NOVEMBER • 35 CENTS

Wby John ackham

I

ray) wayJUST AS A. TEACHER by

your side, this entirely newand original method showsyou in actual size and colorhow and what to do. You'compare you r progress,step-by-step, with the easy­to-follow VIS-A-LENS, andbefore you realize it, youare actually painting.

A choice of subjects avail­able-get your now-

Price includes Vis-A- onlyLens, 12x16 inch ArtBoard, 6 tubes Oil .95Paint, Oil, Turpentine,2 Brushes, 16 page In­struction Book.

VIS-A-LENS is sold by Aldens,. Montgomery Ward, Sears, Roe­buck & Co. and leading depart­ment stores, coast to coast. Ifyour local stores do not have it,ask them to order an assortment.Address inquiries to:

Vis- -lens, Inc., 530 E. Bainbridge St., Elizabethtown, Penna ...

WORLDS OF

SCIENCE FICTIONNOVEMBER 1959

All Stories New and Complete

Editor: H. L. GOLD

Feature Editor: FREDERIK POHL

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NOVELETTESIF YOU WISH by John Rockham

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL by J. T. Mcintosh

ORANGE by E. C. Tubb

SHORT STORIESNOT SNOW NOR RAIN by Miriam Allen DeFord

GOOD-BY, GLORIA by Ted Bain

THE GELZEK BUSINESS by Wynne N. Whiteford

COUNTERWEIGHT by Jerry Sohl

FEATUREWORLDS OF IF by Frederik Pohl

COVER by Pederson: "Trick Or Treatl"

Illustrations by Harrison, Morrow and Emsh

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IF is published bi-monthly by Digest Productions Corporation, Vol. 9, No.5. Main offices:421 Hudson Street, New York 14, New York. 35¢ per copy. Subscriptions 12 issues $3.00in the United States, Canada. Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. possessions,elsewhere $4.00. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, New York, New York.Copyright New York 1959 by Digest Productions Corporation. All rights, including trans­lations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed, stampedenvelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All storiesprinted in this magazine are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actualpersons is coincidental. PrInted in the U. S. A. by the GUinn Company, Inc., New York.

Title registered in the United States Patent Offiee.

Next Issue 'JanuaryJ on Sa'e November 3rd.

Always IOf?k gift horses if! the mlout~yott never know if

·f

4

they're the Trojan variety! JACOB O'SIMON pressedhis nose to the sliding

magnifier, staring through itand the glassite .wall at the

By JO RAe tense scene inside the hot­house. The hideous but e~cep-

5

tionally rare and delicateVenusian fungus was about tospore. Any second no,v and­ideally-the bloated noduleswould split to speVI out a hostof tiny purple balls. Ideally!

He snatched a hasty glanceat the strip panel by the sideof the chamber, checking'temperature and humidity,atmosphere analysis-andwas a,vare, suddenly, that thealarm ,vas clamoring. Thattriple ring and pause, triplering and pause, spelled outthe approach of the shuttlerocket.

"The hell with it!" he mut­tered, pressing his nose to theglass again. This sporulationhe had to see ,vith his o\yneyes. As he held his breaththe nodules shivered visibly.Then the deep purple rindsburst, and a soggy gray massdripped and splattered ontothe hot, lTIoist soil, to discolorand wither almost at once.

He sighed and moved toswitch the interior to a thirty­minute high-temperature ster­ilization. He became a\vare ofan ache in his broad shoul­ders-and also that the ap­proach alarm was still clam­oring.

"All right!" he gro\vled,and climbed aboard the scoot­er without ,vhich he \vouldnever have been able to po­lice the three square miles ofasteroid farm. "I hear you,damn it! I'm coming!"

The scooter purred busilyalong, its moron mind follo\v-

6

ing the exact mid-line of thehigh galleries between theculture hOllses-glassite cellsfull of writhing, struggling,burgeoning life.

At thirty, Jacob O'Simonhad a lot behind him-a de­gree, a solid reputation inbiology, a teaching post inbotany, among other things.Won the hard ,yay, he hadgladly sacrificed them forthis, for total isolation on atiny asteroid. This chunk ofrock no· more than a milethrough, dignified with thetitle Ajax III, because it \yasone of the cluster· aroundAjax, itself only one of a larg­er cluster, the Trojans, cir­cling Sol in the orbit ofmighty Jupiter.

HERE, with a slow-fusioninferno safely buried in

the core to provide heat andpo\ver, \vith a triple-layered,impact-proof roof over hishead, and instrumentationwhich could maintain any de­sired environmental condi­tions, he was alone with hisplants-and happy, almost.Each ninetieth day the sh·ut­tIe rocl{et called, bringingsupplies, new specimens, re­ports and recommendations,and taking a,vay other speci­nlens, analyses, advices, and,occasionally, orders for hisfrugal needs.

He could, if necessary, con­tact Ajax Base at any time byradio, but he did this seldom,and then only to ask a ques-

JOHN RACKHAM

tion, never to pass the time ofday.

For Jacob O'Simon hadone great character failing.He just could not stand peo­ple. 1-11s very,l few friendswere all of the type whocould be relied on to let himalone unless it was somethingreally inlportant. At firstthought, this job might havebeen made for such a man, butthere was a snag.

"Of course three squaremiles of observational data isa lot, Jacob," George Vinerhad said. "You need at leastone assistant-"

"Asslstant!" Jacob hadsnorted. 440f course I could do\vith an assistant-somebodywho "vould have no interestsbut the job in hand, who,vouldn't chatter all the time,\vho vvould do exactly ,vhathe ,vas told, ,vhen he was told,,vho would kno,v what to lookfor, and vvhen, without beingtold, who "vouldn't get on mynerves vvith a lot of silly, per­sonal gab-you find me some­one li]{e that and I'll take himon!"

"Someone or something,Jacob?n George Viner hadasked. HI may not find such aperson, but-"

"Novv don't give me thatrobot sales talk, George," saidJacob, for Viner was a spe­cialist in automation, cyber­netics and thinking mechan­isms in general. "There neverwas and ever will be a ma­chine that could do what I

IF YOU WISH

want. It takes life to observelife and understand -it. Youhave some pretty smart ro­bots, able to deal with anypredictable situation, butthere never "vas a machineyet to do plant research-"

The scooter slid up the in­cline to the landing lock, andJacob got off, with the ghostof Viner's laugh still in hisears. He cut off the alarm,,vhich action made contact be­t,veen him and the shuttlepilot.

"About time!" came a heav­ily disgusted voice. "Anotherminute and I was comingdo\vn to collect the body. Youall right?"

"Yes, I'm all right," saidJacob. "Got anything spe­cial ?"

"I do have a schedule tokeep to!" "vas the pointed re­ply. "Your can ready to pickup?"

"Give me a minute to loadup." Jacob leaned on theheavy door to the loading bayand launched himself into thezero-gravity zone inside. Thedoor swung shut, cutting offthe squawks from the inter­com to hurry it up.

"Schedules!" he muttered,as he swam to the twenty-footcylinder which housed his lat­est batch of results. "Does he"vorry about my schedules?"

He loosed the can, bracedhis legs against the bulkheadand shoved, steering it in thedirection of the open trap ofthe ship. For a moment, he

7

saw it in his mind as it mustseem from outside: the ship,like some dark beetle, clutch­ing close to the bright sur­face, its probe dug deep, as ifsucking the nectar from somegiant blossom.

THE can clanged into place.Jacob made a back\vard

flip clear. The bay door hum­med and groaned shut. Therewas a screech of snug-fittingmetal as the probe drew upand out, airtight plates snick­ing into place.

"Damned quick-on-the­draw merchant," Jacob gro,vl­ed. "Trap me in the damndoor one of these times." Heshoved off and drifted do\vnto the gleaming floor where aduplicate can rested. He swamaround it-and stared. It wasstanding open!

"What the hell?" He hunga· moment, scanning the in­terior. There were the usualstacks of thermo-flasks, all incode colors-and one brightlysilvered tube. A letter can!Who would be sending him aletter, unless it was somethingbad? He reached for the tube,twisted it open, and fro,vnedat the paper inside.

"Dear Jacob," he read,"I've taken the liberty of en­closing a device with thisshuttle. Try it. I'd like youropinion. It ans\vers to 'Susan'-pardon the \vhimsy, andblame my niece, herself abiologist and botanist and oneof your admirers-"

8

He paused to wonder,frowning. Niece? A vaguememory came to him, fromthose nightmarish days \vhenhe had been trying to instillkno\,rledge into dim and un­\villing pupils-a foggy pic­ture of a scrawny girl, allteeth and intense eyes.

He shuddered and read on."Volition enough to preserveitself from destruction or in­jury-instant retention ofany 'instruction without ap­parent limit, conditioned toobey absolutely, without ques­tion, overriding the personalsafety circuit-and is, .ofcourse, quite harmless, beingsubject to the basic la,vs ofrobotics."

Jacob crumpled the paper,vith a savage hand. La\vs ofrobotics! He kicked awayfrom the can, looking aroundfor this device, while the fa­miliar \vords echoed in hismind:

"No robot shall injure ahuman, or by inaction allovvinjury to come to a hu­man-" A t\ventieth centuryfiction-\vriter's- pipedream. Asif it \vould ever be possible tobuild into a machine brainthe ans\ver to a problem thatman himself had not yet solv­ed! Each man had to discoverfor himself just \vhat ,vas in­jurious, and what not-andno man, so far, had reached afull solution for that, lTIuchless a general one for humansin general. Any robot faced\\Tith that task ,vould surely

JOHN RACKHAM

blow a fuse before it hadgone three steps.

But where was the blastedthing-? He frowned again,assessing the evidence. Opencan-either someone had leftit open-carelessness--orsomeone or something hadopened it. A robot with ini­tiative? He shook his head,suddenly mindful of the doz­en and one things being neg­lected while he was hoveringhere. Groping for the cable\\Thich lay coiled in a recess inthe can, he looped it throughthe lugs of the thermo-flasks,hauled taut and kicked off forthe opposing door, ,vhich ledto stores and living space. Theflasks hung in a long liRe aft-er him. .

Reaching the door, he shov­ed it open, dived through,letting the grav-field catchhim as he crossed the boun­dary zone. Landing catlike, hespun and hauled, trappingeach flask as it became heavy.When the last one had clunk­ed into place, he eased a\vayfrom the door, letting it s\vingshut.

By habit, he glanced at his,,,rist, computing ahead. Twoor three things he had n1issed-so he had missed them; nouse worrying about that. Alltold, he had something like aclear hour ahead novv. Bvthat time a certain batch 0"£Venus-born cousins of thecommon Earthside horsetail,vas due to fructify, andwould be ready for trans-

IF YOU WISH

planting. Failing the very;lively and extremely virulentminiature lizards which per­formed that function for themon their own planet, and theinability of any Earth-borninsect to survive that atmos­phere, that was a job for him.A hot, unpleasant and tediousjob. So now would be a goodtime to eat. This new stuffcould wait.

He turned and saw-her.

SHE stood absolutely immo­bile, in the midst of what

he was. pleased to' call his din­ing room. She was tall, slim,solemnly blue-eyed, her facea smooth mask of quiet atten­tion. Bright golden hair form­ed an aureole of crisp, tightcurls about her head. She'wore exquisitely tailored\vhite slacks, a white, short­sleeved shirt-her skin gleam­ed a fla\vless bronze againstthe white. She stood quitestill.

He realized he was gaping,,vide-mouthed, and took adeep breath. His wits slowedtheir dizzy spin. Flawlesstailoring-utter immobility­glowing skin-golden curls-the classic regularity offeature-she was beautiful­too beautiful!

"Susan ?" he queried, insudden illumination.

There was a slow, grave in­clination of the head, nothingmore. Wild thoughts pin­wheeled in his brain. Thismust be some fantastic jest

9

on Viner's part-some at­tempt to trap him into indis­cretions. He reread the letter,mentally. "Instant retentionof any instructions-condi­tioned to obey absolutely-"

"Can you cook?" he asked,and. instantly cursed his owninanity. Again there ,vas thatgrave nod, nothing more.What was she-it ?-,vaitingfor now? He looked a\vayfrom those bright blue eyesuneasily, striving to steadyhis thoughts. What no,,,,'? Theword "instructions" cameback to him. Of course! Thiswas a blank mind \vhich hadto learn everything from him.For a brief moment he w'asstaggered by the magnitudeof the prospective task, butthen reason came back ''litha rush.

It must kno,v quite a lot al­ready-enough to get out ofthe can, find its ,yay in here.It understood his questions. Itclaimed ability to cook. Per­haps it could handle packageinstructions! He ,vent for­ward cautiously.

"Come!" he said, ,vith ex­aggerated care. "Here is thecooking console. Here are thematerial bins. Prepare syn­tho-steak, biscuits, coffee­and I like my coffee blacl{ andstrong. All right?"

Again that cool nod. Hewatched while it made thefirst competent movements.That was all right, seeming­ly. He retreated to the diningroom and set to work check-

10

ing and sorting the new ar­rivals. The semi-automaticactivity gave him time to sethis thoughts in order.

First he cursed Viner forhis weird wit. "Tas it neces­sary to make the thing fe­male, and so impossiblyperfectly female, at that?And she ,vas certainl~rperfect.Jacob visualized her in hismind, seeing the sculpturedstructure of her face .. and asmuch of the body as VIas be­trayed by her clothes~

Human-copy manikins werecommon enough, lle kne,v.Mass entertainlnent via full­color three-dimensional TVhad made them necessary.The public refused to befooled by pretended and in­sinuated stabbings, bashingsand other tidbits. They de­manded the real thing. Actors,understandingly, \vere reluc­tant to carry realism quite sofar. Technical ingenuity hadproduced the perfect com­promise-human-copy mani­l\:ins ,vhich could be program­med to perform a fe'" limitedactions-duplicates with plas­tic but gruesomely realisticflesh, blood and vital organs.

HE HAD never been closeto one before and didn't

\vant to be. He raged at Viner.Then, suddenly, he smiled.Poor old George! All that ex­quisite sculpture and design,for \vhat? A real girl as dev­astatingly attractive as thatwould have had him babbling

JOHN RACKHAM

and furious by now-buthere he was, quite unmoved.As he had so often argued,it's not the \vay people look,but the ,vay-the stupid way-they think.

He wondered lio\v thisthing thought. Did it think inthe accepted sense? A mem­ory unit ,vas a massive affair.Programming it ,vas a spe­cialist's job. He sat back onhis heels, ,vondering. \VouldViner have built in a fe,vcomedy values for kicks? Onreflection, Jacob thought not.Viner had a vile sense of hu­mor, true, but he \vas allseriousness ,vhen it came tohis own field.

Jacob completed his cata­loguing and ,vent back to thecooking: area, just in time tosee the robot take up a fullyladen tray.

"Here," he said, "on thistable-" and ,vatched as thetray was set do\vn. Twoplaces?

"You going to eat, too?"Again that emotionless nod

and the silent, patient wait.He struggled to fit this ne,vfactor into the picture. Prob­ably a general-purpose con­verter system took in rawmaterial and supplied energy-he had a \vaste-disposalunit ,vhich did just that. Buta sudden thought stiffenedhim. It hadn't made a soundyet.

"You can-talk?""If you ,vish." The voice

was cool, impersonal, quiet.

IF YOU WISH

He breathed out again,thankfully. "Well, now, that'ssomething to be thankful for,isn't it? I'm not the type to gonuts talking to myself, but Isure \vould, talking to some­thing that didn't talk back. Allright, let's eat!"

He sat and began his frugaln1eal, ,vatching it do likewise,"rith quiet, precise move­ments and the flash of white,even teeth.

"You're almost }luman!" hesaid, through a moutllful ofdeliciously done steak.

It made no response. Hescowled, felt irritation swellup-and then the answer hithim. What sort of ans\vercould it make to a statementlike that? To get a reply, hemust ask a question. He gio\v­ed. Complete obedience-noidle chatter-maybe Vinerhad something, after all!

DRAINING a second cup ofperfectly made coffee, he

leaned back and consideredhis next move. He ,vould needto find out just how far theeducation angle ,vould have tobe taken. Could this thinglearn the difference bet\veenone plant and another, be­t,veen a spore and a seed? Butthere ,vas one question whichshould come first, a trickyone.

"Just how human are you,anyway?"

"As human as you wish,"it said ,vithout emphasis.

He grinned, ruefully. Very

11

smart, too. Ask a silly ques­tion-!

"All right." He got up."You're chief cook and dish­washer from here on out.Best grub I've tasted in along while. No,v, while you'reclearing away, I'll get thescooter and we'll go take alook at the other aspect of thejob."

He punched in Sector 7 onthe scooter's panel and trun­dled it around to the front.Susan ,vas waiting. With thet\\ro of them aboard, the littleplatform was crowded.

"You're warm!" he com­mented, touching the smoothskin of the robot's arm."George did a first-class jobon you. Was it necessary­this extreme duplication?"

"Structure and functionare interrelated," it saidsmoothly. "1 have been equip­ped with totally human poten­tials, senses and responses. Itv/as found that the simplestway to achieve this ,vas tomake me human in structure.Hence my skin, like yours, issensitive to touch, tempera­ture and humidity."

JACOB took his hand a,vavhastily, and cursed himsei'f

for doing it. So it \vas a faircopy-so ,vhat?

"How much do you kno\vabout \vhat I'm doing here?"he asked, getting on to saferground.

"General concepts only,"the robot said. "This is a re-

12

search planetoid for con..trolled investigation of thepossibilities for acceleratingthe evolution of native Venusflora, with the object of ren­dering the atmospheric· con­ditions of that planet suitablefor human occupation-"

"Oh, great!" he sneered."Straight out of the book.Pure bafflegab-you knowwhat that is?"

"The word is not in my vo­cabulary."

"Well, it will be. Now I\vant you to forget all thatjargon, and let me give it toyou in simple one-syllable,vords. Can you forget .?"

"Whatever you \vish.""That's fine. The \visdom of

life consists in the elimina­tion of the non-essentials."

"Lin Yutang," it said calm­ly, and he blinked.

"Eh? \tVhat was that?""Lin Yutang was a Chinese

philosophical writer, the au­thor of the saying you justquoted."

Jacob felt his mouth begin­ning to sag, and shut it hast­ily. "Is that so? Well-look,\ve're now passing throughSector 3. In these housesthere used to be typical VenusatlTIosphere. Surface atmos­phere, 1 mean. About t,voIniles above the surface,Venus is very like Earth, onlyhotter, more humid, and load­ed \vith excess CO2 • Becauseof perpetual turbulence, air­borne life never got started.So-no birds or insects-and

JOHN RACKHAM

plant life has to strugglealong by other methods. Mi­cro-lizards fill the gap, but notas efficiently as bees and such.

