all together aboard the bravely harvested and brought
him. Hunter particularly all traumatic.” Patton and that should count for back to gloat over. It was simply
(mighty hunter, indeed!) seemed “So much so,” Hunter said something, but these past two a dried hulk, like a cornstalk
to have an intent eye on him. with a sneer, “that you don’t see weeks when you were safely from last year’s mulch pile. He
Having gained strength what aU the fuss was about, do tucked away in the infirmary spat out the tasteless, powdery
from his triumph, Ralph decid- you? Isn’t that right?” sometimes seem more like two thing.
ed it would be possible to return “Oh, I think I can understand years. We’ve all gone crazy in “Sorry,” Cindy said. She add-
to the glade with his stalk intact how the ritual came to be built different ways, Nevins, and some ed, ever so rationally: “I suppose
and eat there
it —
perhaps even up,” Ralph said, smiling despite more than others. You’ll find somebody should have told you
to make the magnanimous ges- a sudden new pang of hunger your own peculiar mania in a the juices leave the stalk in day-
ture of offering some to Hunter. (he could hold out a few min- day or two. I’m sure. In the light. The moisture that makes
This thought buoyed him up so utes longer, anyway.) “I guess meantime give us credit for hav- the plant edible hides in the
that the trip back took much after I’ve been out here in the ing a small residue of common roots until the sun-sun goes
less time than his outward jour- glade as long as you have. I’ll sense. We do what we have to do down.”
ney. welcome some sort of diversion
— —a few of us a little more
too. Some kind of strenuously than necessary — but V
T he sun-sun had passed
zenith before his return. His
its “Amateur dramatics?” Hunter
asked. “Group theatricals?”
“That’s it, of course,” Ralph
we’re all human beings and we’ve
all adjusted to this impossible XTight came and he
finally
fellow castaways seemed to gain planet the way we’ve had to. So ^ was able to go out again.
strength as the brightness faded said recklessly. “A kind of com- stop feeling superior to Hunter His hunger had become a gnaw-
and they left their hummocks to munity pageant to relieve the te- because you went out in the mid- ing ache, punctuated by an oc-
him. Even Larcom and dium, with everyone playing his day sun. Things are not what
greet
Raney had come to the glade assigned role
— they seem, especially in the eu-
casional stabbing pang. Ralph
had taken Hunter’s advice on
from their self-imposed segrega- Ralph’s voice trailed off as phoric noon. Nobody’s going to how to alleviate it by jogging
tion. Cindy Garth came forward. The eat your pathetic little offering. around the perimeter, as all
Ralph, so elated by this re- others stepped aside for her. Not even you.” true hunters were alleged to do.
ception that he felt he could She looked much better. Last Ralph met their various glanc- The monotonous, jarring of
postpone eating almost indefin- night she had been mad; but es, then dropped his gaze to his feet on earth (Earth! —
would he
itely, tossed his trophy to the now she was angry. “Just let me dry stalk. “Why not?” he asked ever see it again?) had made the
ground. It fell with a tiny rus- say something to him while I’m hopelessly, already knowing the time pass faster and had even
tling noise. rational,” Cindy said. answer. “What’s wrong with it?” taken his mind off his hunger a
least we’re honest cannibals now. food. (What a lie!) This way he
jointed random fragments: Cadman: “I had a Bunk John-
son record that I used to play
We our fellow thinkers only
kill could stand it (he told himself).
Hunter saying: “Let me assure that we may keep alive. If they As he jogged around the track,
all the time. It was my grand-
you that there’s not one unnec- think. There once was a paper head back, fists clenched, he re-
was You Always Hurt
essary move in this nightly per- father’s. It
in New York — remember New membered Cadman trying to
the One you Love.”
formance. In the first place it
Himself?: “That’s all right; York? —
that called itself ‘The persuade Cindy to let him
has to be every night. You found Paper for People who Think.’ It (Ralph) have some of the emer-
out for yourself that the stuff I’m a vegetarian.”
won’t keep through the heat of Hunter: “Is that your bad was a Hearst paper and when it gency ration —
the food he had
wanted to emphasize a word or been fed in the hospital. There
the day.
.” joke for today, cannibal?”
.
a phrase in an editorial it print- couldn’t have been much of it
Jog, jog, jog.
Who?: “We were all canni-
ed it all in capital letters. It’s
That’s the kind of but he found it hard to under-
Somebody (himself?) saying: bals once.
critics called it ‘The Paper for
“Grant me that you consider business we were in. We stole stand Cindy’s flat refusal. “Nev-
and cop- People who Think They Think.’ ins isn’t going to starve to death
each other’s stories
murder an odious occupation.” So maybe we only think they
Thud of heels on packed ied each other’s leads. We bribed
—
in the next couple of hours,”
think I mean maybe we only she had said. “And
and spied to cultivate a new he’ll learn a
earth. (Earth? No.)
source, preferably one ‘close to
think they think. At least let — lesson.”
Somebody else: “Murder, yes; - me see if I can think this He (Ralph) was learning it.
but not picking vegetables.” the presidential palace’ or ‘ac —
with the Leader s
through I’d like to think we He was Ralph. He was Nevins.
Ignore the pangs. Jog. Thud. quainted
only think they think. What do He was (full name now Ralph
our journalistic
Himself?: “Tell me what you thinking,’ in
you think?” Leslie Nevins. Oh, yes, he (you
consider murder to be.” jargon, and then we fed on each
And Cindy said: “If you know who) was learning a good
Thud. Jog. Pang, pang. other’s sources until they’d been
think about long enough you
it lesson. He was learning to hate
Another: “The destruction of milked dry and discarded for go crazy. If you think about any- them the bastards. Bastards
more sensational ones. Too of-
all,
a thinking being, I suppose.” thing long enough you go crazy. and a bitch. Cindy Bitch -Queen
ten we were less interested in We — I
;
to cut a stalk until the juices had — Nevins the hunter, the killer,
through the toadstool wood, and
was
lies? Hadn’t they killed daily?
returned to it from the roots. the vegetable - eating cannibal. at the edge of the field of Hadn’t they slaughtered the dear
Hadn’t he learned that? Ralph Nevins the new one, perhaps thrashing, terrified creatures. little chickens and geese and
crueler than the others who had
(Hunter was right: “fear” was bulls and brown-eyed calves and
had said he would dig the roots
too pallid a word.) wooly lambs and whatever other
(he was in pain, starving, fam- come before.
ished; it was impossible to bear) Off he went, recalling his rel- Th_y could not be human; sweet, succulent creatures stood
when the roots were disturbed you call them wolves?” (living, if not breathing; think- a hell, anywhere else but here.
And Hunter saying “A eu- ing, not speaking), they were
if
the moisture fled through them :
into the soil, leaving no nourish- phemism. Both hunter and hunt- human. He knew that now, as of '^hen he recalled Cindy’a
this minute. And what was he do- of having communi<<
vision
ment. ed became the wolves, the beasts.
“You may think this is a lot Each, driven by something out- ing about to cornmit an
here, cated with them, or of hav-
Who had said its human qual-
atrocity upon one of them? Who ing thought she had. He was hav-
of melodrama.” side itself, loses
that. The Who who had spoken ities. I, forced by hunger; they, was he, God?, to be destroying ing a vision of his own, in hia
several times earlier. “It is not shaken by terror.” another living creature? He was extremity of starvation. He waa
a lot of melodrama. It is essen- “You agree with Cindy that not a flesh-eater, true, but he communicating with them him-
tial. Es-sen-tial. Know this.” they think?” was undeniably a cannibal. self.