"So, in this sector, I havetaken a sample collection ofVenus flora, helped it becomefertile and grow. As a result,the CO2 is well do"rn already,and the humidity, too. So thebasic idea is sound. But it justis not possible to protect, fer­tilize and assist each individ­ual plant on the ,vhole surfaceof a planet. So, here, in Sec­tor 5, which we are no\v com­ing into-" the scooter swungaround a right angle andpurred off down another glas­site-line lane- "you \vouldfind certain mutated strainsof certain selected plants, andin Sector 7, where ,ve areheaded, are the fe\~/ l1nalproducts which have provedsuccessful. Even-numberedsectors, by the \vay, are on theopposite hemisphere. They'recontrol areas, vlith a con­stantly maintained pureVenus-type atmosphere. Anyquestions so far?"

"On what basis do vou se­lect plant-forms for "experi­mentation ?"

"Smart girl!" he approvedwryly. "You have your fingerright on the sore place. It'snot enough that I should haveto comb through a zillion spe­cies to find the few that areviable enough to be \\rorthencouraging-oh, no! This isresearch, but it is costingmoney, meaning there has to

IF YOU WISH

be some profit. So I have tonurse such things as mightshow a dividend sometime!"

"You called me 'girl' a mo­ment ago," it said impersonal­ly. "Do you wish me to re­spond to that term?"

"I did?" He thought back,then nodded. "That's right, Idid. You mind?"

"Why should I?""Why should you? Look,

I'm liable to get excited fromtime to time-and there's onlythe t\VO of us-so I'll bemeaning you-unless I'mtalking to myself. Use yourdiscretion. You do have dis­cretion, don't you?"

"Just as you wish," it said.

HE BEGAN to feel the firstsmall stirrings of dissat­

isfaction. This, he saw, was\vhat it must have been like\vith slaves, and why suchcivilizations inevitably fellapart. It was demoralizing.He wondered what it wouldfeel like to be demoralized.The scooter chuckled to itselfand s\vung into Sector 7. Heshuddered, thrust away hisdreads, and began to look outfor the correct moment to hopoff.

"Horsetail." He pointedthrough the glassite. "Thisplant is an almost exact du­plicate of our o\vn Earthsideequisetum. Logical, when youthink of it. Horsetail is pret­ty primitive-one of theearlier cryptogams. Youknowany botany?"

13

"Green, ribbed, aerialshoots," it recited. "Thosebearing leaf ,vhorls are ster­ile. The fertile nodes bear adense oval spike consisting ofshort-stalked bracts ,vithspore cases-"

"All right! All right!Damned ,valking referencefile! Who ,vas it that said ex­act information is the ilnme­diate death of conversation "?"

"The origin of the saying' isnot kno\vn, but it is almostcertainly Graeco-Roman. "

"There I go again, askingdamned silly questions." lIetook out a pair of small plas­tic bags. "Listen, this is ,vhat,ve're going to do. We ,vantthose two big fructificationsthere, see? They're just aboutready to open up. The rest arebelo'\v standard. I'll go first,right do\vn to the far end, toplug in the heavy-duty cables.You grab those two spikesand bag 'em and get out. I'llbe right after you."

He unclogged the heavyglassite door, s\vung it openand hurried do,·vn the lane be­t,veen the plant beds. It ,vaslike being in a damp oven. Hebent, grabbed cable ends,shoved them honle, straight­ened and hurried back.

"Got· 'em? GoocL No,v I'lljust· seal dovln this door."That done, he threVil thes,vitch, and they watched asthe twin lanes of greenish­bro,vn soil sizzled and smok­ed into sterility.

"That," he said, "is the

14

only way to get rid of thosebeggars. Just like homehorsetails-it only ,vants onelittle bit of the rhizome tostart a whole new plantproliferating. N o\\r ,ve haveto spread the spores from thislot over some clean ground.Jump on. 'rhe nearest vacantlot is some distance fromhere."

Afte4.' a thoughtful silence,it said, "Why horsetail?"

"Believe it or not, it'sgold!" he sneered. "The lastbatch I had processed out atfifteen ounces per ton of ash.This lot should be better-butyou'd think mankind ,vouldhave lost the golden itch bythis time."

"That is to examine theconcept from an outdatedvie,vpoint," it comn1ented."Recent advances in metal­lurgy employ gold as a syn­ergic in ne\v alloy processes."

"They do?" he said ,veakly."\Vhat the hell does 'synergy'mean ?"

"Synergism_" the quietvoice ,,"as prompt and fto,v­ing- "is the cooperative ac­tion of discrete agencies suchthat the total effect is greaterthan the sum of the t\VO ef­fects taken separately."

"You kno,v \vhat? If you,vere human, I'd hate yourguts!"

"You are offended '!""No, just thankful you're

not human. \Vhoa! This'lldo!" He stopped the scooteragain by a \vindow ,vhere the

JOHN RACKHAM

soil-lanes were virginallysmooth. "Now this can betricky. Let me explain. Youhold a spike in one hand overthe soil, poke a hole with afinger, tap the bract so thatsome spores fall into the hole,poke the finger close by sothat the hole closes up again.Sounds simple, but don't letany of the spores touch yourskin or you'll be sorry-thatis, if your skin is chemicallylike mine-and don't miss thehole so that the spores fall onthe surface or they'll getcaught up in the little breezewe'll make-and we'll both besorry. A good \vay is to holdyour breath-"

"Protective clothing and amask \vould be better."

"Strictly for amateurs! Be­sides, it's hot enough in therewithout being \vrapped up.You ready? Right down to thefar end and ,vork back. That\vay \ve minimize the risks."

SWINGING open the heavydoor, he \vent through. He

took his spike from its bag,and holding it carefully bythe tip, he crouched over thehot, damp soil, polcing andtapping with expert speed.He assumed his helper wasdoing like1Nise, but \vas muchtoo intent \vith his own job towatch anything else. Theyreached the door simultane­ously.

He turned from securingthe door, to find Susan pinkand gleaming, its whites'

IF YOU WISH

stained with perspiration,and dabbing at the open neckof its shirt.

"Spores?" he guessed."Don't do that-only makes itworse. Come OD." He led theway at a trot to the corner ofthe glassite tunnel, to a wallcompartment. "Germicidaljelly-got a stock of these allover the place. Here, slapsome of this on it." He uncap­ped a tube of violently purplegoo, then hesitated. "Bettertake that shirt off. This stuffis practically a dye."

He \vaited while the trimgarment came off, then offer­ed the jelly again.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" hesaid. "Damn spores burn likefire-blister, too, if you don'tcatch 'em quick. Turn round,let me look at your back. " Helooked, critically. "Lucl{y­you just got a small dose. Allright now? That purpledoesn't do a thing for yourlooks, but it'll wash off. ·Youbetter leave that shirt, though,for the sterilizer."

He capped the tube, put itback in the compartment.

"You stay here. I'll bringthe scooter and we'll run backto base."

He went off, grinning tohimself. Damn robot might besmart at book-learning; but ittook a botanist to handleplants. Still, pretty clever ofold George to fabricate a"skin" like that. Blisteredjust like a human, maybe ashade faster. Silky, too. He

15

reached the scooter, swung itaround and climbed on.

A wife like that, hethought with sudden wistful­ness, would be something.Pretty, capable, ,villing, obe­dient-but without any fem­inine caprices. A quote ofShaw's came to mind: "Theideal wife is one \vho doeseverything that the ideal hus­band wants, and nothingelse." He wondered if shewould be able to place thatquote-and was aghast at thetreachery of his own n1ind.What did he want \vith a \vifeof any kind?

He slowed to a stop, to takeher aboard. With the toe ofhis shoe he hooked the shirtinto a bundle on the platformand drove on.

"How's it feel no\v-stillburning?"

"A little. May I ask a ques-tion ?" _~

"Ask away. Only thing is,I'm not like you. I don't kno\vall the answers."

"The remark is \vithoutmeaning. If I kne,," all the an­swers, there \vould be noneed to ask questions."

"Sorry. That told me off, allright. But I guess it's just myway. You'll get used to it."

"Acceptance ,vould be fa­cilitated if I kne\v vour mo­tivation. You seem affable andpleasant in action, yet hostileand offensive in speech andvalue judgments. Why isthat ?"

"Damned if I kno\v!" he ad-

16

mitted candidly. "On myown, I'm fine. Mix me withpeople and I come outwrong."

"You dislike people ?"

HE TURNED to the bright,attentive face so close to

his. "I've never told this toanyone, but I hate being own­ed or influenced--or anyonetrying to own or influence me-or anyone \vanting me toown or influence them." fIesaw a blank look and sighed."Maybe it is too much to ex­pect you to understand. Idon't rightly understand itmyself-"

"But you own me no,v. Doesthat bother you?"

"I do not!" he denied hot­ly. "Nothing of the kind! You\vere dumped on Ine. l'n1 justtrying to get along-and nlan­ag·ing pretty well, too. But Idon't o\vn you. Any time I tellyou to do something you don't\vant to do, you refuse. As faras I am concerned, you're afree agent. Got that?"

"But if I am a free agent,ho\v can I \vork \vith you?"

"Don't know the ans\ver tothat one, either," he adnlitted."I'm not too strong on phi­losophy, but isn't that \vhutman has been trying to figureout all along? I-Iow do you co­operate with somebody else\vithout losing something ofyourself in the process?"

"By limiting the coopera­tion to some external, imper­sonal activity such as this, so

JOHN RACKHAM

that each individual concern­ed could contribute in equalmeasure yet without becom­ing involved in a personalprestige conflict."

"That sounds fine." Thescooter purred to a stop, andhe led off to the living space."Trouble is, people don'twork like that. Sooner orlater-usually sooner-some­body wants to give orders, tobe boss, to make somebodyelse jump. And there are al­\vays those who want to beordered around, too, believe itor not."

He took a pair of tongsfrom a cabinet. "Skip thephilosophy for now. You needsomething more positive, likea shower. Over here. Shed therest of your gear and get onthe grid."

He picked up the discardedclothing, collected the shirt,dumped the lot in the steriliz­er, and came back to thecubicle with a clutch of bot­tles in his hands. Susan stoodon the chrome grid, watchinghim with that blue-eyed stare.He unfastened the injectorcover and poured in generoushelpings from the bottles.

"Detergent," he explained."Analgoesic, to kill the burn­ing. Gern1icide, to get anyspores that might be left. Anda fairly mild bleach, to getthat purple stain off your­chest."

He corked the bottles again,and paused. "George overdidit a bit \vith your shape."

IF YOU WISH

"You find it objectionable,or flawed in some way orother?"

SHRUGGING, Jacob said,"If George had to make

you anatomically perfect, heshould have put in a flaw ortwo-a sag or a wrinkle orsomething. You're too idealiz­ed to be real. I'd hate to meeta girl-a real girl-with ashape like that."

"Why?" asked the robotunemotionally.

"Beauty like that has realpower, you know. Power todrive men, irritate women­cause havoc in all directions.And what good's a whip ifyou don't get to crack it oncein a while?"

"But you are not thus af­fected. Why is that?"

"Why? I grow some prettybeautiful flowers and theydon't affect me. Perhaps that'sit. A flower is not tryillg to doanything to me. A pretty girlwould be saying, in effect,'I'm beautiful-what are yougoing to do about it?' Where­as you're just beautiful, pe­riod."

He laughed at himself."You kno\v what? I can talkto you. I can't talk to peopleat all-not without gettingmad at 'em. Especially wom­en. But I'm gabbing too muchnow. You hold still a minutewhile I program the water. Imight have a spore or two my­self, and I could do withoutsome of the sweat. On this

17

job, a regular shower is amust."

The first impact of theneedle-spray stung his flesh,so that he cringed. Throughthe steam, he saw Susanwince, too.

"Hot!" he mumbled. "Fif­teen seconds of this, to openthe pores-"

The biting hot needles ceas­ed. He tapped the bronzedshoulder that glistened closeto his chest.

"Let's have a look at thoseblisters," he ordered, and puta gentle finger on the fadingpurple patches. He reachedfor a tissue and swabbed a\vaythe last of the protective jelly.The skin beneath was onlyfaintly red. It kept quite stillunder his ministrations. Fora wild moment, he imaginedthis to be a real female, andchuckled at the thought.

"Why do you laugh?" therobot inquired.

"I was just imagining what\vould happen if you were areal girl and I was doing this.It's quite a strain on my im­agination."

"Why?""Because-because I have­

n't had a lot of experience\vith girls, I suppose. Any­way, those spore marks lookpretty clean. Stand by for thecold !"

He was just in time. Anicy-chill mist filled the cubicle,shocking and jolting the skininto vigorous reaction. Hedrew a deep, shuddering

18

breath, heard the robot do thesame.

"Good for the circula­tion-" he chattered, blowingthe spray from the end of hisnose and laughing at the sightof crisp golden curls flattenedto its head, and its eyes tightshut against flying droplets.The cold jets died and he wastingling all over. "Makes youfeel good, eh?"

It nodded, wide-eyed, andlaughed.

He was struck by thepleasant sound. "Say, that'sthe first time I've heard youlaugh !"

"You object?" It was se­rious, at once.

"For heaven's sake, no! Ilike it fine. Go ahead andlaugh all you "rant to!"

"Maybe there is somethingwrong?"

"No, not a thing. Honest."He turned away abruptly."Look, I prefer to rub downwith a towel. It's old-fash­ioned, I know, but I like it.How about you? Shall Is\vitch on the drier?"

"A towel, please."

JACOB splashed across toanother cabinet, got out a

couple of squares of fleecysynthetic, tossed one to her,began rubbing himself brisk­ly \vith the other. Oddly up­setting phrases were echoingthrough his mind.

"As human as you wish"­"I have been equipped withtotaly human potentials"-

JOHN RACKHAM

",vhatever you wish"_uashuman as you wish!" Thatwas the one with the barbs.The more he thought about it,the less he liked it. Waddingthe towel, he tossed it into thesterilizer, followed it with hisdiscar6ed clothes.

"Susan." He went back to\vhere it stood on the grid,slowly toweling its curls backto gleaming crispness. "Yousaid you have as much discre­tion as I ,vish you to have,\vhatever that might mean.Do I take it that you haveopinions, too?"

."Just as you wish," it said,\vith that \vide-eyed stare.

He shook his head angrily."I wish you'd quit that 'justas you wish' routine."

"I have done something,vl'ong?"

"Not wrong, exactly. It'sjust that-\vell, how the helldo you know what I wish?"

"I obey your instructions.""Yeah, but I never told you

to laugh.""You said the shower made

you feel good and you laugh­ed. I merely did the same."The quietly reasonable tonebegan to be irritating.

"Now look here-as far asthe job is concerned, you'lldo vvhat I say-within reason,of course. I mean-" lle grop­ed for words-"self-preserva­tion and so on. But that's all.The rest of the time, you actthe way you want."

"Just as you wish."He stared at that bright

IF YOU WISH

face, wondering if he was be­ing mocked, but the big blueeyes ,vere steady.

"That's what I ,vish," hegro\vled. "You do whatevermakes you feel good and don'tpay any attention to me. Un­derstand ?"

"No-" Susan spoke slowly,shaking its head, rolling thetowel into a neat ball. "I can­not understand that. I feelgood \\rhen I do that whichpleases you. That is my func­tion."

"Oh, God!" He beat a fistinto a palm, trying to findwords that would free hiInfrom this irksome responsi:..bility. Then he caught a sightof his wrist and his mentalclock clicked over. "Skip thatfor now," he ordered. "Wehave work to do. Sector 3­look, here on the diagram-"He ,vent to the far ,vall, wherethere was a complex chart,much scribbled and annotated."This is an experimentalplanting. Venus o\vns a thingenough like our Astragalusracecosus to be its cousin, butabout a quarter the size. Inthis house I have seeded someof our natives along \vith theVenus variety. I'm hoping tohybridize the two-"

"Astragalus racecosus­loco \veed. Why?"

"Selenium, plus a fair traceof vanadium and zinc. Rag­\veeds are a bit better for zinc,but I haven't been able to es­tablish them in a Venus at­mosphere yet. Marley on Ajax

19

V expects to have fair successwith it. He's going in fortrees, too. Venus has notrees."

"My botany indoctrina­tion did not include this. Arethere many plants and treeswhich isolate metals?"

"Plenty." He p·ulled open adrawer. "Here, grab a couple-that's all we'll need thistrip. Paintbrushes and pa­tience."

"Without clothing?" askedthe robot.

"That's up to you. This isnot toxic and the climate isfine, if a bit warm, but suityourself. "

"Very well. I am ready."He led the way to the scoot­

er, and as soon as they ,verein motion, he reverted to thequestion.

"Yes, there's a whole sle,vof Earth plants that isolatemetals. You can get barium,for instance, from Brazil nuts.Hickory gives aluminum andmagnesium. Copper you getfrom dandelions, spinach andtobacco. I have some very finetobacco-type plants comingalong in Sector 7. Lord kno,vswhat they'll be like to slTIoke,though; the soil is pretty richin antimony and that could berough on the nasal passages.Venus soil is queer stuff, youknow. Crawling with bacteria-like ours, of course-anddamp all the time, but with noliquid water, there's no strati­fication. Just a fine generalmixture of just about every-

20

thing you can lay a tongue to.You smoke, by the way?"

He glanced aside and groan­ed. "All right, don't say it. IfI wish-right?"

It laughed, and the sweetsound sent little tillges alonghis spine.

THE scooter clucked andstopped. He pointed to a

window ,vall ,vhich framed aprospect that might have beenElysium, back on ancientEarth.

"Pretty, isn't it?" He ledthe way down bet\veen thelanes of nodding, blowingblossoms, almost hip-high."Now-" he knelt by a spreadof richly purple bloolns­"this is what you do." Hemade quick and expert dabs,vith the brush, transferringthe sticky yellow pollen. "Gotit? Only the very biggest ofthe purple ones, mind. Therest aren't worth the trouble."

Susan crouched and wentto work, duplicating his move­"ments. "This is Venus atmos­phere that has been transmut­ed, you said?"

"Yes." He stood up andlooked down at the robot, not­ing the smooth efficiency, yetaware of the graceful femi­ninity. "This is hot, just un­der a hundred degrees Fahr­enheit, and there's about t,vicethe CO2 of Earth; it's humid,but reasonably bearable. InSector 2, where the atmos­phere is maintained at Venusnormal, these babies are

JOHN RACKHAM

scrawny things-and the air\vould choke you. A fe\v bil­lion of these would make ahell of a difference. Menwould be able to walk the sur­face of the planet withoutprotection." He croucheddo\vn and got to \vork along­side the robot.