He knew it now. He was con- “I reject that possibility. I Shut up, he told himself. You Well, not really: they were re-
vinced of it. His stomach was must. All I know is that they haven’t destroyed anybody yet vealing themselves to him; he
convinced, at least. His stomach thrash about. Lots of plants can and it’s a moot question whether had said nothing to them except
was devout, a true believer. Jog; do that under certain circum- you will. (This was not his stom- by being there with a
tacitly,
jog and thud. Was it still too stances. But these seem to be un- ach talking.) So don’t let any- weapon which spoke for him; si-
early to go? He could under- der a double terror, or whatever body panic you. You’re just out lently, terribly.
stand how the -jogging would word you want to use. ‘Fear’ is here on a tactical exercise, so to His hunger - induced rev-
numb the mind as well as the too weak. First, their terror of speak —
a dry run, so far, to see elationswere graphic depictions
stomach. being killed; second, the un- how you’ll react when the real of the most awful things that
acceptable realization that any- thing comes along, if it ever had ever happened to people he
inally, finally, it was time. one or anything on their hereto- does. Of course you aren’t going knew or to whom he was relat-
F He left perimeter,
the fore peaceful planet could con- to kill these dear, helpless crea-
tures.
ed. As remembered from his
scarcely believing his release ceive of killing another. In fact, childhood in ghastly detail, they
had come, he left the well-beat- killing was impossible because His stomach laughed at this included:
en track and set off across the nobody — nothing, I mean — nonsense. Certainly he was go- His Uncle Alfred, arrested
valley as the short night began. v/as able to move from the spot ing to kill. Kill and eat; kill and through some terrible miscar-
There they were, on the far where he first germinated. I provide. It was kill or starve. riage of justice and sentenced to
ridge, waving, beckoning to him. mean it. ” It wasn’t an ethical problem at a road gang in the South, drag-
To him? Beckoning? Or horri- Ralph knew what he meant. all — hadn’t his pioneer ances- ging his ball and chain behind
with Ralph. He v/as unable to delude him- this coincidence of names presently,
in the sheaves, it was possible to aged respectively 25 and 22, was
self, as Cadman had, that he was
work and to hope.
bom. In wedlock, on an August day.
preparing a dispatch. Nor would
A t that
ing
point
transcribed
Ralph,
all that
hav-
he put down fiction or half-
entire journalistic
Then
the engine in his mind
started and its fuel was his mem-
the 17th, a Thursday, to be precise.
In the Year of Our Lord, or Who-
ever is In Charge, 1999 . . .
was available from them jointly, truths; his
ories. He realized that what was
interviewed them singly. Separ- background rebelled against
within himself was limited 4 nd thus Ralph Nevins be-
ate floodgates opened; Ralph such heresy.
there was only Ralph Nevins, at gan the chronicle which we
took down page after page of He examined pen and the
his
other one that Cadman had in-
the current or earlier age, on found when we grew over to the
pent-up frustration, petty tirade
him. which to draw. Still a single per- glade and which, together with
and invective as each of the med- voluntarily bequeathed
son was a microcosm of the hu- other scattered documents from
ics turned his wrath on the oth- Ink aplenty, enough for a dec-
man race and perhaps he was as the worlds that they had
er. ade, remained in each. It seemed
good as any other for the pur- attempted to colonize, provided
Fascinated, occasionally re- clear that there was more ink
pose, at this particular time. us with an invaluable insight to
pelled, Ralph wrote them up at than there were words to write
That being so, he reached the mores of those who knew
gratifying length, first together with it.
back as far into his memory as themselves as human beings.
and then separately. But this He knew now why poor Cad-
Cadman had been it was possible to go. Oh, yes. To answer Ralph’s
field went fallow as even-
also man had died. .
illustrated by NODEL
150
tlnent. He hadn’t cared to. Holt view, but some direct, specific
hideous keep blazed and glowed dream left him satisfied. His
had politely suggested it, when affront. Poaching on his land, too
in hellish fire and crumpled heart raced perhaps a little
the surveyors and architects first perhaps. Or sending a robot out
and toppled and ran in molten enthusiastically as he pictured
came out from Earth. McDer- to hack down a tree on the bor-
puddles over the snow. that slagheap on the horizon. He
mott had just as politely insist- derland. Or putting up a flash-
Yes, that would be the mo- made an effort to calm himself.
ed on putting his house where ing neon sign that mocked Holt
ment to live for! He was, after all, a fragile old
he wanted to put it. in some vulgar way. Anything
That would be the moment of man, much as he hated to admit
It was still there.. Michael that would serve as an excuse for
triumph! it, and even the excitement of a
Holt peered at it, and his insides hostilities.
To back from the con-
step daydream taxed his strength.
roiled. He walked to the control And then: Holt saw himself
trols at last, and look through He walked away from the
console of the armament panel, coming up here to the command
the window and see the glowing panel, back to the window.
and let his thin, gnarled hands room and broadcasting an ulti-
red spot on the horizon where Nothing had changed. The zone
rest for a moment on a gleaming matum to the enemy. “Take that
the McDermott place had been. of brown earth where his melt-
rheostat. sign down, McDermott,” he
To pat the controls as though ers kept back the snow, and
There was an almost sexual might say. “Keep your robots off
they were the flanks of a be- then the white field, and final-
manner to the way Holt fondled my land,” perhaps. Or else, ly the excrescence on the hori-
the jutting knobs and studs of loved old horse. To leave the
“This -means war!” glinting coppery red
house, and ride across the bor- zon,
the console. Now that his two McDermott would answer
derland into the McDermott es- in the thin midday sunlight.
hundredth year was approach- with a blast of radiation, of
tate, and see the charred ruin, Holt scowled. The daydream
ing, he rarely handled the bod- course, because that was the kind
and know that he was gone for- had changed nothing. No shot
ies of his wives that way any of sneak he was. The deflector
ever. had been fired. McDermott’s
more. But then he did not love screens of Holt’s front line de-
Then, of course, there would keep still stained the view.
his wives as keenly as he loved fenses would handle the bolt
be an inquiry. The fifty lords of Turning, Holt began to shuffle
the artillery emplacement with with ease, soaking it in and feed-
the planet would meet to discuss slowly out of the room, toward
which he could blow Andrew ing the energy straight to Holt’s
the battle, and Holt would ex- the dropshaft that would take
McDermott to atoms. own generators.
plain, “He wantonly provoked him five floors downward to his
Just let him provoke me. Holt Then, at long lasf. Holt would
thought. me. I need not tell you how he family.
answer back. His fingers would
He stood by the panel, a tall, gave me offense by building his
tighten on the controls. Crack-
man with a withered face house within my view. But this II
gaunt
and a savage hook of a nose and
ling arcs of energy would leap
toward the ionosphere and bound
time —
a surprisingly thick shock of
faded red hair. He closed his
downward
spearing
at
through
McDermott’s
his
place,
piti-
And Holt’s fellow lords would
nod sagely. They would un- T he communicator chimed.
Holt stared at the screen in
eyes and allowed himself the derstand, for they valued their surprise.
ful screens as though they
own unblemished views as high- “Yes?”
luxury of a daydream. weren’t there. Holt saw himself
ly as Holt himself. They would “An outside call for you. Lord
gripping the controls with
exonerate him and grant him Holt. Lord McDermott is call-
T Te imagined Andrew
that knuckle - whitening fervor,
McDermott’s land, as far as the ing,” the bland metallic voice
McDermott had given him launching thunderbolt after
horizon, so no newcomer could said.
offense. Not simply the eternal thunderbolt while on the hori-
repeat the offense. “Lord McDermott’s secretary,
offense of being there in his xon Andrew McDermott’s
Michael Holt smiled. The day- you mean?”
152 GALAXY
NEIGHBOR
“It is Lord McDermott him- the array of weaponry Holt had “Let me remind you,” Holt “You know there can’t ever
self, your lordship.” assembled. The outcome of a said coldly, “that you have be peace between us,” Holt said.
Holt blinked. “You’re jok- conflict was in no doubt. Let called me. The normal rules of “Not so long as that eyesore of
ing,” he said. “It’s fifty years him statt something, Michael etiquette require that I have the yours sticks up over the trees.
since he called me. If this is a Holt prayed. Oh, let him be the privilege of deciding on the It’s a cinder in my eye, McDer-
prank I’ll have your circuits aggressor! I’m ready for him, and manner of transmission. And I mott. I can’t ever forgive you for
shorted!” more than ready! prefer not to be seen. I also pre- building it.”
“I cannot joke, your lordship. The bell chimed again. The fer not to be speaking to you. “Will you listen to me?” Mc-
ShallI tell Lord McDermott you robot voice of Holt’s secretary You have thirty seconds to state Dermott said. “When I’m gone,
do not wish to speak to him?” said, “I have spoken to him, your complaint. Important busi- you can blast the place apart, if
“Of course!” Holt snapped. your lordship. He will tell me ness awaits me.” it pleases you. All I want is for
“No —
wait. Find out what he nothing. He wants you.” you to come here. I — I need
wants. Then tell him I can’t Holt sighed. “Very well. Put
*
I
'here was silence. Holt you. Holt. I want you to pay me
speak to him.” him on, then.” gripped the arms of his a visit.”
Holt sank back into a chair in There was a moment of elec- chair and signalled for a more “Why don’t you come here,
front of the screen. He nudged a tronic chaos on the screen as the intense massage. He became then?” Holt jeered. “I’ll throw
button with his elbow, and tiny robot shifted from the inside aware, in great irritation, that my door wide for you. We’ll sit
fingers began to massage channel to an outside one. Holt his hands were trembling. He by the fire and reminisce about
the muscles of his back, where sat stiffly, annoyed by the sud- glared at the screen as though all the years we hated each
tension poisons had sud- den anxiety he felt. He realized, he could burn his enemy’s brain other.”
denly flooded in to stiffen him. strangely, that he had forgotten out simply by sending angry “If I could come to you,” Mc-
McDermott calling? What what his enemy’s voice sound- thoughts over the communicator. Dermott said, “there would
for? ed like. All communication be- McDermott said finally, “I be no need for us to meet at all.”
To complain, of course. Some tween them had been through have no complaint. Holt. Only “What do you mean?”
trespass, no doubt. Some serious robot intermediaries for years. an invitation.” “Turn your visual on, and
trespass, if McDermott felt he The screen brightened and “To tea?” Holt sneered. you’ll see.”
had to make the call himself. showed a test pattern. A hoarse, “Call it that. I want you to Michael Holt frowned. He
Michael Holt’s blood warmed. querulous voice said, “Holt? come here. Holt.” knew he had become hideous
Let him complain! Let him ac- Holt, where are you?” “You’ve lost your mind!” with age, and he was not eager
cuse, let him bluster! Perhaps “Right here in my chair, Mc- “Not yet. Come to me. Let’s to show himself to his enemy.
this would give the excuse for Dermott. What’s troubling have a truce,” McDermott But he could not see McDermott
hostilities at last. Holt ached to you?” rasped. “We’re both old, sick, without revealing himself at the
declare war. He had been guild- “Turn your visual on. Let me stupid men. It’s time to stop the same time. With an abrupt, im-
ing his armaments patiently for have a look at you, Holt.” hatred.” pulsive gesture. Holt jabbed the
decade after decade, and he “You can speak your piece Holt laughed. “We’re both control button in his chair. The
knew beyond doubt that he had without seeing me, can’t you? Is old, yes. But I’m not sick and mists on the screen faded, and
the capability to destroy McDer- my face that fascinating to you’re the only stupid one. Isn’t an image appeared.
mott within moments after the you?” it a little late for the olive All Holt could see was a face,
first shot was fired. No screens “Please. This is no time for branch?” shrunken, wizened, wasted. Mc-
in the universe could withstand bickering. Turn the visual on!” “Never too late.” Dermott was past two hundred.
154 GALAXY NEIGHBOR 155
!
Holt knew, and he looked it. But come. There’s something I in him. Could this all be some need to use the heavy artillery
There was no flesh left on his have to tell you, something of vi- subtle way, he wondered, of that he had been so jealously
hoarding against this day. A
I
his face was distorted, the nos- when I teU you. You won’t re- tion? enough.
tril flared, the mouth-corner gret coming. Believe that. Holt.” He gripped the controls. He It would be too easy this way,
dragged down to reveal the Holt stared at the wizened pondered, considered tossing a though.
teeth, the eyelid drooping. Be- creature in the screen, and trem- thousand megawatt beam at Mc- There could be no pleasure in
low the chin, McDermott was bled with doubt and confusion. Dermott, then decided to use a wanton attack. McDermott had
invisible, swathed in machinery, The man must be a limatic! It sometliing a little milder. If the not provoked him. Rather, he
his body cocooned in what was was years since Holt had last screens really were down all the sat there in his cocoon,
probably a nutrient bath. He stepped beyond the protection way, even his feeblest shot would sniveling and begging to be
was obviously in bad shape. of his own screens. Now McDer- score. visited.
mott was asking him not only to He sighted — not on the house Holt returned the visual
to
field. “I must be as crazy as you
H e said,
Holt.
“I’ve had a
I’m paralyzed from
down. I can’t hurt
stroke. go into the open field, where he
might be gunned down with
ease, but to enter into McDer-
but on a tree just within
itself,
McDermott’s inner circle of de-
fense. He fired, half con-
are,” he said. “Turn your robots
loose and leave your screens
the neck still
you.” mott’s house itself, to put his vinced he was dreaming. The down. I’ll come to visit you. I
“When did this happen?” head right between the jaws of tree became a yard-high stump. wish I understood this, but I’ll
“A year ago.” the lion. “That’s it,” McDermott called. come anyway.”
“You’ve kept very quiet about Absurd “Go on. Aim at the house, too!
it,”Holt said. McDermott said, “Let me Knock a turret off — the screens Ill
your worst!”
at Senile dementia. Holt
thought. Baffled, he lifted the
sight a bitand let the beam play
M
wives,
ichael
family
Holt
together. Three
the eldest near his own
called his
you’re suspicious. You think I’m Deeply troubled, chilled with against one of McDermott’s out- age, the youngest only seventy.
crazy to ask you to come here. mystification. Holt elbowed out buildings. The shielded wall Seven sons, ranging in age from
ni turn my screens off. I’ll send of his chair and went beyond glov.'ed a moment, then gave as sixty to a hundred thirteen. The
aU my robots across the river. the range of the visual pickup, the beam smashed its way wives of his sons. His grand-
Ill be absolutely alone here, over to the control console of through. Ten square feet of Mc- children. His top echelon of ro-
helpless,and you can come with the guns. How many times in Dermott’s castle now was a soup bots.
an army if you like. There. dreams he had fondled these of protons, fleeing into the cold. He assembled them in the
Doesn’t that sound like a trap. studs and knobs, never once dar- Holt realized in stunned grand hall of Holt Keep, took
Holt? I know I’d think so if I ing to fire them except in test disbelief that there was nothing his place at the head of the ta-
were in your place and you were shots directed at his own prop- at cll preventing him from des- ble, and stared down the rows at
in mine. But it isn’t a trap. Can e^'ty! It was unreal to be actual- troying McDermott and his odi- their faces, so like his own. He
you believe that? Ill open my ly training the sights on the ous house entirely. said quietly, “I am going to pay
door to you. You can come and gleaming tower of McDermott’s There was no risk of a coun- a call on Lord McDermott.”
laugh in my face as I lie here. bouse at last Excitement surged terattack. He would not even He could see the shock on
er, was not speaking to me. arrow into his driving rear flank.