"You ,vish to live on thesurface of Venus?"

"Me '? No, I'm not the pio­neering kind. I g·et along withplants. They don't bother melike people. Hah! Back to phi­losophy again. I supposethat's a dead subject for arobot."

"Not at all," it replied. "Ican g·ive you a philosophicaldebate, jf you \vish."

"All :right." He shuffledalong the line of blooms. "I'lltake you up on that. Whydon't I get along ,vith people."

I T l\il}SED looking like aGreek nymph in contempla­

tion. "That is largely a ques­tion of attitude. How do youthink of people?"

"I've tried that and I getsome very odd answers. I'mall alone here, so I get plentyof time for thinking. I havecome to the conclusion that,as far as I am concerned, peo­ple are just things out there.I know about me, what Ithink, how I feel-but that'sall I kno,v. All the rest isguess\vork and inference. 1don't kno\v, for instance, \vhatyou think or ho\" you feel. Ican only hear ,vhat you say,

If YOU Vv'ISH

see what you do, and go by:that."

"Then-to you-there is nodifference between me andanyone else?"

"Put it like that-no. Ex­cept that you're idealized. Noreal girl could be so perfector so efficient. Other\vise,though, there is no differ­ence."

It spun to face him. "Thenwhy are you at ease with me?"

He hopped awkwardly toanother bloom, paintbrushbusy, ,,,hile he pondered thatone. "You have a point," hesaid. "You mean-it's tne, myattitude to people, that makesall the difference? All right,suppose I admit that-,vhatdo I do ,vith the informa­tion ?"

They had reached the endof a ro,v. Susan stood up andlooked at him calmly. "Treateverybody just the same \vayyou tl'eatIne, of course."

"Hah! I'nl to assume thatthe \vhole universe is popu­lated \vith robots, and that I'mthe only real person amongthen1 ?" He chuckled, then,gro,ving serious, said, "It's a,yay, though. People are the\vay they are not becausethey're wonderful or \vhacky,but because that's the \vaythey have been designed andprogrammed, by life and ex­perience, and they can't helpit, eh '? You know-" he wassuddenly depressed-"I'm en­joying this, and it can't last.You're too good for this job.

21

Old George will be taking youaway and I'm going to missyou."

SHOULDER to shoulder,they worked back do\vn

another twin row. He kne,v aninexplicable yet powerful im­pulse to reach out and strokethat silky bronze skin so nearto his, to ruffle that halo ofcrisp golden curls. He foughthimself, cursing inwardly.Getting maudlin over a robot!

They finished the row insilence.

Outside the secured glassitedoor, he glanced at his watchagain. "Nothing urgent no,,,for another seven, eighthours. I figure to have a biteand then get some sleep. O.K.\vith you ?"

"I, too, am a,vare of fatigueeffects and the need for food,"replied Susan. "I will preparea meal and then we will sleeptogether."

"You got that bit wrong,"he said as they remounted thescooter. "You don't sleep withme-not in the usally acceptedsense of that phrase. Youknow what I mean ?"

"Of course. You do not ,vishme to sleep with you,' then ?"

"That's \vhat I said!" hesnapped.

The scooter trundled up theincline to the living space andstopped. He got off, suddenlyconscious of their nudity.

"Get the grub ready," hegro\vled, "while I write up thedata on ,vhat \ve've just done.

22

And get some clothes on. Youcan use mine!"

He strode stiffly to the lock­er which held his stocI{ ofshirts, slacks and socks, took,vhat he needed, left it open,pointedly, and strode off tothe records office.

There he sat and stared atthe tabulated \vhite sheet andstrove to push away other pic­tures that threatened to floodhis mind. The struggle start­ed beads of sweat on his brow.Sex fantasies are an occupa­tional hazard to the solitaryn1an. Jacob knew this and. hadconsidered himself stableenough to ignore the danger.But this was an attack from aquarter which had never oc­curred to him in his ,vildestmoments. And \vhat frighten­ed him most ,vas the very factthat it was a fight. He should

.have been able to dismiss thematter with simple, cold logic.

Damn Viner! And dan1nSusan, too, for being so im­peccably and perfectly beauti­ful! Fully human responses­just how far did that go, any­,vay? If performance to date,vas anything to go by-

He made a' supreme effortand banished the temptationfrom his mind. No-that wasthe simple, short and only an­swer-no! He became awareof a softly feminine voice tell­ing him the food \vas ready.

He went into the diningroom. The robot stood by thetable, waiting. He looked­and looked again. Vvearing

JOHN RACKHAM

one of his stretch-mesh sweat­shirts, there was no longer anysense in trying to think ofthis as an '''it.'' It was blatant­ly a 44 she." He looked awayuncomfortably and sat.

The food \vas good in hismouth and its very excellencewas added torment. He stolea golance. She \vas quite silent,neatly busy \vith her o\vn por­tion. l-Ie \,"ondered vvhat wasgoing on in that exquisitelyshaped head. Just ,vhere did"fully human" cease? Maybeshe "vas offended at his rejec­tion of her advances-or werethey "services"?

He pushed a,vay his emptyplate. '

"Come!" he said. "I'll sho,vyou your bed."

HE LED the ,vay to a smallcompartment that had, as

one wall, a clear glassitepanel, looking out on a dupli­cation of the alien scenery ofVenus. T'here, in an endlesshot twilight, stunted strug­gling vegetation fought itsceaseless battle against theelements, and a myriad tiny,gemlike lizards.

She stood a moment. Then:" l\laster-"

"Call me Jacob!" he saidroughly. "What is it?"

"1 have offended in some,vay?"

"Why do you ask that?""You do not wish me to

sleep with you.. You have in­structed me to wear clothing."

"So?"

IF YOU WISH

"You said I was to obeyyour instructions insofar as itconcerned the operation of thestation, but that in all othermatters I would please my­self."

"Yeah-and you said thatyou ,vanted to do whateverwould please me, and it doesnot please me to have you run­ning around naked-or get­ting ideas about hopping intomy bed!"

"Then my appearance is notpleasing to you ?"

"I didn't say that. You'reattractive, but you're a ro­bot. "

"The rest of the universeis populated ,vith robots, asfar as you are concerned, yousaid. "

"That was just talk," hesnarled. "I can't treat youlike a human."

"I am as human as you\vish."

"There you go again!" heshouted. "You don't under­stand. It's not what I vvish atall. Look, if I was to take a\vornan to bed - which fateforbid I-it ,vould be becauseshe \vanted me to-not just toplease me ! Can't you seethat?"

"If it ,vould please you, thenI \vould \vant you to."

"But it \vould not pleaseme, not unless I knew that it,vas as much your idea asmine-and because you're arobot, \vithout ideas of youro\vn, that is out, it's impossi­ble-see?"

23

"A human woman wouldbe pleased to do whateverwould give pleasure to herman." The voice was quietlyinsistent.

"Like hell she would!" Helaughed harshly. "But let's notgo into that just now. Look,Susall-to be crude-have you"ever slept with a man?" Thewords \vere thick in histhroat, but he managed to getthem out.

"No.""There you are, then! Ho\v

do you know that it wouldeither bring or give pleas­ure ?"

"Have you ever slept witha woman-Jacob?"

"Oh, no you don't!" he saidhurriedly. "You're not goingto trip me up that ,vay. As amater of fact-no, I haven't,but that's got nothing to dowith it. Here, this is yourbunk. And this .is mine, rightnext door. I'm going to bed.Alone! Get me?"

"Very well, Jacob," shesaid, and turned her face upto him so simply and naturallythat he kissed her before herealized it. Her lips were cooland soft.

"Good night," she whisper­ed, and, sh"edding her clothes,slid between the crisp, freshsheets.

Still dazed, he went nextdoor and climbed into his ownbunk, and lay wide-eyed inthe gloom, ,vondering. Just,vhat had George Viner donehere?

24

JACOB dug back into hismind for anything he could

recall about robot mecha­nisms, and it was quite a lot.The station itself was full ofthem-thermostats, humiditycontrols, gravity stabilizers,unit analysis recorders, tim­ing mechanisms of all kinds­his whole environment \vasmade and maintained by con­stantly vigilant automatics,many of ,vhich he never hadto touch, much less under­stand.

But a thinking, feeling,argumentative, logical robot\vas something else again.

The human shape, of itself,imposed restrictions on hu­man-copy nlanikins whichlimited them to simple repet­itive actions. There was noth­ing simple about Susan-orshe was too simple, dependingon the point of vie,v. Vinermust have developed a \vholene,v technique for her. Forthe life of him, Jacob couldnot help thinking of "her"rather than "it." So utterlynon-human in some \vays­the calm, the logic, the incred­ibly perfect face and figure­yet so appealingly easy to un­derstand and get on with­most of the time.

Jacob let that train ofthought run its cQurse, andcame to a conclu'sion thatshocked him for a moment.Then logic took over. Afterall, he asked himself, justwhat was the difference be­tween something that ,valked,

JOHN RACKHAM

talked, acted and reacted likea human-and a human?

He awoke from a crawly,s,veaty dream of being chaseddown endless, glassite corri­dors, hotly pursued by ascreeching, straggle - hairedwoman-shaped thing, trailinga gaggle of clanking, idiot­faced, mechanical urchins.The horrible harridan, drag­ging one dead-eyed child, ,vasscreaming: "Jacob! Jacob!"

She ,vas nudging his shoul­der gently, her bright face,vide-eyed and attentive, yetremote.

"Huh?" He struggled uponto one e~bow, glanced athis watch. "Oh. All right.Thanks."

"Breakfast ?""Not for me." He sat up

and stretched. "Look in thecold bin. You'll see a flaskmarked 'Berry Extract'.That's for me. You have coffeeif you want."

She had poured t\\ro beakersof the liquid, vvhich ,vas ting­ed with blue and smelledfaintly of mint.

lIe took his."You might not like it," he

vlarned. "It's bitterish, butit's the biggest thing I'vestruck yet, bar one. Thiscomes from a miserable littlepod-bearer, one of a dozen ormore, but this variety some­ho,v is proof against the liz­ards. Seems they don't likethe flavor. So although itpropagates only by rare acci­dent-vvind and luek-it does'

IF YOU WISH

get to the pod stage. Theothers don't get that far."

He took a generous mouth..ful, shuddered. "That," hesaid, "is, in essence, the eco­logical problem of Venus. Thelizards are the fertilizingmechanism, the symbiotes­but they are also damned vo­racious. So, over the millen­nia that life has been strug­gling there, very little prog­ress has been made. It's moreof a check than a balance!"

"I see that." She sampledthe juice thoughtfully. "Butwhy is this so important?"

"Water! There is no natu­rally occurring liquid wateron the planet, although the at­mosphere is loaded with it.Humid but not liquid. Onlythe plants and the lizards canaccumulate liquids, and thisparticular plant has pods fullof it. If vve could seed enoughacres with thi~ stuff, it wouldsolve a lot of problems."

"You said 'the biggest thing-bar one.' What is theother?"

"That's something we'regoing to take a look at rightnovv, soon as you're ready."

"Is my clothing satisfac­tory?" she inquired withoutemotion.

HE TRIED to examine herobjectively, but was forc­

ed to avert his eyes. He waslearning, belatedly, that par­tial concealment is more pro­vocative than total revelation.

"Take 'em off," he said awk-

25

wardly. "It's a Sector 5 job,so we don't need any, any,vay.Hot but not non-toxic. Also, itcould be tricky and clothesmight get in the ,vay." Hewas rationalizing, and heknew it.

"But you object to lack ofapparel."

"So I've changed mymind!" he said.

"As you ,vish."

WHILE she stripped obedi­ently, he took up a bunch

of plastic tubes, each one bell­ed out into a tiny trumpet atpne end. "I'll explain as wego." He squatted on the scoot­er beside her and gave her atube. "This specimen is afungus-and a ,veirdie. Youever hear of Fergus Lintz, oneof the first to do research onVenus? Yes? Then you'llknow that he's a first-rateman. Now he had a reallyfabulous experience \vhich no­body really believed all theway. At times, he even doubtsit himself, I'm told. Seen1s hewas lost in a little valley, run­ning short of air and getting abit light-headed. He kne,v hewas fairly close to base, buttoo far gone to make it. Suit­radio on the blink, too. Hewas in a bad \vay. Then hestumbled across a big clumpof fungi in a hollo\v and stop­ped to examine them. Can youimagine that'? Death ,vas star­ing him in the face, but thiswas something ne\Y-a newspecimen-so he had to stop

26

and look. A real, dedicatedbotanist, old Fergus."

The scooter s,vung dizzilyinto Sector 5.

"Any\vay, he took a look atthese fungi-and, as he look­ed, he saw one of them blowa bubble at him! Naturally, hethought he ,vas in the firststages of delirium and he pro­ceeded to undo his faceplate,so as to get a better look­and it was that suicidal act,vhich saved his life! You see,when he hunched over the lit­tle bed of fungi, another bub­ble blew off, and then it was aregular fountain of bubbles­and they burst right in hisface. And they ,vere oxygen!Oxygen plus a slight per­fume-"

"Oxygen 7" the robot que­ried.

"Right-something like acubic foot of it. Enough, any­,yay, to get him on his feetagain and back to base. Butnot ,vithout a scoopful of thefungi. At base, they thoughthe \vas off his trolley, especial­ly \vhen they failed to propa­gate the things. But Fergusstuck to his story-got a fe\vspecimens-and sent 'em tome with all the details~"

The scooter stopped andthey ,vent to the plexiglass\vindo\v, \vhere he checked thegauges carefully. ThenI' point­ing, he told her, "There's thelast of the bunch. Thev looksomething like Amanit~;' vela­tipes, don't they? But don'tlet that fool you. This my-

JOHN RACKHAM

celium has a sex factor. Thatmuch I've found out. Thisone-" he indicated a pur­plish-white stem with a full­spread umbrella four inchesacross-" is a male. Charac­teristics are the spread-outpilaeus with the vent in thetop. I've had some blo,v a bub­ble or two-three at most­then they vvither, fast, verydamned fast."

Shifting his angle to indi­cate similar stems, but \\Tithan ovoid head in darker pur­ple, he said, "Those are fe­males. They bubble, too. Faras I can make out, the bubbleeffect is a spore-distributingmechanism. The membrane ofthe bubble is made from thevolva, ,vhich this myceliunlpreserves in a semi-fluid state.But the spores-microscopic-are al,vays sterile. The onlyanswer I can figure is that t,yObubbles have to make contactto become fertile."

"But the chances againstthat must be astronomical!"

He shrugged. "On Earth,evolution is profligate. OnVenus, it's skinflint. A chancein a million is good odds.Now this is ,vhat \ve do. I'vetried this before, but failed.Maybe you'll be luckier thanme. I'm going to try to trap abubble from a male and onefrom a female and mix 'em.All right? Remember, it's ashot as hell in there and heavyon CO'1e You'll s\veat a lot,pant a -bit-but it's bearable.Ready? Here \ve go."

IF YOU WISH

I N THE clammy heat, Jacobcrouched, fighting to l{eep

his breathing steady. He hada trumpet tube ready. Thetiming had been very good.The pilaeus s,velled, pouted inthe center and out popped atiny bubble, s,vimming withtranslucent color, about aninch in diameter. He pushedthe bell-end of the tube at it,sucking gently-and the bub­ble burst, ,vith a sweet smell.tIe shook the s\veat from hiseyes and waited. Again theumbrella grew a hump in themiddle, popped a bubble-andbegan to wither immediately.

"See hovi damn fast every­thing happens?" he breathed,poking the tube delicately to­,yard the drifting bubble. Thistime it stuck.

Holding his breath, he sle,,"­ed around, seeking a readyfemale. None \vere poppingyet. One purple ovoid swelledand heaved. He \vaited fever­ishly, his hand shal\:ing withthe effort to hold it steady.

"For Pete's sake, old lady,"he muttered, "hurry up !~'

His captive bubble shiver­ed, burst-and, ,vith exquisitetiming, the female ovoid pout­ed and spouted a bubble­then another-and a third­and began to ,vither swiftly.

"Damn!" he stood up."Damn and blast this crazy,screwball life system! Here,you try."

They moved to \vhere a sec­ond male was sho,ving signsof bubbling. She looked down,

27

frowning, a little bead ofsweat on her upper lip."Jacob, this is not the way.There must be somethingmore. Lintz spoke of a foun­tain of bubbles, did he not?"

"That's right, but he mighthave been delirious."

"Not if he obtained enoughgaseous oxygen to fill his suit-about a cubic foot, you said?To make such a difference,something would have to hap­pen to the fungus-presum­ably the female-before spor­ulation. Don't you agree?" ,

"Sounds likely. But what?"The pilaeus began to quiver.

"I'm going to try some­thing." She got do,vn on herstomach, ,vith her face closeto the straining fungus.

He watched tensely, and al­most shouted \vith surprisewhen she pouted her lips andcaught the bubble as it pop­ped out. Holding his breath,he' saw her turn aside andgently blo,v the bubble at thefemale ovoid, at the under­side, ,vhel"e the gill openingswere. Anlazingly, the bubblestuck, and dwindled rapidly,as if being sucked dry. Again,deftly, she caught a male bub­ble with her lips and servedit to the hungry gills.

She lay quite still. Standingover her, he stared do,vn, rig­idly ,vaiting. The purple ovoidswelled and s\velled and shook-and suddenly, beautifully,spouted out a stream of huge,rainbo,v-hued bubbles. Dozens-hundreds-the hot air was

28

full of them, twinkling andbobbing-and bursting, fillinghis nostrils with heady per­fume.

She squirmed over the hotsoil to the last remainingpilaeus, and, as if ,vaiting forher, it popped-and again shecaught the fragile bubble onher rosy lips and blew it gen­tly to a \vaiting female. Thesecond bubble she sent to an­other female, the third to yetanother.

THEN she scrambled to herfeet and stood, \vith a shy,

reserved smile, while volca­noes of bubbles spouted theirscent around her. He caughta glimpse of her face and wastransfixed by the sheer joythere.

"Isn't this just beautiful,Jacob?" She stretched out herarms and beat the cloud ofrainbo,v globes into a \vhirlingdance.

I-Ie sa\v her as a Venus aris­ing from the sea-foam andlaug·hed at the thought.

She heard and echoed hislaugh merrily. "Aren't theylovely?"

"Very nearly as lovely asyou, Susan." lIe put out hisarlns to her and she came intothem. "I'm probably a bit gid­dy \vith all this oxygen andexotic perfumes, but 1 don'tgive a damn." He held herclose. "Susan, you're the lTIOst

\vonderful thing that everhappened to lne. Robot or not-\vho cares?-I \vant to have

JOHN RACKHAM

you with me always. For me,you're as human as any realwoman-and the only one Icould ever get along \vith!"