My father, aging beside the He was to yell and divert him
small fire in his room of memo- toward the tree. He did neither.
ries,whispered to me in excite- He threw down his bow and
ment. “Careful, son. He’s a big swung into the tree.
brute. Hear the weight of him There was no place for me to
166
GALAXY
give us. The boy had never seen rocket screamed overhead. Its
cass crashed painfully across my over where my eldest son
to
a live boar. He did not know. parting thunder boomed back
stood. Because of this boy’s
legs. Forgive me, and I will give i p from the gorges of Guapanga.
At his shoulder t^s boar had mother and the radical Mentalist my thinking.” This irritating sound was, as they
stood almost as high as a man. I thinking she had recently sub-
“Leave us.” say, the gem that sank the boat.
lay waiting for the bearers to scribed to, none of my three
“You were dying and you curs- I slapped the boy.
get him off me. I looked up at wives now admitted me to their ed me before the elite world.” Yet, even as my helpless rage
the churning surface of Red rooms. Because of this boy and
“Leave us.” propelled the hand, I felt my
Giant and marveled that I was his goose of a mother, I was al-
own guilt slow it.
still alive. most dead with a tusk from groin T stood hot- eyed before the boy. Afterward, it was not a time
to throat.
I am
a conservative Mentalist to admit that feeling of guilt. It
A fter I was standing, the head I walked over to where
with sactimoni-
his
— which is the conservative par- was time —and far too late a
bearer grasped my arms in mind seethed
the traditional gesture but he ous pride in his absurd Mentalist
ty in the first place. I know ex- time —to start contradicting his
actly what the Matterists are mother’s thinking.
extremes, and with horror at the
avoided my eyes. He said, “Tawe
sight of the great boar bearing
after —
and I am dead against With my mind I said to him,
tawa,” which scholars say once It. I do not allow the use of any “Very well. All is mind. Matter
meant, “Hunter of hunters,” in down on me.
The words in thisconfusion
machines anywhere on my lands. is an illusion. But a mental charl
the primitive vocal language. My grandfather fought against
what I knew at the boar can kill a mental man as
The other bearers were blank- were, “I did
the vote for women until the surely as if he were material.
faced and they did not dance last moment I had to do. I tried
radical
my
Mentalist princi-
Mentalists finally beat And a mental son has a duty to
on the carcass or pass wine. I to explain
him fifty years ago. To this day his mental father.”
looked down on the charl boar ples to you and you wouldn’t
no elite woman from Guapanga Now his shame dominated his
. . certainly the greatest I had
.
listen. My
mother has condoned
casts a vote. confusion and he bawled. I went
ever killed. my decision.”
Among conservative
Mental-
Abruptly, my chief wife was
on, “The Mentalist culture of
I yelled with my mind and am
ists, I rockbound conserva- which you are so proud will not
did not care that elite Guapanga in my mind, horrified at what To
had almost happened to me, pro-
tive. the radicals, I am “The protect your feet from stones,
might hear: “Woman! Because Mountain Ogre.” Now I faced a while this boar will make shoes
of your nuts-and-fruit thinking, tective of the boy and still stub-
cowardly son because radical for the whole lodge. You must
I cannot mount this shameful born with righteousness. “Our
women’s thinking had entered eat meat and meat must be
head in our lodge!” son will devote his life to build-
my own household. I was about kiUed.”
The chief bearer, knowing only ing our beautiful Mentalist heri-
as dead politically as a man can Stubbornly, through his shame,
the silence in the glade, took out tage. He cannot taint himself
get and still cast a vote. he echoed his mother. “The kill-
his steel knife and began expert- with killing.”
Even as I stood there I could ing should be done by common
ly to dress the animal. The other heard a groan from
I my lips.
hear the first repercussions of men, not by a Mentalist.”
bearers got in his way helping. “Leave us, woman.”
this shameful incident snickering These Mentalist fads and cults,
They were anxious to avoid my Now she wept. From the bench off into the Mentalist world. “Oh, such as the one my chief wife
eyes. Their atelepathic minds were she sat in the courtyard of
didn’t he turn out to be an ogre was dabbling in, had grown only
cringed from the probing they the lodge the paving stones blur-
at home?” “Well, you must ad- in the last five years since the
hoped I was gentlemanly enough red as though in rain, and her
mit, he’s great with boars.” Chupa Uprisings. They were un-
not to make. mouth cried out, “My husband,
Another Matterist passenger healthy signs of the shock and
I felt my face bum. I looked we have almost killed you. For-
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 169
168 GALAXY
fear left in us by the unexpected this moimtain there is a little In the truce after the “war” pared to the elegance of my cap
revolt of the chupas. lake and I stopped and bathed. the candidate of the victors cau- and tunic, the silk of my
I shook my head. “Arm your Afterward, I lay on the grassy tiously contacts the minds of the breeches and the handsomely
tenants and train them to hunt? bank and watched a herd of defeated. With utmost care he tooled leather of my boots. He
One day you will find them hunt- greathoms high on the mountain synthesizes a pragmatic position wore the usual unadorned clothes
ing you.” reached out and grip-
I as they made their dainty way for himself embracing, if he is a and his machine-made boots
ped his arm. “Your grandfather from one perilous coign to an- Mentalist, one after another of were plain.
built this Mentalist empire here other. the Matterist points of faith, as He was a neighbor of mine.
in the Guapangas, sprang be- I became aware of the ap- “beliefs necessary to the well- As looked to the south down
I
tween two Matterist republics. proach of a Matterist. We both, being of my Matterist subjects.” his valley, I could see the ugly
Geographically and spiritually it ceremonially closed our minds. At the same time he rarefies his smudge from his pulp mills and
must be the most Mentalist of “I pass your mind in peace. former Mentalist beliefs into paper factories. (The Matterists
empires. It must be the conserva- May Mr. Executive shield us pragmatic notions necessary to have a type of daily reading they
tive stronghold. And that means, both.” “guide my actions and obtain my are addicted to instead of enjoy-
among many other things, killing “I withdraw my mind with re- ends as Old Man.” ing books. Everything that has
your own meat.” spect. I commend you to Old Now his one mind handles the happened that day in their so-
Now I was through with him. Man.” two conflicting faiths in a logical ciety, endless minutiae you
I was not quite in a mood to The present political divisions, manner, and for his lifetime he would never pause over in tele-
start making a chum of him. Matterists and Mentalists, were keeps the peace. pathic scanning, they read about
“You will return with the bear- the ancient tele-
left after all of He keeps the peace absolutely in the evening. They require
ers. I am going back alone.” pathic cultures had fused or been because none may plot against enormous amounts of cheap pap-
I walked over to the bearers. annihilated. In the meantime him for a moment. Awake or er to keep up this “papernews”.)