For this was the conclusionhe had come to, in the quietof his bunk, and the ans\verthat logic had dictated, andnow he had said it.

"But what about my freewill, Jacob?" she asked, ,vitha hint of mischief, as she nes­tled close. "You said I coulddo \vhat I ,vished on my o\vntime."

"That's right!" He let goof her at once and stood backanxiously. "I'd forg·otten allabout that!"

I N HIS distress he took adeeper breath than ,vas

wise, and coughed. The mix­ture of free oxygen, perfumeand excess COq, plus the heat,all combined to give him anightlnal'e sense of urgent un­reality. It was as if a dreamoffered itself, just out of reach-and in between ,vas thiscursed business of de"finitions.And she \vasn't helping any.

She stood there, slniling,ever in a drealn of drifting,opalescent bubbles - ren10teand unhumanly ideal. Hemade a great effort.

"Susan, forgetting that youare anything other than .i lIstthat-to rIle you are Susan,nothing more or less-I loveyou - ,viII you - ,viII youmarry me?"

She ,vas immediately seri­ous, her blue eyes ,vide. Jar-

IF YOU WISH

ringly, he heard the approachalarm.

"What is it?" She tilted herhead to listen.

"Ship coming," he said flat­ly, seeing his dream shatteredinto dust. "It'll be here inabout ten minutes."

"Why?""Who l{nows?" He shru:g­

ged sagging shoulders. "Achance delivery, special mes­sage-anything. Dust your­self off as much as you can­\ve don't \vant to lose any­collect a sample for fertilitytest-there's not much doubt,but we have to check. I'll gosee who's calling. I'll sendback the scooter, soon's I getthere. You run the sample tothe lab room."

He turned and left the hot­house, slapping a\vay as muchof the dust as he could, beforeshe could ask any furtherquestions. He put the scooterinto top speed and clung grim­ly as it raced along the corri­dors. He had lied. He l<:ne,v,,vith dull certainty, 'VIlO wascalling and ,vhy. A year's sal­ary to a pinch of spore dustthat it \vas George Viner,come to check up on hisgadget.

As Jacob listened to thevoice on the intercom, lle kne\vhe had 'V0n his hypotheticalbet. No one ,vould ever kno,vjust hov/ much he had· lost atthe same time. He triggeredthe personal lock and went toshower.

When he came back, pulling

29

a shirt do,vn over his head,George Viner sat there, atease, chewing on the end ofan unlighted cigar. Jacobthought, for the hundredthtime, that he had never seenanyone "\vho looked so like thetypical professor-apart fromthat cigar. Against the ,vhitegoatee, the pink complexionand the shaggy white eye­brows, the cigar added a ral{­ish Jook.

"I-Iello, George!" Jacobperched a hip on the edge ofthe table. "Come to take herback,eh?"

"H"e'r?" Viner echoed, thenchuckled. "Oh, Susan, youmean. No, Jacob, my boy-notunless there is somethingwrong. Don't tell me some­thing is wrong already!" lIepoked his bullet-head for­ward, anxiously.

"No, nothing ,vrong," saidJacob. "Just the reverse, infact. "

V·INER took a fresh bite onhis cigar. "Fine, fine. I'm

on my way Earthside-coupleor three things I v/ant to bringup with the NSF and I'll begone a good "rhile-so Ithought I'd look in on you, seehow it goes. It's a bit earlyyet, I ]rno\v. You haven't hadtime to get the thing trainedup rjght, but it's somethingpretty new in the ,yay of au­tomatics, and a snap reportwould help. I've plans afootto make them an assemblyline number, if they ''i{ork out.

30

There's a future for generalpurpose mechanisms, I think.Anything outstanding?"

Jacob shuddered. A mass­produced job! Thousands ofSusans! General purpose ro­bots! A sudden a\vareness of,vhat he had almost doneshook him.

"Did you have to make herso beautiful?" he demandedthickly. "And vlhy make it a'her"? Was that necesary?"

"Beautiful?" Viner seemedmildly surprised. "I supposeshe is beautiful, come to thinkof it. But anything function­ally perfect is beautiful-likea mathematical theorem, arazor blade or a wheel. As forsex-I suppose it's naturalthat a man living all alone,vould attribute female traits-the ,yay old-time sailors al­ways thoug'ht of their ships,for instance."

He took out his cigar, look­ed at it thoughtfully, then re­inserted it. "But those aren'tthe kind of things I meant.Have you found anything thatcould do ,vith improvement ormodification, any faults orfailures? On the other hand, isthere anything you think youshould know about replacingspares - batteries, program­ming-that sort of thing?"

Jacob tried to think objec­tively, but all that \vould comethrough the inner fog of pain\vas a heart cry.

"Did you have to teach herall that stuff about studyingmy v;ishes-all that philos-

JOHN RACKHAM

ophy-keeping me happy­serving my pleasure-"

"Jacob!" Viner was on hisfeet now, like a stumpy, be­\vildered Santa Claus. "Youall right, son? Maybe you'vebeen overdoing it a bit, eh ? Allthis by your lonesome stuff isgetting you down. Robots ,vithphilosophy!" He grev{ alarm­ed. "You find yourself talkingto it?"

"Hah!" Jacob vias amused."I talk to myself a lot, any­\vay, and never worried aboutit. It's the way the damnedthing talks back to me!"

Viner ,vent back to hisseat carefully-~o carefully.Jacob could see the roboticisttrying to appear casual.

"No\v, Jacob," Viner spokesoothingly, "don't get mewrong on this, understand,but I think it's about time youhad a break. I'll put a callthrough to Ajax Base and\ve'll have somebody shippedout to take over-"

"Jacob F' she came hurrv­ing in, her lovely face aglow,vith excitement. "They'refertile, sure enough-" Thenshe sa\v Viner and stopped insurprise and consternation.Suddenly a\vare of her nudity,she clutched vain hands, thenturned and fled.

Viner dropped his cigar androared. "Susan! You comeright back here!"

HE \VAS halfway out of his'chair, purple with intent,

\vhen Jacob grabbed his arm.

IF YOU WISH

"What-" Jacob began."That," Viner said through

his teeth, 4'happens to be myniece, Susan Calvin, and I'dlike to know just what theblazes she's doing here, and inthat state-and, what's more,I intend to find out! Susan!"

"Give her time to get someclothes on," Jacob said reason­ably. "Your niece, you said?"He was too totally shatteredto be anything but devoid ofall feeling. "Tell me about her,George."

"You mean there's stillsomething you don't know?"

"There is. A lot. You see-"Jacob almost giggled at thesilliness of it-"I thought she,vas the device you mentionedin your letter. You said'Susan' and it-she-answer­ed to that, and I thought, nat­urally-"

"You mean you actuallytook that girl for a robot!?But that's fantastic! Nobodycould be that dumb!"

"Well, either I'm that dumbor she's a damn fine actress­or a bit of both. But I'm dumb,all right." Jacob nodded rue­fully. "I'm just beginning torealize how dumb. Tell meabout her."

"Well-" Viner ruminated,che\ving the cigar. "She's asmart girl, all right, althoughI shouldn't say it. Generals,veep through biology andpsychology, decided to majorin sociology-personal rela­tionships, group and individ­ual dynamics-that line. She

31

works with me a lot on com­munication systems and thelike-but what the hell am Idoing, sitting here talking toyou?" He got up violently."Susan! Come right here!"

She came in demurely, tug­ging a s\veatshirt into place.Jacob could only stare. Sonle­how-no\v-there ,vas a dif­ference. This ,vas no longeran idealized dummy, but aliving, breathing ,voman­and it ,vas lI0t the sanle. Com­mon sense tried to tell himthat it was all his o\vn inIagi­nation, but it \vas no use. Theshattered vacancy began tofill up, but the f111ing ,vas dustand ashes. Real flesh andblood-she \vas people! I-Ieslid from the table edge, hear­ing the rapid interchange be­tween uncle and niece as avague, meaningless noise. Hewent out.

Re ¥las staring unseeinglyat the \vindov{ed Venus-scape,when he felt her touch on hisarm.

"Jacob." Her voice ,'/assoft. "1'n1 sorry I played atrick on you. Forgive me ?1.

"For ,vhat?" he nlumbled."You had your fun. Or psy­chological experiment. Proveanything"?"

"Just that you're a verynice person-\vhen you letyourself be-and that you'reafraid of people without anyreason. You know, you'd seenme a fe,v tinles before-butyou never noticed me. I \vant­ed you to-hence this."

32

"PEOPLE!" he said bitter­ly. "Sometimes I think

it's a pity that Noah and hisparty didn't miss the boat!"

"l\1ark Tvvain," she said."All right, so you're smart.

You fooled me. You madeyour point. NOVv vvould youplease leave me alone?"

"Does it make so nluch dif­ference, Jacob-my being hu­man ? You said some very nicethings to and about me, backthere among the bubbles. Ithink you meant them. Andyou asked me a question, too.Don't you \vant my ans,ver?'~

In the silence there can1ethe Inutecl trembling of thestation as a ship blasted clear.

"Iley!" he criect. "That'sViner, leaving. \\Thy arcn~t

you on that ship ,vith him?""Jacob O'SilTIOn ! You asked

l1le to marry you! UncleGeorge has gone to bring backthe padre from Ajax Base.Are you going to make a foolof Ine no\v?"

"You made a fair fool ofme !" he protested, "pretend­ing to be \vhatever I ,vant­ed-"

"I was not pretending,Jacob, then or no,v," she \vhis­pered. "I am whatever you,vant me to be. That's ,vhat awife is for-to be whateverher man wants. Will you tryme, Jacob?"

"On one condition-that \vego on just the way it ,vas."

She said, this time ,vithemotion, "vVhatever you wish,Jacob!" END

JOHN RACKHAM

NotNor

SnowRain

ON HIS first day as a mailcarrier, Sam Wilson no­

ted that inscription, cribbedfrom Herodotus, on the Gen­eral Post Office, and took it toheart: "Not snow, nor rain,nor heat, nor gloom of nightstays these couriers from theswift completion of their ap­pointed rounds."

By MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

Sam should have let the 22

nixies go to the dead letter

ofJice , ••' 01~ gone there hinz-

self f.or sanctuary!

It couldn't be literally true,of course. Given a real bliz­zard, it \vould be impossibleto make his way through. thepathless drifts; and if therehad beell a major flood, hecould hardly have swum to de­liver letters' to the marooned.Moreover, if he couldn't findthe addressee, there was notll-

33

ing to do but mark the enve­lope 44Not known at this ad­dress," and take it back to bereturned to the addresser orconsigned to the Dead LetterOffice. But through the years,Sam Wilson had been as con­sciously faithful and efficientas any Persian messenger.

Now the long 'years had gal­loped by, and this was thevery last time he would walkhis route before his retire­ment.

It would be good to put hisfeet up somewhere and easethem back into comfort; theyhad been Sam's loyal servantsand they were more worn outthan he was. But the thoughtof retirement bothered him.Mollie was going to get sickof having him around thehouse all day, and he wasdamned if he was going to siton a park bench like other dis­carded old men and suck apipe and stare at nothing,waiting for the hours to passin a v·acuum. He had his biginterest, of course-his statusas a devoted science fictionfan; he would have time nowto read and reread, to watchhopefully from the roof of hisapartment house for signs ofa flying saucer. But thatwasn't enough; what he need­ed was a project to keep himalert and occupied.

On his last delivery hefound it.

The Ochterlonie Building,,yay down on lower SecondAvenue, was a rundown, shab-

34

by old firetrap, once as solidas the Scotsman who had builtit and named it for himself,but now, with its single open­cage elevator and its saggingfloors, attracting only quackdoctors and dubious privateeyes and similar fauna on theedge of free enterprise. Samhad been delivering to it nowfor 35 years, watching itsslow deterioration.

This time there was awhole batch of' self-addressedletters for a tenant whosename was new to him, butthat was hardly surprising­nowadays, in the OchterlonieBuilding, tenants came andwent.

They were small envelopes,addressed in blue, in printingsimulating handwriting, toOrville K. Hesterson, Sec.­Treas., Time-Between-Time,746 Ochterlonie Building,New York 3, N. Y. Feelingthem with experienced fin­gers, Sam Wilson judged theywere orders for something,doubtless enclosing money.

I N MOST of the buildings onhis last route, Sam knew,

at least by sight, the em­ployees who took in the mail,and they knew him. A lot ofthem knew this was his lasttrip; there were farewellsand good wishes, and. even afew small donations (since he\vouldn't be there next Christ­mas) which he gratefullytucked in an inside pocket ofthe uniform he would never

MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

W NOR RAINNOT SNO35

wear again. There were alsotwo or three invitations to adrink, which, being still onduty, :he had regretfully to de-cline. .

But in the Ochterlonie,Building, with its fly-by-nightclientele, he was just the post­man, and nobody greeted himexcept Howie Mallory, thedecrepit elevator operator.Sam considered him soberly.It was going to be prettytough financially from nowon; could he, perhaps, find ajob like Howie's? No. Not un­less things got a lot tougher;stallding all day would be justas bad as walking.

He went from office to office,getting rid of his load-most­ly bills; duns and complaints,he imagined, in this hole.There was nothing for theseventh floor. except thisbunch for Time-Between­Time.

The seventh floor? He mustbe nuts. The OchterlonieBuilding was six floors high.

Puzzled, he rang for Howie."What'd they do, build a

penthouse office on top of thisold dump?" he inquired.

The elevator operatorlaughed as at a feeble jest."Sure," he said airily. "Gen­eral Motors is using it as ahideaway."

"No, Howie-no fooling.Look here."

Mallory stared and shookhis head. "There ain't no 746.Somebody got the numberwrong. Or they got the build-

36

ing wrong. There's nobody:here by that name."

"They couldn't - printedenvelopes like these."

"0. K., wise guy," saidHowie. "Look for yourself."

He led the way to the shortflight of iron stairs and thetrap door. While Mallorystood jeering at him, Sam de­terminedly climbed through.There was nothing in sightbut the plain flat roof. Heclimbed down again.

"Last letters on my last de­livery and I can't deliverthem," Sam Wilson said dis­gustedly.

"Somebody's playing a joke,maybe." <

"Crazy joke. Well, so long,Howie. Some young squirtwill be taking his life in hishands in this brokell-downcage of yours tomorrow."

Sam Wilson, whom nothingcould deter from the swiftcompletion of his appointedrounds, had to trudge back tothe post office with 22 unde­livered letters.

Years ago the United StatesPost Office gave up searchingdirectories and referencebooks" or deciphering illiter­ate or screwy addresses, so asto make every possible deliv­ery. That went out with threedaily and two Saturday deliv­eries, two-cent drop postage,and all the other amenitiesthat a submissive public letitself lose without a protest.But there was still a city di­rectory in the office. Sam Wil-

MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

son searched it stubbornly.Time-Between-Time \vas notlisted. Neither ,vas Orville K.Hesterson.

There ,vas nothing to dobut consider· the letters nixiesand turIl them over to theproper department. If there.was another bunch of themtomorro\v, he ,vould neverknow.

RETIREMENT, after thefirst carefree week, was

just as bad as Sam Wilsonhad suspected it ,vas going tobe. Not bad enough to thinkyet about elevator operatingor night ,vatching, but badenough to make him restlessand edgy, and to make himsnap lVIollie's head off untilthey had their first bad quar­rel for years. He'd never hadtime enoug'h before to keep up,vith all the science fictionmagazines and books. No,v,'l\rith nothing but time, there\veren't enough of them to fillthe long days. '''hat he need­ed \vas something-somethingthat didn't involve \valking­to make those endless hoursspeed up. He began thinkingagain about those 22 nixies.

lIe sat gloomily on a benchin Tompkins Square in thespring sunshine: just \vhat hehad s\vorn not to do, but if hestayed home another hour,l\lo11ie \vould heave the vac­uum cleaner at him. In thepublic library he had search­ed directories and phonebooks, for all the boroughs

NOT SNOW NOR RAIN

and for suburban New Jer­sey, Connecticut and Pennsyl­vania; Orville K. Hestersonappeared in none of them.

He didn't know why it wasany of his business, exceptthat Time-Between-Time hadput a blot on the very end ofhis 35-year record and hewanted revenge. Also, it wassomething to do and be inter­ested in. In a way, science fic­tion and detection had a lotin common, and Sam Wilsonprided himself on his abilityto guess ahead what was go­ing to happen in a story. So\vhy couldn't he figure outthis puzzle, right here inManhattan, Terra? But he"ras stymied.

Or ,vas he?Sam took his gloomy

thoughts to Mulligan's. Everylarge city is a collection ofvillages. The people who livelong enough in a neighbor­hood acquire their own gro­ceries, their own drugstores,their o,vn bars. The Wilsonshad' lived six years in theirflat, and Mulligan's, catercor­nered across the street, wasSam's personal bar.

He ,vas cautious as to\\That he said there. He'dheard enough backtalk al­ready ,vhen he had been in­discreet enough once, afterfour beers, to express hisvie\vs on UFOs. He had nodesire to gain a reputation asa crackpot. But it was safeenough to remark conversa­tionally, "Ho,v do you find out

37

where a guy is when he sayshe's someplace and you ,vritehim there and the letter comesback?"

"You ought to know, Sam,"said Ed, the day barkeep."You were a postman longenough."

"If I kne,v, I wouldn't as1<.""Ask Information on the

phone.""He hasn't got a phone."

That was the weirdest part ofit-a business office without aphone.

In every bar, at every mo­ment, there is somebody \vhoknows all the answers. Thissomebody, a nondescript fel­low nursing a Collins do,vnthe bar, spoke up: "It couldbe unlisted."

Sam's acquaintance didn'tinclude people with unlistedphones; he hadn't thought ofthat.

"Then how do you find outhis number?"

"You don't, unless he tellsyou. That's why he has it un­listed."

The police could get it, Samthought. But they \vouldn'twithout a reason.' ,

"Hey, maybe this guy's of­fice is in one of them flyingsaucers and he forgot to comedown and get his mail" Edsuggested brightly. '

Sam scowled and walkedout.

Nevertheless . . .Nothing to do with UFOs,

of course. That was ridicu­lous.

38

BUT suppose there was awarp in the space-time

continuum? Suppose therehad once been another Ochter­lonie Building, or some day inthe future there was going tobe another one, somewhere inNew York? There wasn't an­other now, in any of the bor­oughs, or any other building,vith a name remotely like it;his research had already es­tablished that.

Sam went back to the Pub­lic Library. The building heknew had been erected in1898. He consulted directoriesas far back as they went;there never had been one ofthe name before. Then a time­slip from the future?