“The boy will return with you.” there had evolved the institution asleep, and without any bother The Matterist apologized' un-
The head bearer looked me in of the Old Man. (The priggish on his part, his mind would auto- necessarily. “I hope you don’t
the eye now and nodded respect- Matterists call him Mr. Execu- matically shunt contradictory be- mind that I pass through this
fully. “Yes, Excellency.” tive, but he is still just Old Man.) liefs into the mind of the plotter part of your land. It is the only
The Old Man is one mind and thus confuse him complete- way I can get to the greathoms
II which stands between the two ly- of this mountain.
planet-wide political parties and I rose from the grass and I spread my hands. “You are
T7rom that high valley at the acts as final law for both. Our dressed to meet the Matterist. welcome at any time.”
^ feet of the Guapangas, I greatest political crisis comes Naturally we did not touch,
followed a great conifered ridge when an Old Man dies. Then t was some time before he ap- and of course we spoke only
that borders my lands. I walked hurriedly come the two planet- I peared around a wooded knoll. with our mouths. Our minds
in telepathic solitude, angry and wide telepathic conventions — He had with him two bearers were closed to each other. He
ashamed. the building of the two new plat- who carried the carcass of a was carrying a high-powered rifle
In the late afternoon I arrived forms —the election of two op- greathom. The beautiful curving with a telescopic sight The tele-
at a craggy mountain that stands T'osing candidates (one of which horns were the color of nut scope excited me. We may build
apart from its parent Guapangas. will become the new Old Man) meats. telescopes to study Lalone and
There the ridge begins to drop — and finally, the moment of His machine-made clothing the other planets and moons. But
toward my lodge. At the base of “war”. was drab and unpretentious com- to build or use a sight with which
tism was naturally cheered by of the wide tunnels which had I focused at once on my son’s
conservative Mentalists and hiss- been provided for moving wild- mind and spoke firmly but cheer-
ed by radical Mentalists., But life. Above me the cars whistled
T^rom chupa lieutenant’s
the fully. “How is your camp?”
the most heartening response had on their pavement. The Matter- mind came a solemn remark. “It is good, father. We are
“I, too, do not know for sure. about half way back to the lodge
been from the chupas. These ist minds they carried were still
children from the union of an closed to us, but they, too, were
But I would be honored if it from the high valleys.”
elite person with a common, hurrying to be ready for Old
were so.” “Have you seen to the com-
atelepathic person (usually a Man’s death. The open minds which he and fort of your bearers?”
I kept with each other were oc- “Yes, we .” He paused and
concubine), lacks nothing in in- As I came out of the tunnel, I . .
telligence and they telepath as became aware that the young casionally embarrassing. It had continued meekly, “We are broil-
well as elite people. Like the Chupa overseer of my lands was passed through my mind that ing part of the boar and will eat
this chupa’s mother had died soon.”
common people, however, they on his way to meet me with a
have minds of their own. Each lantern. I was pleased that he
without telling, but many have “You realize that the Mental-
chupa is a little culture to him- had not delegated this to an claimed that my own father was istconvention could start at any
self, completely independent. atelepathic on this dangerous her elite lover. minute. Since you are not of
They are realists, first and night.
One thing was sure, father my voting age, close your mind at
last,and seem always pragmatic. He called to me with his kept a stingy grip on that part once and remain that way until
of his memories. contacted.”
They like me. Now, since the strong, cheerful mind. “Excellen-
Uprisings, they had become im- cy, Ihave just crossed the creek I mounted the pass below the “Yes, father. I will do so."
great rock skull that was bathed The chupa shifted his lantern
portant politically. above Serapon Marsh. On Skull
174 GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 175
knew that I never cared to speak my harness of arrows and my
to his other hand and put his when the “war” comes we will
with her except to persuade her clothesand left them in a heap
free arm on my
shoulder. “I win. If I am placed as Old Man
to have big heavy babies with
knew you wovild not continue to I ask immediately for you
will
on the stones of the court I
heads like red melons. vaulted into the fountain, fright-
be harsh with the boy. It was not to be voted into the Council.
his fault, and he would never do You will lose due to that ridicu- A breeze moved through the ened the decorative fish into a
trees and shrubs of the court. shimmering explosion. Aftejrward
it again.” lous chart boar business of this
The splashing of the fountain I walked in angry nakednesa
Momentarily, the picture of morning. However, I will keep
was a great noise. The crackling across the court and along the
thrashing a naked woman with asking and I am sure you will
of coals in the open cooking pit great portico to my
a stick was embarrassingly sharp be voted in next fall.” rooms.
beyond the fountain was anoth-
in his mind. He hastened his My father-in-law withdrew his
er noise. I found that I was de- '
thinking to the words, “Of busy focus as the chupa and I I 'he Matterists marry only one
*
sperately hungry. woman. have often assum-
course, I have no rightful passed beneath the autumn- I
Over the bed of coals the car- ed from basic
thoughts on whose fault it might spangled leera trees and entered this stupidity
cass of a black horn sizzled. springs the meanness of their cul-
have been.” the great stone-paved court of
There was a loaf of bread and a
As we started down the slopes my lodge. I caught a glimpse of skin of wine on the stone table.
ture. This night I had learned
above Serapon Marsh, he point- my chief wife hurrying along a that three women are no certain-
There were no servants to help ty of affection.
ed east where Garrison Bluff portico in the waning light of
me, of course. All the men were Alone in my rooms,
was drenched in moonlight. Falon. Her robe blew about her I shouted
stationed about the grounds,
I nodded. The garrison was fine figure in tallow folds that to all three of them with my
guarding with bow and spear
dark and deserted. My monks were mystically related to the mind, “Don’t worry that I will
against the possible rifles and not return from this convention
had already left their cells and wax-hard withdrawal of her
explosives of Matterist common with a firm mind! I will come
each had departed alone for some proud mind.
people. Their women were hud- back here with a stick and beat
impromptu retreat in the forest. The chupa grasped thumbs
dled about their own cooking fire two of you all the way to the
There they would hold their con- with me. “May the Mentalists
where they whispered the age- Basahn Hills. I will save the stick
victionsagainst Matterism and win again.” He saluted rrie ironi-
old superstitions about politics. and when the other had whelped
vote steadily Mentalism.
for cally and left.
I cut a huge piece of the meat
When the brief moment of “war” The lodge was dark and silent. I will stand in one spot and beat
and ate itwith the bread, sitting affection into her. Her heart
came, their full telepathic force The children were all asleep. The
at the stone serving table. I will melt for man and child.”
would be against the Matterist adults were awake and anxious
platform. So now, if a Matterist
drank the wine directly from the I threw on a cap and left my
about the convention. In his
non-voter chose to blow up the rooms off one of the upper porti-
skin, chewed ravenously and rooms and let my boots crash
stared into the coals.
garrison, little would be lost. cos my aged father hummed to theatrically on the stones. I went
himself and dreamed of a con-
My third wife, the little one up the stairs and along the up-
A the chupa and I came up from Kewananga, was no longer per portico to my father’s rooms.
s vention and “war” in his youth.
speaking with me, even to scold. He said with his mind, “Come
the stone walk to the lodge, My second wife stirred uncom-
She now sided completely with
my father-in-law contacted me fortably in bed with the big baby in, son. After the convention I
the chief wife whom I had curs- will come out on the portico to
again. “Old Man has weakened she was carrying and resented its
ed. see you return with a stick. Then
so that Intelligence is able to father profoundly. She would not
I decided to bathe again when we will have peace and love
study the possible Matterist speak with me when focused
I
I had finished eating. I threw off about here once more.”
platform. I am confident that comfortingly on her mind. She
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
176 GALAXY 177
I entered and stood before into the forest and lie on the secret place in my forests. This would be the moment of
him. To me his face will always ground and fight the telepatliic Through the enormous rusty “war”. When it was finished one
be the most beautiful of my life. war. For, in ancient times, be- glowing a great black chahar logic would stand intact across
There is written in those deep fore the institution of Old Man, winged his heavy way. Even as the planet and the victors would
seams a long life of building and the election was the war. I watched his flight he gave his install the next Old Man.
adventure and care. It was he I walked out of the lodge along screaming cry, and it was day. While we were busy building
who had fought in three elections the great portico which is sup- The first ray from Red Giant the Mentalist platform our chupa
to win and place a Mentalist Old ported by thirteen caryatids lanced the black belly of a cloud, minds stood respectfully aside.