That was hopeless, so far ashe could do anything about it,so he cast about for anothersolution. How about a parallel\vorld?

That could be, certainly:SOlne accident by which mailfor that other OchterlonieBuilding, the seven-story one,had (maybe just once) arriv­ed in the wrong dimension.

He couldn't do anything toprove or disprove that, either.\Vhat he needed was a break.

He got it.One morning in early sum­

mer his own mailbox in thedownstairs hallway disgorgeda long envelope, addressed to1\11". Samuel Wilson. The up­per left-hand corner bore aprinted return address: 'rime­Between-Time, 746 Ochter­lonie Building, New York 3,

MIRIAM' ALLEN DeFORD

N. Y. He raced upstairs, lock­ed himself in the bathroom,the one place Mollie couldn'tinterrupt him, and tore theenvelope open ,vith tremblingfingers.

It was a fornl letter, ''liththe "Dear Mr. \Vilson" nottoo accurately typed in. It en­closed one of those blue-print­ed envelopes in simulatedhandwriting. The letterheadcarried the familiar impos­sible address, but no phonenumber.

Maybe it ,vas chance, may­be it vvas ESP, but he him­self had got onto Time-Be­t,veen-Time's mailing list!

HE HAD trouble focusinghjs eyes to read the letter.

Dear ]\'1r. Wilson:Would you invest $1 to

get a chance at $1,000?Of course you "vould,

especially if, win or lose,you got your dollar back.

In this atomic age, yes­terday's science fiction hasbecome ioday's and tomor­row's science fact. Time­Between-Time, a new or­ganization, is planningestablishment of a publish­ing company to bring outthe best in new bookR, bothfact and fiction, in the fieldof science, appealing topeople who have never beeninterested until no\v.

Before we start, \ve areconducting a poll to find outwhat the general public

NOT SNOW NOR RAIN

thinks and feels about ourprobabilities of success.We're asking for your co­operation.

Our statisticians have toldus that from the answersto one question-which maylook off the beanl but isn't-we can nlake a prettygood estimate. Here it is:

If tonl0rrow morning aspaceship landed in frontof your house, and from itissued a band of extrater­restrial beings, who mightor might not be human inappearance, what, in yourbest judgment, would beyour own immediate reac­tion? Check one, or if youagree with none of -thechoices, indicate in theblank space beneath whatyour personal reaction\vould probably b~.

1. Phone for "the police.2. Attack the aliens physical­ly. 3. Faint. 4. Run a\vay. 5.Call for assistance to seizethe visitors. 6. Greet them,attempt to communicate,and welcome them in thename of your fello\v-terres­trials. 7. Other (pleasespecify) .

Return this letter, prop­erly marked, in the enclosedenvelope. To defray promo­tion expenses, enclose a dol­lar bill (no checks or moneyorders) .

At the conclusion of thispoll, all ans\\'ers will beevaluated. The writer of theone which comes nearest to

39

the answer reached by ourelectronic computer, whichwill be fed the same ques­tion, will receive $1,000 indollar bills. Ties will re­ceive duplicate prizes.

In addition, all partici­pants, when our publishingfirm has been established,will receive for their $1 acredit form entitling themto $1 off any book we pub­lish.

Don't delay. Send in yourans\ver NOvV. OnJy lettersenclosing $1 will be entered.

Very truly yours,Time-Between-Time,

Orville K. Hesterson,Sec.-Treas.

SAM WILSON read the let­ter three times. "It's

crazy," he muttered. "It's agyp."

What he ought to do ,vastake the letter to the post of­fice-Mr. Gross ,vould be theone to see-and let them de­cide whether this Hestersonwas using the mails to de­fraud. Let Mr. Gross and hisdepartment try to find 746in the six-story OchterlonieBuilding. As a faithful em­ployee for 35 years, it \vasSam's plain duty.

But then it would be out ofhis hands forever; he'd nevereven find out what happened.And he'd be back in the dullmorass that retirement ,vasturning out to be.

"Sam!" Mollie yelled out­side the locked door. "Aren't

40

you ever coming out ofthere?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"He put the letter and its en­closure back in the envelopeand placed them in a pocket.

Time enough to decide thatafternoon what he ,vas goingto do.

Re escaped after lunch to,vhat "vas becoming his refugeon a park bench. There heread the letter for the fourthtime. For a long while he satruminating. Ab out threeo'clock he ,valked to the Gen­eral Post Office-walking hadbecome a habit hard to break-and hunted up the man ,vhonow had his old route, ayoungster not more than 30named Flanagan.

From the letter Sam ex­tracted the return envelope.

"You been delivering anylike this '?" he asked.

Flanagan peered at it."Yeah," he said. "Plenty."

lIe looked worried. "Gee, Wil­son, I'm glad you came in.There's something funnyabout those deliveries, and Idon't want to get in Dutch."

"Funny how?""My very first day on the

route, I started up to the sev­enth floor of that buildingto deliver them-and there,vasn't any seventh floor. So Iasked the old elevator man-"

"Howie Mallory. I knowhim. He's been there foryears."

"I guess so. Any\vay, hesaid it ,vas O. K. just to give

MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

them to him. He showed mea paper, signed with thename of this outfit, by thesecretary or something-"

"Orville K. Hesterson,"Sam said.

"That ,vas it-saying thatall mail for them was to bedelivered to the elevator oper­ator until further notice. SoI've been giving it to him eversince-there's a big bunchevery day. Is somethingwrong, Sam? Have I pulled aboner? Am I going to be introuble ?"

"No trouble. I'm justchecking-little job they ask­ed me to do for them, seeingI'm retired." Sam \vassur­prised at the glibness \vith\vhich that fib came out.

Flanagan looked still more"rorried. "He said their office"ras being remodeled or some­thing, so he \vas looking aftertheir mail till they could movein."

"Sure. Don't give it anotherthought." Another idea oc­curred to him; he lo\vered hisvoice. "I oughtn't to tell youthis, Flanagan, but every ne\vman on a route, they kind ofcheck up on him the first few\veeks, see if he's handlingeverything O.K. I'll tell themyou're doing fine."

HHey, thanks. Thanks alot."

"Don't say anything aboutthis. It's supposed to be se­cret."

"Oh, I won't."Sam Wilson \vaved and

NOT SNOW NOR RAIN

walked out. He sat on thesteps a while to think.

Was old Howie Mallorypulling a. fast one ? Was heOrville K. Hesterson? Had hecool{ed up a scheme to makehimself some crooked money?

THREE things against that.First, those nixies the

first day: why wouldn't Mal­lory have told him the samething he told Flanagan? Sam\vould have believed him, ifhe had said they were build­ing an office on the roof andgiving it a number.

Second, Howie just wasn'tsmart enough. Of course hecould be fronting for the realcrook. But Sam had knownhim for years, and old Howiehad al\vays seemed do\vnrightstupidly honest. A man does­n't suddenly turn into a crim­inal after a lifetime of probity.

Third, if this ,vas somefraudulent scheme involvingMallory, nobody the old mankne\v-Ieast of all the post­man who used to deliver mailto that very building-wouldever have been allowed to ap­pear on the sucker list.

Sam Wilson thought somemore. Then he hunted up thenearest pay phone and calledMollie.

"Mollie? Sam. Look, I justmet an old friend of mine-"he picked a nan1e from a bill­board visible from the phonebooth- "Bill Seagram, youremember hirn-oh, sure youdo; you've just forgotten.

41

Anyway, he's just here forthe day and we're going tohave dinner and see a sho,v.Don't ,vait up for n1e. I mightbe pretty late ... No, I'm notphoning froln Mulligan's ...Now you kno\v me, Mollie; doI ever drink too much? . . .Yeah, sure, he oug"ht to'veasked you too, but he didn't.O.K., he's in1polite. A ,v, 1\1:01­lie, don't be like that-"

She hung up on him.Sam vVilson stood concealed

in a door,vay from ,vhich hecould see the cramped lobbyof the Ochterlonie Building.It was ten minutes beforesomebody entered it and rangfor the ·elevator. The minuteHo,vie IVIallory started upwith his passenger, Sam dart­ed into the building andstarted climbing the stairs.He heard Mallory passinghim, going do,vn again, butthe .elevator ,vasn't visiblefrom the stairway. On thesixth floor, after a quick sur­vey to see that the hall ,vasclear and the doors closedthat he had to pass, he foundthe iron steps to the trapdoor.

The roof was just as emptyas the other time he had visit­ed it. No, it ,vasn't. In a cor­ner by the parapet, ,veightedwith a brick to keep it fromblo,ving a,vay, ,vas a largepaper bag. Sam picked up thebrick' and looked inside. Itwas stuffed \vith those blue­printed return envelopes.

He looked carefully abouthim. There were buildings all

42

around, to,vering over thelittle old Ochterlonie Build­ing. There \vere plenty of,vindows from ,vhich a cu­rious eye could discern any­thing happening on that roof.But at night anybody in thosebuildings ,voulcl be either,vorking late or cleaning of­fices, ,vith no reason vvhateverto g·o to a ,vindo\v; and Sam,vas sure nothing \\',].3 goingto happen till after dark.

It ,vas a ,varIn day and hehad been carrying his coat.I--Ie folded it and put it do,vnnear the paper bag and sat onit ,vith his back against theparapet. lIe cursed hil'TISelffor not having had moreforesight; he should havebrought something to eat andsomething to read. V\feIC he,vasn't going to climb do\vn allthose stairs and up again. Helighted his pipe and began,Yaiting.

lIe must have dozed o'ff, forhe came to himself vvith astart and found it ,vas almostdark. The paper bag was stillthere. It ,vas just as ,veIl hehad slept; no,v he'd have notrouble staying a\,rake and,vatching. lIe might very ,yellbe there all night-in fact,he'd have to be, ,vhether any­thing happened or noto Thefront door \vould be locked byno,v. Mollie \vould have a nt,but he had his alibi ready.

There \vas only one ex­planation left. "Not timetravel. Not alternate univers­es. Not an ordinary confi-

MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

dence game. Not-decidedlynot-a hoax.

If he was wrong, then to­morrow morning he'd take thewhole business to Mr. Gross.But he had a hunoo he ,vasn'tgoing to be wrong.

I T WAS 12:15 by his ,vrist­,vatch v{hen he sa,v it com­

ing.It had no lights; nobody

could have spotted it as it ap­peared suddenly out of no­,vhere and climbed straightdo,vn. It landed lightly as adrop of dc\v. The port openedand a snlall, spare man, veryneatly dressed, as Sam couldsee ,vith eyes accustomed tothe darkness, stepped out. Or­ville K. Hesterson in person.

lie tiptoed quickly to thepaper bag. Then he sa\v Samand stopped short. Saln reach­ed out and grabbed a ,vrist.It felt like flesh, but hecouldn't be sure.

""Vho are you? "That areyou doing here?" the nev{­comer said in a strained \\rhis­pel', just like a scared charac­ter in a soap opera. So hespoke English. Good: Samdidn't speak anything else.

"I'm from the United StatesPost Office," Sam repliedsuavely. 'VeIl, he had been,long enough, hadn't he?

"Oh. "Tell, no,v look, myfriend~" ,

H Yon look. Talk. IIo,v ll1uchare you paying the elevatoroperator to put your mail uphere every day?"

NOT SNOW NOR RAIN

"Five dollars a day, in dol­lar bills, six days a ,veek, leftin the empty bag," answeredHesterson-it must be Hes­terson-sullenly. "That's nocrime, is it? Call this my of­fice, and call that my rent. AllI need an office for is to havesome,vhere to get my letters."

"Letters with money inthem."

"We have to have funds forpostage, don't we?"

"What about the postageon the first mailing list,' be­fore you got any dollars topay for stamps?"

If it had been a little light­er, Sam would have been sur­er of the alarm that crossedHesterson's face.

"!-\vell, we had to fabri­cate some of your currencyfor that. We regretted it-weaim to obey all local rules andregulations. As soon as ,vehave enough coming in, we in­tend to send the amount tothe N e,v York postmasteras anonymous consciencen10ney."

"How about the $1,000prize? And those dollar bookcredits ?"

"Oh, that. Well, we say'1vhen our publishing firmhas been established,' don't"re? rfhat publishing thing isjust a gimmick. As for the$1,000, we give no intimationof when the poll ,vill end."

Sam tightened his grasp onthe wrist, \vhich ,vas begin­ning to wriggle.

"1 see. O.K., explain the

43

whole setup. It sounds crazyto me."

"I couldn't agree with youmore," said Mr. Hestersol1, toSam's surprise. "That's exact­ly what, in our O'~ln idiom, Itold-" Sam couldn't get thename; it sounded like a grunt."But he's the boss and I'monly a scout third class."I-lisvoice gre\v plaintive. "Youcan't imagine \vhat an ordealit is, almost every ,vee}\:, tohave to land in a secludedplace where I can hide the fly­er, make my ,yay to Ne,vYorl{, and buy a bunch ofstamps and mail a batch ofletters in broad daylight. Wecan simulate your paper annprinting and typing ,veIlenough, but" - that gruntagain-Uinsists Vle use genu­ine stamps. I told you ,ve tryto follo\v all your la\vs, as faras we possibly can. It's verydifficult for me to keep thisabsurd shape for long at atime; l'm exhausted afterevery trip. I can assure you,these little night excursionsfrom the mother-ship to pickup the letters are the veryleast of my bUTdens!"

"vVhat in time does yourboss think he's going to gainby such a scre,vy come-on?"

"'In time'? Oh, just allidiomatic phrase. Like ourcalling our organization Tinl€­Bet\veen-Time, time of coursebeing just a dimension ofspace. I learned your tonguemostly from the B.B.C. and Idon't al\vays understand your

44

speech in New York. Mydear sir, do you here on thisplanet ask your bosses whythey concoct their plans?Mine has a very profoundmind; that's ,vhy he is theboss. All I know is that hepersuaded the Council to tryit out. A softening-up proc­ess-isn't that what you peo­ple call it ,vhen you use it inyour silly wars ,vith one an­other?"

"Softening for what?" ButSam Wilson kne\v the answeralready.

"WHY, for the invasion,of course," said Orville

K. Hesterson, whose ownnan1e was probably a grunt."Surely you must be a,varethat, ,vith planet\\ride devas­tation likely and even immi­nent, every world ,vhoseinhabitants can live con1fort­ably under extreme radiationis looking to yours~Earth,asyou call it-as a possible areafor colonization? So manyplanets are so terribly over­cro,vded-there's al,vays arush for a ne'~t frontier.We've missed out too often;this time we're determined tobe first."

"I'll be darned," said Sam,'''if I can see ho\v that ques­tionnaire ,vould be any helpto you."

"But it's elementary, as Ibelieve one of your famousla\v-enforcers once declared.First of all, ,ve're gaining apretty good idea of what kind

MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

of reception ,ve're likely tomeet when we arrive, andtherefore whether we're go­ing to need weapons to de­stroy what will be left of thepopulation, or can reasonablyexpect to take over withoutdifficulty. We figure that across-section of one of yourlargest cities will be a prettygood indication, and ~re canextrapolate from that. In thesecond place, the question it­self is deliberately ,vorded tostartle the recipients, \\rhohave never in their lives con­templated such a thing as anextraterrestrial visitor-"

"Not me. I'm a science fic­tion fan froln ,vay back. It'sall old stuff to me."

Hesterson clicked histongue-or at least the tonguehe ,vas \vearing. "Oh, dear,that rzvas an error. We triedparticularly not to include onour lists subscribers to any ofYOU1· speculative periodicals.That ,vasn't my mistake,thank g'oodness; it \vas anoth­er scout ,vho had the horriblejob of spending several day·shere and compiling the lists.Under your present lo,v radio­activity it's real agony forus."

"I'll tell you one mistakeyou did make, though," saidSanl angrily. "You oughtto've arranged with the eleva­tor man before your first lotof answers ,vas due. If you\vant to kno\v, that's ho"r Igot onto the ,vhole thing. I'n1a n1ail carrier-I'm retired

NOT SNOW NOR RAfN

now, but I was then-and I,vas the one supposed to de­liver the first batch. Mallory-that's the elevator operator-laughed in my face and toldTIle there ,vasn't any 746 inthis building, and I had totake the letters back to thepost office-on my last deliv­ery!" Sam couldn't keep thebitterness out of his voice."After 35 years-,vell, that'sneither here nor there. But Ididn't like that and I made upIny mind to find out what ,vashappening."

"So that's it. Oh. dear,dear. I'll have to compensatefor that or I 'lvill be in trou­ble."

Sam had had enough. "Youare in trouble right now," heg·l"o,vled, pushing the littlealien back against the para­pet. "\Ve're staying right heretill morning,' and then I'nl go­ing to call for help and takeyou and your flying saucer or,,"hatever it is straight to theF.B.I."

The counterfeit l\fr. Hes­terson laughed.

"Oh, no indeed you aren't,"he said ll1ildly. "I can slipright back into Iny o\vn shape,vhenever I "rant to-the onlyreason I haven't done it yet isthat then I ,vouldn't ha\Te theequipment to talk to you-andI assure you that you couldn'thold l1le then. On the con­trary. As you just pointed outto me, I did make one baderror, and my boss doesn'tlike errors. 1 have 110 inten-

4S

tion of making another one byleaving you here to spread thenews."

"\'Vhat do you mean?" SamWilson cried. For the firsttime, after the years of accus­tomedness to the idea of ex­traterrestrial beings, a thrillof pure terror shot throughhim.

"This," said the outsidersoftly.

BEFORE Sam could takeanother breath, the wrist

he was holding slid from hisgrasp, all of Mr. Hestersonslithered into something ut­terly beyond imagining, andSam found himself envelopedin invisible chains against,vhich he \vas unable to makethe slightest struggle. He felthimself being lifted and

thrown into the cocl<:pit.Something landed on top ofhim-undoubtedly the pack­age of prize entries and dol­lar bills. H is last consciousthought ,vas a despairing oneof Mollie.

Sam Wilson, devoted mailcarrier, ,vas making a longertrip than any Persian courierever dreamed of, and notsno\v, nor rain, nor heat, norgloom of night could stay himfrom his appointed round.

But he may not be gone for­ever. If he can be kept aliveon that planet in some othersolar system, they plan tobring him back as ExhibitOne \vhenever World War IIIhas made Earth sufficientlyradioactive for Orville K.Hesterson's co-planetarians tolive here comfortably. END

DANGER!,vithout t'aking a single person into space, amateur-launched rockets arecausing a greater proportion of casualties than car accidents: 162 versus22 per 10,000. Alarmed by this rate, the American Rocket Society de­clares that "all practical means must be taken to prevent the manufac­ture of propellants of rockets by amateurs," urges bans on the sale ofsuch fuels, and adds that the launching of rockets by alnateUl'S lnust beprohibited. "The somewhat debatable loss in opportunity for intellectualdevelopment which might be suffered by foregoing experimentation,"says Col. .;John P. Stapp, ARS president, "is small compared with appar­ently unavoidable and appalling loss of eyes, fingers and lives."