Man and prevent the Matterists carved as the demons spawned splashing blood across the high For a chupa thinks independent-
from invading the planets of oth- in “The Beginning” by White cliffs of Guapanga. ly of the party platforms, just
er suns. It was who had
he, too, Dwarf. There my chief wife knelt At that moment Old Man died. as a common man thinks pretty
counseled me Chupa
during the on the stones and grasped my His hand, held by that of his much as he pleases in his lonely
Uprisings. The memory of his thighs. chief wife, relaxed. Over his fad- world. But an elite man
neces-
understanding in those days stir- I did not put my hand on her ing telepathic fans, he muttered sarily takes part in his telepathic
red in me a sudden question. dark and lovely head. She drew a name that was heard by wait- culture (or, as we call it today,
“Are you the father of my chu- herself up my body and sought ing millionsof us across the “platform”). It is the thing which
pa?” my lips. I did not refuse her planet. Then he was dead. forms his mental boundaries.
He was angry with me. “You this, but I could not return the The Mentalist convention be- Every elite person, upon the
think of trivia in the presence of kiss. Too clearly, gleaming tusks gan immediately. I walked over death of an Old Man, is deeply
this ceremony!” flashed in the teree grass. to a grassy knoll and lay down concerned with the changes that
I was ashamed. I had caught It was cruel and insulting. and closed my eyes. will occur in his allowable philo-
from his mind a hard ache of moaned
Salty with tears, her lips Throughout the morning of sophy.
remembered love and a sweet away from me. She turned and voting on issues and principles
face, and this I had tricked from clung to a caryatid and it was that would make up our plat- Touring the morning my chupa
him. But this thought left one the female demon, Paline. I left form, there whispered outside our half-brother contacted me.
certainty. It is a fine thing to her sobbing face imcomforted be- minds the ominous workings of “Excellency, can you spare a
love a woman who can’t read tween wooden breasts. the Matterist convention where moment? It is important.”
your mind. an opposing platform was taking “Of course, but you know not
I gestured placatingly for the IV shape. These foreign arguments to keep me too long.”
ceremony. and all this communication we “I have been increasingly
All over our planet, where it autumn dawns start softly, kept firmly from our minds. The aware that you intend to enter
was now light and where it was a subtle, pink glowing with- moment would come soon enough again your plea for dishonest
now dark, these ancient Mental- out direction that grows and when we would face them with government.”
ist words were being spoken. The grows until suddenly day crashes our platform and they would “Yes, I do. I suppose it will
hands of an old man trembled on in. Deep in a secret part of the face us with theirs. And in less make as little impression this
the kneeling young one and the forest I stood on a little emin- time than it takes to melt a time as it has in the past. But
primitive, almost meaningless ence and leaned against a cold scoop of butter over a fire, the it isan essential part of my con-
words of mouth were said by the face of basalt. logic of the stronger side would servatism and I can’t neglect it.”
ancient. After these magical I have always attended the begin to confuse and dissolve “Pardon me. Excellency. I
words of mouth one could go political conventions from this the logic of the weaker side. think it wrill make a very definite
just now.
up he had only to contact me. blue wesah. Then she indicated
a conference about it will try anything to get free.”
We can promise you a solid vote This was the inevitable refer-
When I opened my eyes to the the meal with her head.
Her strange smile angered me. the tide whirled crimson leaves chupa.
had hardly realized her capacity
tl was about to order her away about us. Presently the tide rac-
when she raised her arms and ed through the forest. It sang
to love. V
Suddenly I remembered the
ttmdid the knot of her honey- through bare autumn branches
name that Old Man had mutter- t is wrong by the old stand-
colored hair so that it fell to her and half buried us in a drift of
shoulders as girls wear their hair leaves. The woman’s warm
ed as he died. His elite wives I ards, but I lay beside the
had been gathered at his bed. woman throughout the afternoon
before marriageable age. mouth whispered over my face. His dearest friends had been of the convention. She neither
“Do you recognize me, Excel- Then, far away I heard the
there. But the last name he had
lency? Wasn’t there a time dur- mighty wave of wind bellow into stirrednor spoke with her mouth
uttered had been that cf a com-
ing the telepathic fighting of the the gorges of Guapanga, shrilling in all that time. My awareness
mon woman, a concubine who left the forest and centered en-
chupas when you felt less harsh- in the wild crags.
was not even allowed in the tirely in the convention.
ly against my company.”
house. I had returned barely in time.
Then I recognized her. She lay dreaming. One day I
marveled that he had taken
I
The voting had reached subjects
was the daughter of one of my I would be Old Man. If I be-
woman to him-
tenants. While I had rested from came a councillor next fall my
this atelepathic critical to me. My
turn for at-
selfand outraged elite people tention before the delegates came
fighting the chupas five years way would be easy. This would even before he became Old Man. quickly.
ago, she had happened by here. be inevitable, because my grand- And I saw that what this might I began my speech gravely.
She smiled. It was entirely a father and my father had built
have lost him in political support “Mr. Chairman, ladies and
forgiving smile. “I was only a an empire and left it to me. With from elite women had been more gentlemen, and delegates. I am
girl then. Excellency. a
I am such an empire and my own good than offset by his later populari- going to return to my plea for
woman now. I have heard that talent as a logician I could, as
ty among
the chupas. dishonesty in government.”
your wives do not come to you, I lay there in the forest, decide
focused again on the mind of
I There was a massive, telepath-
election day or not.” that I wanted one day to be Old this gentle, passionate woman ed groan from the ranks of radi-
She declared this as bluntly as Man. beside me, and I found that her cal Mentalists and even some
she might say, “I see that your The woman lay still in my adoration was tempered by a heavy sighs from conservatives.
red thatch needs trimming.” arms. Her eyes had been fixed on
strong determination of her own. The radicals began hooting. It
We sat there for some time, the depths of trees where Red
The strength of her will astonish- took the chair several seconds to
looking at each other through Giant cast Vermillion spears. ed me until she said in her mind, quiet the disorder.
knowing lids while I remember- Now they turned to me in a “He has hair like yours. It is
ed her sweet youth and felt a Afterward I spoke dramatical-
dream. I stroked her shoulder red like the flame of Red Giant.” ly, directly to the chair. “Mr.
ravenous need for her. I beckon- where coils of honey-colored hair
Then this woman’s mind open- Chairman, to protect this as-
ed her to me, and as I did so buried my hand. The last gusts
ed to me. I was happy with un- sembly against further outbursts
I realized that the air-tide of our of the tide lifted lazy dervishes
derstanding. I kissed her face of childishness, I am going to
planet was rising. from the leaves about us and tillshe wept, and she said halt- make an announcement. After 1
Red Giant and White Dwarf r^nled the flame of her cheeks.
ingly, “He is like Red Giant in have made it, I think you may
were overhead. Together they She said, “I have loved you another way. He takes a storm wish to grant a 15-second recess
draw an angry tide of storm since you came to me, like a god
with him everywhere.” to allow the delegates to confirm
through all our noons. here in your forest.”