46 MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

GOOD-BY,

GloriaBy TED BAIN

As 1J'lean a vengeance as was

ever devised - or a super-

ht/nlan sacrifice-which was

it to be? .••

"ONE day," said Gervaissavagely, "I'm going. to

take a knife and stick it rightinto Wendle's gizzard."

"And twist it." Frobisherdidn't like Captain Wendleany more than Gervais did.

"And twist it," agreedGervais. "Slo,vly."

He was a chunky youngman with a shock of unrulyhair and a normally cheerfulexpression. Now his expres­sion was far from cheerful.He flung himself into a chair

47

and stared morosely at thebeautiful flight pattern over\vhich he had taken so muchtrouble.

Frobisher lit a cigarette."All right," he said gently."What is it this time 1"

"Need you ask?" Gervais,vas bitter. uSo Wendle is theking-sized brain-boy. So he isin command of this tub. So heshould know what he's talk­ing about." His voice rose ashe thought about it. "Butdoes he have to ram his su-

periority down my throatevery chance he gets?"

"He does not," said Fro­bisher.

"Then why does he?" Ger­vais crumpled the flight pat­tern to a small ball of \vastepaper. "Wrong," he said."The course could be short­ened by a good thirty min­utes. I'm a fifth decimal pointout in my calculations."

Frobisher made appropri­ate noises, trying hard not tosmile. Wendle might be allmanner of a you-kno\v-what,but he did know his business.If Gervais had muffed theflight pattern, then he should­n't beef about having hisknuckles rapped. Frobisherdidn't tell his cre\vmate that.He wanted to avoid blood­shed. His own.

"Never mind," he soothed."It happens to us all. Don'tlet it worry you."

Gervais made rude noises."Personally," continued

Frobisher, "I don't mind ad­mitting my errors. I like tothink that I'm man enough toaccept correction."

"That's big of you." Ger­vais was sarcastic. "Mightybig."

HE \\70ULD have said morebut the door opened just

then and Captain \Vendle en­tered the chart room. He \vasa well-built man ,vho worehis impeccable uniform like asecond skin. His expressionwas his normal one, as if he

48

smelled a bad odor in his im­mediate vicinity.

"Frobisher!" His voicematched the rest of him. Cold,distant, acidly correct..

"Sir!" Frobisher leaped tohis' feet, snapping a salute.Wendle might be the originalson of a female dog but he,vas still the captain. On hisreports depended promotion.

"Frobisher, tell me, ,vhat isthe optimum operating tem­perature of our pile?" saidCaptain Wendle.

Frobisher told him."Are you certain? Should­

n't it be just a little higher?Say a degree and a half high­er?"

"No, sir.""Then why is it that the

gauges in the control roomsho,v that the temperature ishigher than the one you havestated? Or could it be that thegauge is faulty?"

"\Ve have a ten-degree tol­erance, sir."

"I am a,vare of that. I amalso a,vare that you are pur­ported to be an engineer. Youhave given me the figure foroptimum temperature. Opti­mum \vorking, Frobisher, is,vhat I demand on my vessel."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."Frobisher looked ready toburst.

Wendle stared at him as ifhe \vere a clinical specimen."Sorry, Frobisher? I thinknot. You are annoyed that Ihave discovered your ineffi..ciency, but being annoyed is

TED BAIN

not being sorry." Wendleswivled his eyes to Gervais."Have you rectified yourerror, Gervais?"

"Just working on it, sir.""You may save your labor

and my patience. I have re­ceived a communication fromBase. We have been reas­signed."

"Sir?" said Gervais."To an uncharted world. I

will give you the coordinateslater so that you may makean attempt to chart a flightpattern."

"Yes, sir. The mission,sir?" .

"A rescue party." Wendlestepped toward the door. "Ifyou are doubtful as to whatthat.is, I sug9gest that you lookup the word in a dictionary.There are, I understand, sev­eral aboard."

The door closed behindhim. Frobisher let out hisbreath in a long, low, obscen­ity-filled hiss.

It was Gervais's turn toInake appropriate noises.

THE world ,vas a twin ofEarth in that it had seas,

mountains, continents andvegetation. It also had abreathable atmosphere and,according to Wendle's infor­mation, a party that neededrescuing.

"Base picked up a sub­etheric message," he explain­ed. "It gave the coordinatesand asked for a ship to makecontact. That means rescue,

GOOD-BY, GLORIA

of course." His finger tappeda photomap. "You'll find themdown there. We've pinpointedtheir transmitter."

"Them?" said Gervais."Yes, Gervais, them." Wen­

dIe was patient. "Surely youdo not imagine that a singleindividual could have operat­ed the transmitter?"

"Why not, sir?""Because Base has checked

records and no ship has beenmissing for over twentyyears. Obviously a ship waswrecked here and the surviv­ors have taken all this timeto organize themselves." Histone implied that, had he been\vith the survivors, theywould have done it muchsooner.

"Your mission," he con­tinued, "is to go down, surveythe party and report back tome. I will decide on appro­priate action."

"Yes, sir. " Gervais l{new,vhat that meant. Sometimessurvivors of wrecked space­ships were best left alone.Disease and reversion to bar­barism could produce somehighly undesirable character­istics.

"Frobisher will go withyou. You ,viII take a scoutship and remain in constantcommunication \vith us as weorbit." Wendle rolled up themap and handed it over. "Isthere anything more? Anypoint on which you are indoubt?" His tone defied themto admit ignorance.

49

Frobisher complained aboutit on the way down to theplanet.

"Wendle is a good man," hesaid. "I'll give him that. Topmarks at everything he doesand all that. So why does heact as if we had holes in thehead?"

"He can't help it." Gervaischeclred the controls. The tinyscout was heading to \vhereit should go. "Maybe it's be­cause of an inferiority com­plex."

"Inferiority1""In a way. He has to keep

proving himself.""Why?""Because he has to, that's

why.""As a psychologist, you

malre a good jet man," snort­ed Frobisher. "Inferioritycomplex! If Wendle has that,then I'm a green paintedfairy. The trouble with thatguy is that he considers. him­self to be superior to everyother member of the humanrace."

"Maybe you're right," Ger­vais conceded.

Frobisher glowered at thecontrol panel. "I know I'mright. As far as we're con­cerned, he regards us as mor­ons. You can tell it every timehe opens his mouth. The trou­ble is that when I'm with himI begin to feel like one. ThenI begin to act like one. Andthe longer I'm with him, the,vorse it gets."

It was true, Gervais had to

50

admit. Neither he nor Fro­bisher was really dumb; itwas just that against Wendlethey felt that way. Littleerrors were nlade to seemmore important than theyreally were. And the worstpart of it was that Wendlewas al\vays right. Never once,in all the time they hadkno\vn him, had he appearedother than perfect.

Gervais fro,vned at theplanet below. A way fromWendle's irritating presence,he found it possible to becharitable. In a ,yay he feltsorry for the captain. Noneof the crew liked him. He wasnever able to relax, to enjoya drink, to let his hair down,to laugh off his o\vn failures.He al\vays had to be provinghimself better than the nextman. Even. at sports he wasunbeatable. At least, at thesports he ever played. Gervaishad a shrewd idea that Wen­dIe wouldn't join in any ac­tivity at which he wasn't amaster.

HE FORGOT Wendle in thefuss of landing. The ship

bumped a couple of times,then came to rest on a moreor less even }{eel. Frobisherrubbed a couple of bruises,said something pungent aboutbum landings and buckled onhis gear ,vhile Gervais report­ed back to the mother ship..He ,vas waiting outside whenGervais joined him.

"WeI11" asked Frobisher.

TED BAIN

"We head for the site of theradio beacon." Gervais point­ed vaguely south. "It can't befar. "

"Depends on what younlean by far." Frobisherchecked the pistol in his belt."That undergrowth couldhide things."

"Nothing big enough tohurt you."

"No?" Frobisher didn'tsound too sure. "Maybe I'dbetter stand by the radiowhile you find the survivors.Wendle did order us to remainin contact, remember."

"I've arranged that. Wecan report back on portableradio to the scout and an au­tomatic relay ,viII pass it onto the ship." Gervais suckedin a deep breath of fresh air."I wouldn't have liked to sendyou into unknown dangers,vithout your friend and, in­cidentally, senior officer, atyour side."

Frobisher sighed and fol­lo\ved him south.

"WHAT I can't under-stand," Frobisher said

after an hour's hard going;,"is why we just didn't wait atthe scout for them to come tous. They must have seen usland."

"Possibly." Gervais gentlyeased a large, many-legged in­sect from beneath his collar.He stared at it with morbidinterest. It bit him and hedropped it ,vith a shudder.

"Then \vhy couldn't \ve

GOOD-BY, GLORIA

have waited?" Frobisher step­ped carefully over a log andcursed as his foot sank into a\vater-filled hole.

Gervais \vaited until hiscompanion had exhausted hisvocabulary. "Because we wantto make an investigatioll oftheir village," he explained."They've been here for morethan twenty years. In thattime they could have revertedand be offering" human sacri­fice to a totem or something.Or they could all have twoheads-the kids, anyway­things like that. 'vVendle wantsto kno,v."

"Then Wendle should havecome down to find out." Fro­bisher ,vas annoyed. "Howthe hell did he think head­hunters could have operated asub-etheric radio_? And the co­ordinates-they needed as­trogators to find them. Doesthat spell a primitive so­ciety?"

Gervais didn't answer. Alooped vine had somehowwrapped itself around hisneck and ,vas busy throttlinghim. His boots threshed thegrass as the air left his lungs.He clawed at his belt, foundhis knife, desperately slashedat the vine. It ,vas like hack­ing at steel cable.

"Well?" Frobisher wasstriding ahead. "Does it?"

The blast of Gervais's gunans\vered him. Gervais hadmanaged to drag it from itsholster and had severed thevine. He fell, rolled a couple

51

of times, then climbed to hisfeet. Around his neck theloosened vine hung like amottled necktie. He flung itat Frobisher and painfullymassaged his throat.

"What's the matter?" Fro­bisher, gun in hand, staredaround through narrowedeyes. "What did you shootat?"

"You~" Gervais openedhis mouth, closed it again indisgust. "Let's get moving."

THEY moved for about ahundred yards and the

ground vanished beneath theirfeet and they rolled to thebottom of a pit. It was a deeppit. The walls were sheer.They couldn't get out.

"Radio for help." Frobish­er clawed sweat from hiseyes. "Tell them to have an­other scout come down andrescue us."

"With what?" Gervais heldout what was left of the port­able radio. He had landed onit when he fell.

"Shout then." Frobisherlet out a yell. "Help! Help!"

"Shut up!" Gervais clalnp­ed his hand over his compan­ion's mouth. "You ,vant themto find us?"

"1 ,vant them to get us outof here."

"Then what?" Gervais star­ed at the walls of the pit."This thing was dug for apurpose, and it doesn't take agenius to discover ,vhat thatpurpose is. Someone or some-

52

thing was meant to fall intoit."

"A game pit?""Or a moat. For defense,

anyway. The villagers mightnot be too happy if theyfound us in here. They mightdo things, like throwing rocksdown on us, or spears, orboiling ,vater. Maybe that'show they-get their food sup­ply."

Frobisher gulped. He grab­bed his knife and beganhacking steps in the dirt wallof the pit. Given time hewould have managed to cutenough handholds so as toclimb out. He wasn't giventime.

A rope fell from the top ofthe pit. It hit Gervais on theshoulders and he, with mem­ories of the throttling vinestill fresh, fought it asthough it were a living thing.Frobisher snatched it awayfrom him and gave it a tug. Itheld firm.

"Come on," he said. Heswung on the rope, plantedhis feet against the wall andbegan to climb.

Gervais, not to be left be­hind, follo\ved immediatelyafter. As his feet left theground, the rope began tomove up,vard. They held on,hit the edge of the pit and,still clutching the rope, weredragged a,vay from the edge.

Shakily, they rose to theirfeet and stared around. Noone was in sight. Only therope, stretching from the pit

TED BAIN

into the undergro\vth, sho\vedsigns of movement. It van­ished and then there was nomovement at all.

Not until the young wom­an stepped from the brushand came to\vard them.

"GLORIA Hermitage," saidGervais wonderingly, on

the way back to the scout."Professor Gloria Hermitage.Can you beat it?"

"No." Frobisher trod onsomething \vhich squelched.He lifted his foot and staredat a paper-thin organism,vhich had wrapped itselfaround his boot. Wearily hescraped the mammoth leechagainst a tree. "1\lan, '~lin Ibe glad to get off this plan­et!"

"She gave herself thetitle." Gervais couldn't getover it. "Stranded here allalone since she ,,,"as a kid, theyoungest one aboard. She edu­cated herself, built a sub­etheric radio as soon as shekne,v ho\v-twenty years later-and called for a ship tocome and get her." He shookhis head. "It beats anything Iever heard of in my life."

That, as Frobisher had toadmit, \vas true enough. Theyoung, attractive, athletic\voman who had rescued then1,vas alone on the planet. Atthe age of four 01" so, she hadbeen the sole survivor of awrecked educational vesselloaded with tapes, books,slides and other brain-food

GOOD-BY, GLORIA

for a newly opened planet'sschools. With nothing to doother than survive--not theeasiest thing in the first place-she had devoted herself tomental and physical improve­ment. The result had beenstagg·ering.

"Strong as a horse," musedGervais. "Talks like a run­a,vay encyclopedia. Learnedenough to pass the examina­tions, so she gave herself thetitle of professor." He jump­ed aside as something' stirredin the grass at his feet."Beats me how she ever man­aged to stay alive in the firstplace. "

"She's tough," said Fro­bisher. He winced at a mem­ory. Appearances had fooledhim and he had made a pass.Judo had been one of thethings Professor Gloria Her­mitage had mastered.

"And no,v she ,vants tospread her wings." Gervaisstared thoughtfully up at thesky. "Frobisher."

"vVhat?""You kno,v vvhat she \vants,

don't you?""I kno\v." Frobisher kicked

at a branch. It didn't run, stiror bite, so he stepped over it."I'm surprised you didn'tvolunteer. "

"Not me." Gervais wasdefinite. "\Vhen I marry, I'mgoing to sign up with a softlittle kitten ,vho won't lookat me as if I ought to be in azoo. I get enough of that fromWendle."

53

Frobisher made an explo­sive sound.

Gervais tugged his gunfrom his belt. "What's thematter?"

"Wendle." Frobisher slap­ped his thigh. "No,v I kno\vwhat she reminded me of.Wendle, of course-who elsebut him?"

"So?""So use your imagination.

She looks like Wendle-in afemale way, of course. Shetalks like him. She made usfeel just as moronic as Well­dIe does, only more so. Shehad the same 'holier thallthou' attitude and expression.I tell you they are out of thesame mold."

"How nice." Gervais wassarcastic. "Do we send thelna bouquet?"

"We do better than that."Frobisher was enjoying him­self. "vVe put them aroundeach other's neck-for life."

Gervais started to grin."See it no,,,? Wendle thinks

he's better than the humanrace. Gloria thinks she is. Justput those t,vo together andlet her sink her claws intohim. She wants to get marriedto a man she can respect. Allright, let her marry Wendle.Just think of the life thatpoor so-and-so will sufferonce he ties up with someonebetter than he is."

"And she would be better,"agreed Gervais. "Living alonelike she did. Learning all thatstuff from the educational

54

tapes, books and visual guides.Hell, Wendle would be like ane,v-born baby next to her."His grin expanded. "What arevenge !"

"Classic," said Frobisher."Poetic justice right do\yn

the line.""The fruits of victory,"

said Frobisher. "Let's cele­brate."

"But supposing they don'tlike each other?" A shado,vtouched Gervais's happiness.

FROBISHER dismissed theidea. "They ,viII. Wendle

is a lonely cuss \~lho doesn't\vant women just becausethey are women. He wants agirl with brains as well as abody. Gloria has brains andshe has a body too." lIe sigh­ed, thinking of how he hadonce felt about that body."He can't help but fall forher."

"She'll have to have long,intimate talks with him so asto fill the record," said Ger­vais. "She'll have to tell himall about her past and the restof it. They can s\vap mathe­matical problems togetherand maybe play tri-chess."His grin widened. "~Tendle

isn't a bad-looking characterand ,ve kno\v ,vhat Gloria,vants. A man to marry sothat she can ..." He suddenlylost his smile. "No."

"No what?" Frobishersquinted ahead to where hecould see the ship.

"No dice. No putting them

TED BAIN

together. Nothing like that atall. "

"ITou crazy?""I'm sane. You think about

it for a vvhile."Frobisher thought about it.

He c{)uldn't see what objec­tion there could be to thegreat idea. It would serveWendle right. A guy like thatshouldn't have been born. Andthen he sa,v \vhat Gervaisvias getting at.

TOGETHER they reachedand climbed aboard the

scout. Together they stared atthe planet as it d\vindled be­low. Sl1ently Frobisher heardGervais make his report.

"There ,vas nothing else todo," said Gervais \vhen he hads\vitched off the radio.

"I suppose not," Frobishersaid.

"Wendle's bad," said Ger­vais. ((Bad in the sense thathe's a stinker to be under. Buthe's only one. We can put upwith one of his kind."

Frobisher grunted."Put him and Gloria to­

gether and what happens?She vvants to marry and have

kids. Lots of kids." Gervaisshuddered. "Between themthey'd start a dynasty. Theirkids \vould have other kids,and so on. And they'd all belike Wendle and Gloria."

"Don't!" Frobisher had animagination.

"vVe've got to be braveabout this," said Gervais."We've got to forget personalvengeance and take a long­term view. The \vay thingsare, \ve can be transferred orpromoted, or Wendle coulddie or retire or something.But suppose the service be­came filled \vith his andGloria's offspring?"

It didn't bear thinkingabout.

"So we tell Wendle that thecommunity was mutated andrife \vith disease. He won'tdoubt our word. Gloria willbe left in peace, and genera­tions of spacemen as yet un­born \viII have cause to blessour name." Gervais dre\v adeep breath. "You kno\v, Fro­bisher, it makes a man feelhumble and a little proud."