And suddenly, of all my child- the announcement
182 GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 183
IT
i
tician can be is a fanatic about that was repeated over and over our political platform, what will She offered me a drink fronl
honesty. But he can be much from all directions like a shower happen to the Matterists when thehasam gourd and I took it.
worse. It behooves you first to of autumn leaves. “Their money- we face them in the moment of Then I asked with my mind,
ask why he is honest. If he can economy. Their money-econo- “war”? “How far is it to your father’s
answer that satisfactorily it be- my. “In that moment when our house.”
hooves you to ask why he is in minds are open to them, won’t In her mind there was not an
government. T?or the first time this assembly their logic be confounded? For answer to my question. Rather,
“How much of your freedom ^ had caught a glimpse of my they cannot deny the prevalence her mind filled with the reali-
does the honest politician want pragmatism and the di-
political
of dishonesty. And they cannot zation that I would buy her for
deny that the most dangerous a concubine.
in exchange for not taking your mensions in which it could work
money? Does he want your right for us. With the Matterists every-
politicians are honest fanatics So I had to repeat my ques-
to vote? Your right to your land? thing isorganized into man-
. . .
from whom we are protected by tion,and still there was in her
strong, dishonest governments. mind only this realization.
Your right to your women, your agement teams, labor unions and
Yet acceptance of these things Then I laughed and said loud-
right to drink spirits, or eat meat, clubs. They have only black-
or read books? and-white language for their sup-
implies destruction of their econ- ly with my mouth, so that it
omy. startled her in the silent, after-
“Such questions become critical posed virtues such as “industry”,
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will noon forest, “How far to
when many honest men congre- “honesty” and “frugality”. Yet is it
win the “war” and lose nothing in your house?”
gate in one government. Why there is less virtue in their higher father’s
have they foregathered in this circles than in my meanest ten- the peace!” Now I saw in her mind that
This conclusion was greeted the house would not be far be-
ominous way? Why this unnatur- ant.
al climate of sobriety and thrift? So now I shouted to the as- with a storm of approval. yond the creek. A place with a
What is it these honest men are sembly. “Yes, their money-econ-
My father - in - law focused well in the yard and an arbor
tightly on me. “You will not for wesah. The little chupa would
seeking to change? The foxes omy! The Matterists have an
have flown and your society is almost complete money-economy
have to wait till next fall. You be teasing the hopani fowl in
will be voted to the Council of cackling flurries around the
sick. in which dishonesty and embez-
“Let the next Old Man reduce zlement are, at one and the Pragmatists later in the after- house.
noon. Why don’t you tactfully That was the way it was as
the penalties against government- same time, essentially prevalent
leave the convention now, at the we walked down from the forest
al dishonesty and embezzlement and highly abhorred.
— just as I proposed at the last “But what of our semi-feudal height of your approval? You except that the little chupa was
convention. Let the next Old economy? Need we be fearful of need not return until the voting not about. We crossed a field of
man make our political position political dishonesty where power
starts.” freshly mown teree grass and
attractive to clever and intelli- and position are the right of walked up to the house. The
gent men who happen to be a birth? Will not the chupas be VI woman straightened her hair
little dishonest. Only in this way pleased that we lower the penal- self-consciously. I adjusted my
can we have a government strong ties on dishonesty to give them
lay in quiet triumph beside tunic and my cap and found
enough to resist honest fanatics greater opportunity to succeed
I the woman, and she knew I some leaves on my breeches. Red
and radical encroachment.” our world? had returned. She did not say Giant hung in a cloudy blaze,
I paused again, and I found “So, if we have logical reasons, anything, but she thought about waiting to start his plunge at
a surprised approval falling to- as I have given them, to accept me unashamedly, and I knew her the horizon.
ward me ... a murmured phrase dishonesty as a fundamental in thoughts. The father and his workmen
186 GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 187
had finished in the fields for the T T e went to the bam and called dent form, retorting in ragged thumbs again. “But you can do
day. They had just returned to his three workmen out as
unison, “No, we deem it honor- nothing if I sign to you whatever
the barns and the animals as the witnesses to the “fraud”. He had
able.” land you now cultivate.”
woman called him. had no wife for many years and With him this made a purchase
The father then asked me,
He came out, a tall weathered so these would be the only wit-
“You swear by Theda to do these possible because he need not
man, straight and kindly faced. nesses. The workmen stood with
things?” physically accept something. It
Yet I saw the face harden with their caps in their hands. Two of
“I swear by Theda I will do was an extravagant price that
resentment when he recognized them who were married were all these things.” would outrage elite people.
me. This was a proud man who smiling over the young woman’s
The ceremony was and over, He saw that this measured my
would never have asked me to fortune, but the unsmiling bach-
the father and I clasped thumbs respect for his inability to accept
right a wrong. elor had had a secret hope of
while the woman remained as the usual money. He shook his
Nevertheless, he bowed with his own. she was with bowed head. head and stared at the ground,
respect. Doing my best to remember He said, “I will take these wit- unable to hide his smile of pride.
I spoke the proper idiom with this ceremony, I took the tradi- nesses to the village tomorrow The woman, w.io should have
warmth, for I respected the fath- tional coin of small worth from and sign papers. They will be de- been standing in ceremonial si-
er of such a woman. “I withdraw my purse and grasped the fath- livered to you for signing, will lence some distance behind us,
respectfully from the door to er’s hand and placed the coin they not?” suddenly ran past callii'g, “Oh,
your mind.” in I repeated, “I would buy
Now, as was proper, he
it.
“I think so. I have never done my son, drop the thing. Throw it
your daughter, man.” away. Father, you were supposed
this.”
straightened from his bow. I saw The
father cast the coin on
He smiled and it was kind of to look after him. Oh, my son,
that in the interim he had under- the ground. I was grateful that
him to say, “Though you think drop the thing.”
stood what this was about. He he used the ancient, simpler form
not. White Dwarf will reappear.” It was the little chupa. He
was happy for his daughter, and of the ceremony. He stamped on
This common figure, referring to strode from the brush grimed and
that the wrong would now be the coin and said, “I count not
the regular eclipse and return of sweaty, holding in his hand a
righted. your money but your honor.
White Dwarf, meant it had been thin, lavender-striped nolegs as
Now the ceremony would have Thus I see that you will mistreat beyond human power that I was long as a man’s arm. The woman
to come at once. In small talk her.”
five years late in purchasing his would not approach her son when
tiiere might occur exchanges “I will treat her with respect.”
daughter. she reached him because he glee-
which are thought to be bad “And then you will bring her fully waved the coiling nolegs at
omens. So I declared, “Man, I unhappiness.”
would buy your daughter for a drew him aside at this point her.
“I will bring her love and ten-
concubine.”
I and this perturbed him. “No, Her father left me and took
derness.”
Excellency, do not make a sug- the nolegs from the child and let
The woman at once turned her “And finally, you will abandon
gestion. There is no need for a it glide away in the grass. Only
twick to us and lowering her head, her to wretchedness.”
purchase.” then did she kneel and scold the
sighed. “I will keep her with me al-
“I know there is no need, but chupa, while she brushed the
The were sudden-
father’s eyes ways.”
I honor you and I insist.” dust from his tunic and the grime
ly misted. Ceremonially, he look- The father turned to his wit-
“Please, no. I would not feel from his face and picked leaves
ed up at the sky. “Red Giant nesses and demanded, “You hear
right.” and twigs from his red hair.
witnesses what a fraud has come this fraud?”
here.” I knew
that he spoke the truth. He stared over her shoulder
And the workmen used the aii-
I smiled and forced him to grasp at me. Even when she used the
188 GALAXY
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 18f
hem of her gown
to wipe the dirt platform. Collectively and in- ly under way, it was fascinating
her pack only what she may
from pushing his face
his face, tensely we believed our platform to listen to snatches of conversa-
need for tonight. I will send ser-
this way and
that, he kept his in all its logicalbeauty; an al- tion back and forth between in-
vants tomorrow for whatever she
wide eyes on me. I could feel his gebra of faith, cemented at every dividual Matterists. They were
wishes.” and family
possible point to reality. Every contacting friends
mind searching, and I opened my He started to agree but an ex-
mind to him. Mentalist on the planet partook members now that their collec-
pression of intense concentration
of one mind and one logic. tive mind had been broken, and
The workman had laughed came over his face. I spun to the they spoke not as a stationary
lightly about the nolegs. But woman and found the same look my god, the way we continued to
when one of them saw the red- /^nly three times in life
on her face. speak, but as mystified people.
polled chupa being presented to have I been part of this al-
One of my lieutenants was in-
most unendurable moment of to- “What in the name of Paline
me with my red hair falling from structing them to begin voting.
social awareness. It is like a was that business about dis-
under my cap, he guffawed. The I took just a monent to scan
tal,
moment of being a god. honest government being the best
farmer ordered all three back to all of Guapanga, found the peo-
Our logic neatly encompassed government?”
the barns. ple voting hard against the Mat-
and projected, on my pragmatic Then a woman to her promi-
I lifted the child so that
he sat “organized labor”, and
terists’
basis, the massive, uniform vote nent husband, “I tell you, you
on my arm
and his mind seemed the monks voting their subtle
of the common people and the have to do something. H6w hor-
to be coming from his eyes. denials of Matterism, and the
Presently he put his hands on me telepathing of the chupas. We rible to be ruled by an Executive
chupas voting like crazy for dis- with three wives and a raft of
and he loved me. saw, even as the collective mind
honest government. It was a fine messy concubines!”
of the Matterists became discern-
panorama for
the dead-serious Then one industrialist to an-
A able, how impossible it would be
fter a time the woman took Matterists to have to face when other: “There they were again
for their logic to digest or deny
him from me and he rested they opened their minds to us.
these comically true assertions with all their people voting
his head at her throat. She took I promptly returned my aware-
about life with which we could against work. If our workers get
her eyes from me and looked up ness to the convention. I learned
live so easily. that way we’re doomed.”
at Red Giant. Then she said the in an incidental flash that I had A young schoolman cursed
simple thing that was true.
Now the two collective minds
won my place on the Council, were completely interpentrated angrily. “How can they go on
“If all were chupa there would and I found the delegates in a Age-old confusions were stirred disbelieving in progress and beat
be no need for this “war”. hasty vote for our candidate for
in us by the Matterist’s foreign us every time?”
What she said was even truer Old Man. And we millions of Men-
logic. But we were stirring more still
than she meant it. For, as I My father-in-law won, as had than confusion in them. In only held our collective mind,
talists
glanced with her at the sky, I been foregone, and only just in
a few minutes they were in de- our god-like awareness of each
saw the pale glow of our sister time. The Matterists were al-
feat, their collective logic frag- other and the total, victorious
planet, Lalone, where the Mat- ready probing for our collective platform of belief and logic we
mented by our stronger logic.
teristsinvaded and enslaved the awareness. It was the moment
Abruptly, they were asking indi- had put together that day. While
semi-rationals during the reign of “war”.
vidually for tlie placing of Old we held this collective mind, our
of the last Matterist
Old Man. If This probing of foreign logic
Man to begin. new Old Man, my father-in-law,
all were chupa we would not
acts as a catalyst. All elite Men-
While we still held our collec- made his delicate, pragmatic way
have to fight over and over talists, including now even the Matterists’ shattered
tive mind in order that the plac- into the
against the Matterist ambitions. women of Guapanga, opened ing of Old Man could get safe- faiths.
I turned to her father. “Have
tbeir minds to the logic of our
GUAPANGA 191
THE DELEGATE FROM
190
GALAXY
My chupa half-brother stated, the honey-haired woman. She
This process of becoming Old My elite women consider me “Excellency, you have kept a smiled at him and he smiled with
Man requires a consummate logi- crude, and saw that this wom-
I
closed mind and we have been widening eyes. Then he dashed
cian and the ardent assistance, an and I would get along fine. worried about you.’- forward and threw himself in my
throughout the truce, of his form- For, in the common language, “Thank you. I have been well.” arms.
er enemies as well as his friends. my remark had a double mean- He stared at the honey-haired “Father, I’m so glad you’re
Frequently, the first pretender to ing and her quiet laugh had a woman. The thought that crossed back.”
this position has had more ambi- hoydenish ring. I held the youth with one arm
his mind was immediately pick-
tion than talent for pragmatic But we did not leave in time ed up inside the lodge, and I and stroked his dark head. “I’m
logic and has gone out of his to be warmed by Red Giant. feltthe minds of all three elite glad to be back, son.”
mind. The father came out and an- wives tense. Well, they would “Father, you know we have
But my father-in-law would nounced, “You have had a vic- stay tense all night, I could tell had big gray karks in the grain
make it. tory.” them. bins.”
There was no doubt about the I corroborated that and he I was weary of my role as “Yes, they have been eating
old lecher’s ability. He would added, “Then we have two things strong father. I said to my half- and spoiling too much grain.”
make a fine Old Man and. . . to drink to.” brotlier,“Here, please carry this “I killed three of them today
one who would not live too long We went into the kitchen and dumpling.” with a club.”
for my ambitions. he poured liberal glasses of cool To a servant I said, “And you I looked him in the eye steadi-
wesah wine. We
drank them please take the woman’s bundle.” ly. Then I my arm from
removed
VII slowly sitting before a wood fire Now, my half-brother was star- the woman and
took his head
and talking about how the father ing at the child’s red poll, and in my and kissed his
hands
y^hen at last we Mentalists should have another wife. Then he laughed aloud with his mouth. cheek. “Thank you, son. That
were released from the col- he poured us another glass, ex- At that there was a flurry of had to be done.”
lective mind by an order from cept for the woman who said she telepathic gabbling from within I pushed him away playfully.
the new Old Man, I found my- would have no more. So her the lodge. They left the bathing “Get along now. We have to
self in the farmer’s yard. Of father and I had two more. of the children and the roasting meet your mother.”
course I had fallen to the ground After that I said, “No, thank of a flank of the charl boar, and
you. I am sufficiently drunk to the entrance to the central
during the great concentration.
The woman was kneeling near withstand a walk through the
the overseeing of the setting of
the table for dining, and they
A t
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I
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the elite were very nearly over. There on Erth, they have a blue
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I
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