It did, Frobisher realized.END

BREAKTHROUGHBone glue may cut the setting tinle of fractures from six months to threedays, and eliminate casts, crutches and traction entirely, if the polyure­thane plastic undergoing tests in U. S. and Canadian medical schoolsand ho~.pitals proves as good as it has in 250 cases in the past threeyears. The ends of the break grow through the glue, which is tougherthan bone, and join together in a year, by which time the glue is com­pletely absorbed. More important to the patient, he can walk on a brokenleg' or usc a broken arm in only three days.

GOOD-BY, GLORIA 55

6

a P odigal. ;'

By J. T. Mcl~NTOSH

It was bad enough when Clare paitzted He"!,y

Robert Colqtth·oun Adams yellow-but then she

/ did the same to/ everyone else-in Luna.City!

SECOND Officer Jones tooka last admiring IOQk at his

favorite., passenger on thelong trip from Scylla. "You'regoing to' stay here, Miss Ver­non ?" he said, astonished."Beats me why you shouldbury youl'self in a hole likeLuna City." .

"You mustn't call my hometown a hole," said Clare ~e...provingly, "even if it is."

"Your home town?" Jonesincredulously said. "You meanyou were born in Luna City?How did that come about?" ~

"I imagine it came about -inthe usual way," Clare Vernonsaid.

"I mean-you're' no via-phobe." _

. "Being born on the Moon'doesn't necessarily make Y.OUa viap'hobe, though it helps.Anyway, don't you', knowthere's, no such thing as via-

57

phobia? Anybody in LunaCity ,viII tell you."

"Anybody in a nuthollsewill tell you he's sane," Jonesretorted.

"That's a point. But it isn'tvery nice of you to tell me Iwas brought up in a nut­house."

"I didn't n1ean that, MissVernon. 'Vell, I guess they'llbe killing the fatted calf foryou right no,,,."

"I doubt it," Clare sighed."More likely to be heatingthe tar and feathers. 'By, IVIr.Jones."

SHE walked do,vn the en­closed gang,vay to the

spaceport terminal, \vhite andbeautiful and as much out ofplace in the center of bleakMare Imbrium as a hot dogstand in the middle of theSahara.

She ignored the other pas­sengers ,vaiting for the ten­der to take them on to Earth.They were the star-travelers,for ,vhom the Moon "ras nomore than a customs check­point, a mildly irritating de­lay ,vithin sight of theirdestination. They didn't havetime to drop do,vn in the ele­vators for even a glance atLuna City, and if they hadhad time, fe,v ,,'ould havebothered.

Clare ,vas the only personto make the descent. The offi­cials and perters ,vere stillbusy ,vith the passengerswaiting for the Earth tender,

58

which \vould land as soon asthe big starship ,vas gone.

Luna City couldn't ~eally

be preparing a tar-and-feath­er reception for Clare, be­cause no one kne\v she ,vascoming back. Clare herself,,"asn't quite sure ,vhy she hadcon1e back. Not because she,vas homesick. Not to see herfamily again-there \vas onlyher sister Emma to see~ andClare and EmIna had aITy~,rays

found it quite easy to getalong ,vithout each other. Notto see Greg Miller, ,vhorn she,,·ould probably have nlarriedif she had stayed in LunaCity.

'VeIl, ,vhy did you go hon1eany,vay? Because you'd beenhurt, because the geeat big,vorld or the great btg' g'alaxyhadn't turned out to be asglalTIOrOUS and exciting asyou thought, because you\\rel'e broke, because 'yOU need­ed a quiet place to lick your,,·ounds and prepare for thefray again. Most of aU, be­cause nobody at the rnomentseen1ed eager for your ser­vices or your person.

All that ,vas near enoughthe truth.

Thoughtfully, ,vithout anysign of regret, Clare palledthe ,vedding ring off her fin­ger and dropped it in herpocket. Divorce \vas easyacross umpteen light-years.The ,vedding ring, though ithad been useful on the ship,had no place in Luna City. Itno longer meant anything.

J. T. MciNTOSH

EMMA VERN-ON had apremonition of disaster

as she fixed her hair. The factthat her sister ,vas at thatvery moment on her ,yaydo\vn from the spaceport ,vasnot a great coincidence­Emma ,vas al\vays havingpremonitions of disaster.

The phone rang and sheknew at once ,vhat her pre­monition had been about­Tony couldn't go to theAdams Festival ball thatnight. When she heard Tony'svoice she was sure of it.

"Oh, Tony!" she ,vailed,before he'd had a chance tosay anything.

"What's the Inatter?" heasked, startled.

"I kno,v ,vhat you're goingto say. You're not taking meto the dance-"

"Em," said Tony, exasper­ated, "it's about tinle youstopped behaving like a neu­rotic teen-ager. After all,you're-"

"I kno\v. I'ln thirty-t,vo,and I've never denied it. ButI'm not exactly decrepit, anlI? I can still go to a dance ifI like, can't I? And I did sowant to. But Inaybe you thinkI ant decrepit. Maybe you-"

"Em, for Pete's sake ...All I ,vanted to say ,,"as,please don't enter the Festi­val Queen contest. l\~otherthinks-"

"But I lvant to enter!"S,vept along by the tide of herdisappointment and indigna­tion, Emma instantly replaced

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

one grievance with another."\Vhat's your mother got todo ,vith it '?"

"She thinks-I think too,Em-after all, beauty con­tests are for girls of seven­teen and eighteen, and-"

"So that's it. Well, if that'sho\v you feel, Tony Benson,you'd better take some othergirl. I'1n certainly not going\\"ith you!"

She slammed the phonedo\vn.

T1-IE elevator door slidopen and Clare faced

Adams Square, the mostgorgeous sight in the Inostg'orgeous city in the Galaxy.

It v{as strange that SecondOfficer Jones had referred toLuna City as a hole.. Strangerstill that the seasoned travel­ers up on the surface hadn'tseemed to care that theyhadn't tin1e for a vis ito ForLuna City ,\~as easily themost magnificent city of allhistory and all space.

Everybody in Luna Citykne\v that.

Perhaps Inore conclusive\vas the fact that a large pro­portion of the popul~tion ofEarth thoug-ht so tooo

Gravity being only a frac­tion of "yhat it ,vas on larger\,~orlds, the most fantasticarchitectural effects \tvere pos­sible. Every majol- buildingreached from floor to ceilingand did its share in support­ing the vast roof. This ,vassilver and lit by direct light-

59

ing which became transform­ed into soft indirect lightthat made Luna City a to\vnwithout shadows.

Rather than being a town­ship built in a cave, though,Luna City was a series ofcarefully calculated cavities,so arranged that the eye add­ed one to another and got.an impression of enOrlTIOUSdepth and distance. Its de­signers had had the rareinsight not to plan an artifi­cial underground city \vhichwould always be a poor copyof an outdoor, open-air to'Vl1­ship, but instead. to n1akecapital of the very deficien­cies of their medium and planthe kind of city ,vhich couldonly be constructed in suchconditions.

What n1ade every visitorgasp \vhen he looked acrossAdams Square for the firsttime \vas the unconscious cer­tainty that he was looking- ata miracle. He ,vas used, ofcourse, to gravity approxi­mating one G. Although hiseye \vas forced to record ,vhatit sa,\-,' \vhat it recordedcouldn't be so, because suchthings could not exist. Andeven if his brain kne,v thereal ans\ver-that here arolled ne\vspaper ,vould sup­port a nlan's \veight-his eyecontinued to marvel.

The- engineering ,vonders,vere only the beginning ofthe miracle of Luna City. Theartistic miracle ,vas far great­er. The architects had scrap-

60

ped all they knew aboutstresses and started again.Unsupported planes werecommonplace. If they wanteda thin, flat platform juttinginto space, a balcony or veran­da or stage or hood, there wasno need whatever to canti­lever it. And the curved,s,veeping' pronlenades whicllsoared high in the air frombuilding to building neededno support along their incred­ible length. Not only v{astheir own strength adequateto bear their own weight andany added burden they mighthave to carry-there were no\vinds to tear at them.

The architects and buildershad seized their unique op­portunity with imaginationand enthusiasm, and surely noone could deny Luna City'sclaim to be the nl0st beautifulcity in the Galaxy_

Yet the engineering mar­vels and artistic triumph ofthe city \"ere only a part ofthe scene which met the eyeof a visitor, and some mightsay not the most importantpart. There remained thepeople.

Just to complete the mir­acle of IJllna City, its men,vere the handsomest, its,vomen the most seductive, tobe found anywhere in theGalaxy.

rrhere was one thing more-one thing ,vhich made LunaCity almost utopia.

The Moon had vast mineral,vealth, and the "vay Father

J. T. MciNTOSH

Adarns had arranged thingslong ago, everybody sharedin the loot ,vithout having todo very much for it. Only youhad to be a native-born Lu­nan. Luna couldn't supportall the bums in the Galaxy.

Only her own.The most beautiful, richest

city in the Galaxy, ,vith thehandsomest people.

It was strange indeed thatSecond Officer Jones had call­ed Luna City a hole.

NATURALLY Clare's everan up the column on the

top of which Henry RobertColquhoun Adams stood inmarble aloofness, lookingdo\vn complacently at the cityhe had helped to build.

Poor Henry Robert, Clarethought. The first viaphobe.Like every victim of viapho­bia ever since, he had declar­ed stoutly and indignantlythat there ,vas no such thing.That he founded Luna Citybecause he "vanted to, cel:­tainly not because he wasscared to entrust himself tospace again.

The' strange thing aboutviaphobia was that unlikeother neuroses-if it "vas aneurosis-it appeared to behereditary. It was an unde­niable fact that to this day 110Adams had ever left LunaCity, apart from brief tripsup to the Moon's surface tosee what space was like.

Clare had a particular reas­on for looking up that long,

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

slim column. She marveled asshe did so. Once she hadclimbed that column. She hadbeen furious at the time.That helped.

Bill Adams, leaning backcomfortably on one of theseats in the park opposite theelevators, sat up in surprise\vhen he saw that the Scyllaship had brought a visitor toLuna City-and a visitor whointended, judging by the sizeand number of her bags, tostay for some time. If colo­nials chose to visit Luna Cityat all, and they usually didjust to say they'd seen it, theyalmost always ,vent to Earthfirst and visited the Moonfrom there, together withthousands of other tourists.

However, he wasn't sorryto see this one. Quite the re­verse. In her neat gray suit,elegant but conservative, sheshould have looked drab anduninteresting in Luna City,\vhere the girls ,vere dressedlike chorines. She didn't.

Bill jumped up and bo,vedpolitely, a gesture of \vhichHenry Robert ColquhounAdams, looking down on it,lTIUSt have approved. "Can Ibe of assistance, miss 7" heasked.

Nothing had changed in tenyears, Clare thought. Howcould it? Ho"r could LunaCity ever change?

She recognized Bill Adams,"Tho had been a gawky thir­teen-year-old last time shehad seen hiln, and ,vas amus-

61

ed to see that he didn't recog­nize her.

"You certainly can," shesaid, and mischievously al­lo\ved a hint of colonial accentto creep into her voice."Where do you suggest I livein this wonderful place?"

Bill swelled happily. "Quitea place, isn't it?" he said."Ho\v about the Hotel Mag­nificent?"

"I am poor and not particu­larly honest," Clare sighed."How about sonle\vhere a lit~

tIe less l\tlagnificent?""There's the Grand-""Even some\vhere a little

less Grand. Isn't there a hotelcalled the Henry Robert?"

Bill took in her elegantclothes which, conservative asthey \'vere, must have cost tentimes as much as the span­gled shorts and bolero of thegirl who ,vas surveying Clarecritjcally as she passed. "Idon't think you'd like theHenry Robert, miss."

"1 hate to contradict you,but I would. Besides, that's itjust across the square, isn'tit?"

Even ,vith this hint, itdidn't cross Bill's mind thatthis cosnl0politan strangercould have been in Luna Citybefore, ; much less that shecould be a native of the city.He picked up the t\VO heaviestbags as if they \vere as lightas feathers, \vhich they al­most were, and led the \vay.He didn't talk; he preferredto let the glamorous visitor

62

drink in the marvels of hersurroundings.

"I can manage no\v, thankyou," said Clare, as theyreached the entrance. Shehesitated. Ten years ago, tip­ping had been unknown in\vealthy Luna City. Peoplehelped you out of friendlinessand laughed if a visitor of­fered money-not outraged,because tourists didn't knowany better, but proud to showthat Luna City's standard ofliving was so high nobodyhad to do minor services-- formoney.

"If you're thinking of tip­ping me," said Bill, "pleasedon't. In Luna City-"

"I kno\v," said Clare. "1didn't think that v{ould havechanged."

At last he got it. "Chang­ed ? You've been here before?"

"Not since the time Ipainted your great-grandfath­er," Clare said, and left himstaring.

As CLARE \vas shown upto her room, she reflected

that in half an hour every­body would know Clare Ver­non was back. By no\v BillAdams must have put t"ro andt\VO together \vith the usualresult.

Alone in her room shestarted to change, realizingthat in Luna City her modestgray suit was actually flam­boyant-and Clare \vas onlyoccasionally flamboyant. Thenshe savv that Henry Robert

1.. T. MciNTOSH

Colquhoun Adams, level withher on top of his column, ,vasstaring right into her bed­room. The sculptor had givenhim the kind of eyes whichfollowed one everywhere.

"All. right," she said aloud."Have a good look." Sheturned and posed for hin1.Then she said: "Oh, sorry,"and took off her "rristwatch."That better?"

Clare ,vas prepared to ad­mit that it had been most ill­bred of her to climb up andpaint Father Adams yellowten years ago. Many of us dothings at eighteen whieh ,ve\vouldn't do at twenty-eight.

All the same, she stillwasn't exactly sorry. Aftershe'd given her evidence atthe viaphobia survey in Ne,vYork, the things which hap­pened to her back in LunaCity shouldn't have happenedto a pup. And ,vhy shouldn'tshe give evidence? Somebodyfrom Luna City had to.

Anyway, when it becameclear that she couldn't go onliving in Luna City-not thatthat broke her heart-she hadhad to make some partinggesture to sho,v she didn'tgive a darn for Luna City oranybody in it. And climbingup Father Adams' columnand painting' him yellow hadseemed like a good idea.

She still thought so, afterten years.

Em's indignant letters hadtold her at the time whatLuna City had thought of the

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

outrage. Clare's traitoroustestimony at the New Yorkinvestigation into viaphobiamight have been forgotten intime. After all, being onlyeighteen, she didn't kno,¥ anybetter. But the second crime,vas unforgivable. If Clareever dared to return, her re­ception would make the deathof a thousand cuts look likeold-fashioned hospitality.

SOON now she'd know whatLuna City proposed to

do about it. She had deliber­ately mentioned the paintingepisode to Bill Adams just tomake sure there was no lnis­understanding.

The phone rang. She snap­ped the switc.h to the left­sound \vithout vision. "ClareVernon 7" rasped a voice sheknew, that of old Judge Hen­ry Adams.

&- "The same," said Clare."How are you, Judge?"

U Are you afraid to let mesee you, miss?" the Judge de­manded.

"Yes," said Clare. "1 don'thappen to have any clotheson. I'm afraid you might getexcited."

Horrible sounds bubbledfrom the small loudspeaker.The first coherent words\vere : "You are shameless,miss !"

"Surely not," said Claremildly, "or I'd have switchedon the vision."

"If you think," the Judgeroared, "that everything will

63

be set right by an apology,you're wrong."

"Oh, good," said Clare. "Inthat case I won't have toapologize. "

Incoherent sounds startedagain, to cease abruptly asthe Judge cut himself off.

CLARE put on a soft bluedress with a plunge ,vhich

stopped only a little belowwaist level-quiet and re­strained by local standards,,vithout being dulL

Luna City's envIronmentmade it really unnecessary to,vear clothes at all, but civi­lization shrinks from suchextreme frankness. Curious­ly, the less the climatedemands clothes, the moreimportant they invariably be­come, and in Luna City theywere more in1portant thanany,vhere else. Even the mentook a lot of tl·ouble overtheir clothes, though nat­urally they pretended theydidn't.

The ,vomen ,yore every con­ceivable variety of garment,including a fe'", itelTIS ,vhich\vouldn't be practical any­'\There but in Luna City. Itwas unnecessarv to \vearbrassieres or girdles for sup­port. (Earth's pin-up girls'usually came to the l\Ioon forstudio pictures-they lookedmuch better there.) On theother hand, if even an ap­proximation to decency ,vasto be preserved, due accounthad to be taken in the design

64

of a costunle of the fact thatevery time a girl moved, herclothes floated about her likebubbles.

Clare looked at herself inthe nlirror and decided thatwhatever happened, she wouldmeet it loo~ing her best.

. The phone rang again. Thistime Clare set the s,vitch tothe right. She had no objec­tion to people seeing her now.Quite the reverse.

It "vasn't difficult to guessthat the egg-headed man withthe green ED'eshade was a re­porter. Clearly he had seeneverything.

HLuna Argus," he said in­differently. "Clare Vernon 1"

"At your service," saidClare.

He didn't give his nanle."Miss Vernon, I'd like tohave your story of what hap­pened ten years ago." Ob­viously he wasn't going tobelieve it any,vay.

"It must be in your files.Every scream of it."

"Sure, but I'd like your ver­sion, Miss Vernon."

"That's strange. Nobodywanted my version ten yearsago. Well, in as few "vords aspossible, a couple of investi­gators from New York calledon me and asked me a fewquestions about viaphobia.After a ¥lhile they asked ifI'd go to New York ,vith themand talk to a commissionthere that was investigatingviaphobia. I said I \vould, andI did. \Vhen I came back-"

J. T. MciNTOSH

"Just a minute, Miss Ver­non. What exactly happenedin New York? What did yousay?"

·'That's in your files too. Isaid what I believed to be thetruth. I was no viaphobe, ob­viously. When I got backhere, I was treated as a trait­Of. Nothing official. Just pub­lic opinion, applied where ithurt. So I painted FatherAdams and hit the trail."

"That's all you ,vant to say,Miss Vernon?"

eel don't see any pressingneed to say anything else."

"Thank you, Miss Vernoll."And he cut the connection.

It ,vas very unsatisfactoryfrom Clare's point of view.She wanted to know what toexpect, but the anonymousreporter had been as imper­sonal as a robot. He hadn'tbeen for her or against her. Hehadn't even seemed particu­larly interested. Worst of all,he had looked at her as hemight have looked at a deadco,v.

Once more the phone rang.The face which appeared ,vasmuch younger than the last,and its eyes ,videned gratify­ingly as they came to rest onClare. This reporter hadn'tyet seen everything.

"Clare Vernon? I'm MikeReynolds of the Moon Rocket.Say, we could use a piece onyou."

"Yes?" said Clare guarded­ly. The Moon Rocket, unlessit had changed out of all rec-

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

ognition, was a spicy rag de­voted entirely to sex, sadismand sensationalism.

"Sure. I understand youhad a tough time before youleft Luna City. Your comingback like this m.akes it newsagain. Were you ever beatenup? Raped? Anything likethat? Just give us a few factsand one of the boys ,viII "rriteit up like the Battle of Water­loo."

Was she ever beaten up?Yes, once, Ol11y once. The restof the time what had happen­ed to her, unpleasant as it,vas, had stopped short ofphysical violence.

This once she'd been com­ing home late with GregMiller. Until then she'dthought that being ,vith Gregwould be some protection.Three youths in silk slackshad shoved her and Greg intoan alley. They hadn't said aword. After a couple of joltsin the ribs which made himgasp, Greg hadn't given themany trouble. He stood in,vhite-faced terror and letthem get on with it.

One of them twisted herarms up behind her and heldher in helpless agony ,vhilethe other two sank their fistsanywhere they would sink.They beat her for three orfour minutes, while she ,von­dered why she didn't die.didn't even lose conscious­ness. They punched everysquare inch of flesh on thefront of her body, then start-

65

ed over and .went aroundagain.

She wasn't screaming be­cause every time she got someair in her lungs they jolted itout of her. When they didstop she didn't know about it.The next she remembered waslying with her cheek on theground, with Greg bendingover her.

He'd been some use afterall. He helped her to gethome.

"Sorry," Clare said to theRocket reporter. "I don't\vant to be written up likethe Battle of Waterloo." Sheswitched off.

"HELLO, Em," said Clare.Emma took one look

at her and burst into tears.Clare stepped back, sur­

prised. "Well, we were neverexactly buddies, but 1 didn'tl{lloW it would be that muchof a shock when 1 came back."

Mostly Emma was cryingabout Tony, whose fault it allwas. For the rest, she \vasn'tcrying because Clare hadcome back, but because shewas so darned lovely. Emmahad always been the prettyone, not Clare. And now . . .

"Oh, well," said Clarephilosophically, "I'll go awayand come back again. That'llgive you a chance to get overyour tears of joy at seeingyour only sister after tenyears."

She went out into thestreet again.

66

Nobody she passed recog­nized her. Could it be thatLuna City didn't care thatClare Vernon was back? Shedoubted it. Judge Adamscared.

They just failed to recog­nize her as the plump, untidy,restless, too-smart teen-agerwho used to make such a foolof herself over Greg Miller.

Greg was alone in his store\vhen she walked in. He rec­ognized her. She was amusedto see that he was terrified ofher.

Now what could he pos­sibly be terrified about? Washe afraid that anyone whoeven spoke to her would bebanished from Luna City?

Well, it was possible. Afterthat night when she wasbeaten up, he'd written andphoned and sent flowers, buthadn't come near her. Therehad been more than a chancethat Clare Vernon's boyfriend would be beaten uptoo.

"I heard you \vere back,Miss Vernon," Greg said. Itcame out as a croak, and hehad to clear his throat noisilyand say it again. It soundedstill sillier the second time.

Greg hadn't worn well. Hecouldn't be more than thirty­two or so, but already he wasthin on top, harassed, visiblyaging.

"What's this 'Miss Vernon'routine?" Clare demanded.

"It's been a long time," saidGreg timidly.

J. T. MciNTOSH

"Yes. Ten years. I'm sur­prised to see you're stillalive."

That stiffened him. "I'mnot as old as all that!"

"No, I was only thinkingthat once you were going tokill yourself over me. Yousaid life ,vasn't worth livingwithout me. Didn't you,Greg?"

Greg writhed. Clare kne\vnow exactly why he ,vasscared. He ,vas afraid shehad come back to mate, killand eat him.

"I'll tell you the truth,"said Clare ,vith a burst offrankness. "You were rightabout us, Greg. I found Icouldn't live ,vithout you."

GREG took an il1voluntarystep back,vard and knock­

ed over a pile of cans. Clarehelped him to pick them up.In doing so she got very closeto him, and once ,vhen his legtouched her hip he flinched asif she were red-hot. Sittingon her heels, she looked up athim, smiling. She hadn't for­gotten she ,vas ,vearing adress with a spectacularplunge.

"Never mind," said Greghoarsely. "I'll pick them uplater."

She took pity on him.Standing up, she said: "Allthe same, Greg, I can't marryyou. I've promised six otherguys. Be seeing you."

She left him dizzy with re­lief.

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

Greg ,vas a viaphobe, ofcourse.

Clare had grown out of theintolerance of her teens. She110 longer scorned viaphobesjust because she didn't hap­pen to be one herself. Sheknew it wasn't their fault.

Before space flight, somepeople had liked to travelabout the surface of Earthand some hadn't. It was nevermuch of a problem, because ifyou didn't like traveling ahundred miles, you weren'tlikely to contract to go tenthousand.

But space was different.There's something a\vful aboutspace, even the tiny hop fromEarth to Moon. It shakes youto the core, forces you to lookat yourself and your place inthe Cosmos, rn.akes you under­stand your utter insignifi­cance in the galactic schemeof things. And there arephysical effects too. If afriendly, solid thing like thesea could make people wishthey welte dead, what couldunfriendly, em.pty space do totheln?

It could do plenty. Spacesickness is a hundred times,vorse than sea sickness.. Itdoesn't give up after an houror t,vo or a day or two. So,apart from the pain, thehorror, the agony of being inspace if you have the misfor­tune to be a viaphobe, thereis the fact that you muststarve to death if your tripis longer than from Eartll to

67

Moon. No viaphobe has everreached Mars or Venus alive,much less the stars.

Sedation won't quell theinternal upheaval. Nothingquells it except death. Ifyou're a. viaphobe you stayput on your home planet. Youhave to.

Nowadays nobody dies inagony on the Earth-Mars run.A preliminary check is obliga­tory. From all· worlds thereare test space flights whichlast long enough to show upviaphobia, and not longenough to produce more thana few hours of hell if you hap­pen to be a victim. You don'tget on a regular space flightwithout a certificate to sho,vyou're no viaphobe.

But in the early days therewas nothing like that. Peoplewent from Earth to the Moonand found out the hard way.They didn't die-the tripisn't long enough. On theMoon they recovered, butwith a fixed determinationnever to suffer anything likethat again.

This happened to far morepeople than it should. Therewas a simple reason for this.

Pride.. When people were sick on

the way to the Moon, therecouldn't be any secret aboutit. You couldn't fight and con­quer space sickness the waysome people could fight andconquer sea sickness.

Afterward, however, it wasnatural to laugh it off. "Sure,

68

I was space sick. But hell, I'mokay now. Sure I could goback. If I wanted to, I couldgo back any time. But I likeit here. Luna City's great.Why should I go back?"

Nobody on the Moon hadever denied that there wassuch a thing as space sickness-neither those who had suf­fered it nor those who hadn't.But many people denied theexistence of viaphobia.

"Sure, I was space sick ..."Even ten years ago, when

mankind had spread out tothe stars, Luna City stilldidn't admit that there wasany such thing as viaphobia.Space sickness, yes. "If Iwanted to, I could go backany time."

That was why Clare Ver­non had committed a crimein going before a commissionin New York and telling themwhat she knew and guessedabout viaphobia. -

L IKE- Greg, Judge Adamsrecognized Clare at once.

She met him just. aftershe'd left Greg's store. TheJudge said: "I am amazed,Miss Vernon, to see you havethe effrontery to walk LunaCity's streets."

"Why, Judge!" Clare pro­tested. "I'm not walking thestreets!"

The Judge went red as fire."I didn't mean-I merelymeant that after those dis~graceful incidents of ten yearsago-"

J. T. MciNTOSH

"Think nothing of it,Judge. I've forgiven you longago."

Two or three people ,vhohad overheard some of thishad stopped. In a fe,v mo­ments there ,vas quite a crowdpretending not to listen, butnot lnissing a ,vord.

Everybody kne\v JudgeAdams, of course. And every­body had heard about ClareVernon.

"If you \vere a man I'dkno\v ,vhat to do with you,"Judge Adams roared.

"You Inean that you don'tkno,v ,vhat to do with ... no,Judge, 1 must have misunder­stood you."

ULet me pass," said theJudge furiously. "I have nodesire to take part in a publiccontest in repartee."

"No, indeed," Clare agreed."1 don't kno,v where Renarteeis, but ,vhy should you gothere just to take part in acontest? You might get vi-Imean, you might get spacesick."

The Judg4e controlled him­self ,vith an effort. "If ":ouever speak that word in I.~tlllaCity," he said, "you, of allpeople, you'll be in grave dan­ger of being torn limb frolnlimb. "

"What ,vord?" Clare askedinnocently.

"You know ,vhat I mean,"said the Judge, and he stalk­ed past her.

Yes, she kne,v.People have al,vays been

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

like that. When someone says:If there's one thing I neverdo, it's '... you can be quitesure that's one thing he doesdo. When he says: If there'sone thing I'm not, it's . .. 'youkno,v that's one thing he is.

Years ago people on Earthhad heard of viaphobia. Theycouldn't understand ,vhatLuna City ,vas so touchyabout. There was such athing as space sickness, v.."as­n't there? \Vell, then, that,vas viaphobia. What did thepeople 011 the Moon mean,there ,vas space sickness butviaphobia didn't exist?

Only viaphobes said there,vas no such thing as via­phobia.

"EXC~SE me ..." said aVOIce.

"\Vhy, ,vhat have youdone?" Clare asked.

.The rather nice-lookingyoung man grinned. ,. N oth­ing, but I make no promisesfor the future. Aren't youClare Vernon?"

"I have that distinction.""I'm "[ony Benson. You

don't kno\v TIle because I ,vasat school on Earth \,"hen you,vere here before. I've seenpictures of you. They didn'tdo you justice."

"Justice, yes. Mercy, no.""Don't be nl0dest. \V'ill you

COBle ,vith TIle to the ball to­night?"

It ,vas brash, ty'pical ofthe colonies rather than ofLuna City. She had no diffi-

69

culty in believing that TonyBenson hadn't always livedin Luna City.

"Yes," she said."That's great, Clare. No,v

suppose you go back to yourhotel and slip on anotherdress and I'll call for youabout eight?"

"You know where I'mstaying?"

"Everybody does."She \vanted to ask him

about that, \vhat people weresaying about her, ho,v LunaCity was reacting to her re­turn. The fact that he \vasprepared to be friendly-atthe very least-didn't giveher a line, because he ,vas noviaphobe.

"All right," she said. Shecouldn't ask him.

As she ,valked back to theHenry Robert, she saw thateverybody knew her now. Afew minutes ago they hadn't.A few minutes was all LunaCity needed.

Release a rumor in anyother town and it spreadsfast to the edge of to,vn anddies there. In Luna City,\vhen a rumor reaches thewalls it bounces back. Fiveminutes hadn't been enoughfor the people in the streetsto learn that Clare Vernon,vas back. Ten minutes was.

She couldn't tell much fromthe way people looked at her.People saw her, pointed herout to each other and whis­pered. The same thing \vouldhave happened if she'd beel1

70

an actress, a princess, a mur­deress.

And gradually Clare real­ized she was acting like anarcissistic adolescent. Shehad come back out of bravado,just because nobody in LunaCity believed she'd ever darecome back.

Suddenly she vvanted John.All these light-years away,,vhat they had quarreledabout seemed unimportant.Either of them could havehealed the breach, right up tothat last moment \vhen, rath­er to her surprise, he hadcome to the spaceport to seeher off. Neither had made themove. And no\v it ,vas cer­tainly too late.

Tony Benson reminded hera little of John.

She.. pushed the memory ofJohn to the back of her mindas someone actually noddedpolitely to her. It ,vas BillAdams.

"Mr. Adams," she said,though she still thought ofhim as a boy, "I hope youdidn't think I ,vas rudeearlier."

"No," he said, "I didn'tthink you ,vere rude." Butthere was some constraint inhis manner, and she made upher mind to probe it.

"I wasn't laughing at youeither," she said.

"No.""lVlr. Adams, you were

very friendly earlier. You'renot now. Is it because I paint­ed your grandfather?"

J. T. MciNTOSH

"No," he said. uIt's notthat at all. Miss Vernon, ifyou had only one leg, ,vouldyou enjoy the taunts of peo­ple ,vho had two?"

It hit Clare harder than theblo\vs of those three youngtoughs ten years ago.

WHEN someone insiststhat black is "rhite, you

feel you can't let him getaway with that. You try tomake him see that black isblack. It doesn't occur to youthat it may be of great im­portance to him to cling tothe idea that black is ,vhite.

Viaphobes said there "pasno such thing as viaphobia.So you had to sho,v them they\vere ,vrong. But the momentthey admitted they ,,'"erewrong- "All right, so I'm aviaphobe. So what?"-therewas suddenly nothing to say.Nothing to do. Nothing butto be sorry for them.

Prisoners.Naturally they thought

Luna City ,vas ,voncterful.They might as ,veIl. Theycouldn't leave it.

"Bill I'm sorry" Claresaid {'lith remors~. "Butyou've given me a shock. Youmean there is such a thing asviaphobia? And you kno1cit?"

"Of course we kno'v" hesaid bitterly. "We've ai,,'"ayskno\vl1."

Clare stared at him. Thatsimply couldn't be true.

Bill seemed to sense ,Yhat

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she ,vas thinking. "Not theolder people," he said. "NotJudge Adams. He'll never ad­mit there's any such thing.But those of us who areyounger .. ~ We're not crazy,you kno\v. We realize \vecan't travel in space. It maybe a physical or mental de­fect, but who cares which?Either way \ve can't leaveLuna City. And that's whatthey call viaphobia."

"That's just ,vhat I saidten years ago."

"No, it's not. You said, ineffect, 'The poor suc!{ers areyello\v and they \von't admit

. it. I'm not yello,v. Look at nle,I ,vas born in Luna City butlook, I'm here in New ·Yorkand I'm going back. I'm noviaphobe. They are,. though,nearly all of them. They'rescared to leave their Iittlelump of rock and they won'teven admit it. They're yello,v,all of them.' "

"I didn't say anythinglike-"

"You did."On the point of protesting

again, Clare changed hermind. Bill Adams ,vas right.

The people of Luna City,vere like an old llag whoholds a sheet in front of herand says: "I'm the mostbeautiful woman in the,vorld." Clare had known bet­ter. The deceit had angeredher. She had torn away thesheet. And now the old hag,vas revealed in all her nakedugliness.

71

eel wish," Clare said quiet­ly, "someone had talked tome like that a long time ago.But, Bill-whatever my mo­tives were, I only told thetruth. Someone had to. May­be viaphobia can be cured.But before it can be cured,you've got to admit it exists."

"AU right," said Bill. "I ad­mit it. No,v cure me."

For once Clare had nothingto say.

CLA.RE ,vas cl1anging againunder Father ...4..dams' dis­

approving eye "Then thephone :rang. It ,vas Em.

"You should have ,varnedme, C]are." EITI said. "Natur­ally it \\:"HS a shock to see youlike that.·'

"Sti]L Itm glad it ,vas apleasar~: shock, t, Clare said.

"Yes. \Vell. I've been talk­ing- to a fe,v people and it'sgoing to be all right, Clare­nobody's going to take anyaction about that-that busi­ness Jong ago. Everybodyseems to think that by com­ing back you've admitted you,vere vVJ"ong-"

"Huh 0:" said Clare."WeB, any\vay, you're for­

given. You may even getyour aHo,vance back. So look,Clare, you'd better sort ofmake a public appearance.You'd better go to the ball to­night. I've had sin1ply tons ofinvitations, but everybody willunderstand if I just go withyou J without any escorts-"

"I've been asked already.

72

Somebody called Tony Ben­son. Know him?"

For a moment there was si­lence. Then Em screamed:"Tony! You kne\\T, you musthave known. Clare, you-youbitch !"

There ,vas a click, then si­lence.

Tony might, Clare thought,have told her.

It hadn't been entirely anaccident that Clare had ar­rived in Luna City on the eveof the Adams Festival. Once,long ago, even before the. via­phobe investigation and longbefore Clare committed hernotorious act of sacrilege, sheand Em had taken part in theFestival Queen contest. Emhad been placed fourth.Clare ...

Well, ,vhy did they have toplace everybody, right do\vnthe list? Surely they couldhave named the first six. Butno, they had to number themall, one to tvventy-seven.

Clare had been nunlbert,venty-seven.

She was conlplacentlya,vare she \Youldn't be placedt,venty-seventh nO'~t, on looks.But there was, of course,more to it than looks, so muchmore that it hadn't crossedher mind to try to enter thecontest again, even if theyvlould let her. After \vhat shehad done, Clare Vernon couldnever be an Adams FestivalQueen.

No, \vhat she meant to dowas look as lovely and as cos-

J. T. MciNTOSH

mopolitan as possible andshow everybody that it hadn'tdone her any harm to placetwenty-seventh out of twenty­seven all those years ago,when she cared about suchthings.

Her entrance with Tonythat night was all she couldhave wished. A score of re­porters and photographerswere waiting for her at theColquhoun Hall, and C1aresmiled as the cameras clicked,knowing she had never lookedbetter in her life.

Her gown was a Scyllancreation. The cut didn't mat­ter so long as it was perfect,which it was. No girl at theball was more modestly cov­ered, yet no girl was moreflamboyantly dressed. Thiswas one of the occasionswhen" Clare meant to be flam­boyant.

The iridescent material ofthe go\vn split the color of thelight into its elements, flash­ing through them unceasing­ly as Clare moved, even as shebreathed, so that nobody hadany idea \vhat color her go\vnreally \va·s. It ,vas breathtak­ing. A goddess might haveworn such a gown.

John had given it to her ontheir seventh anniversary.

"WELL, \vas that \vhatyou wanted ?" Tony

murmured in her ear as thephotographers fought for thebest angles.

"Oh, it's really nothing,"

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

Clare murmured back. "Cleo­patra would have causedtwice as much fuss."

Tony was a good dancer,much better than John. Andwhen he surrendered her oc­casionally, Clare found thatall the men wanted to dancewith her. Apparently she wasforgiven. Indeed, the wholeevening looked like being atriumph.

"If you \vant to succeed inLuna City, paint JudgeAdams yello\v," Tony mur­mured to her once.

Curiously, Clare \vasn't en­tirely happy. There \vas thematter of Em, for one thing.She was there, in a much toorevealing go,vn, not payingthe slightest attention toeither Clare or Tony.

And the better Clare wastreated in Luna City, themore contemptible she felt.She hadn't forgotten ,vhatBill Adams had said. Shenever would.

She }{ne,v the truth aboutherself. After all these yearsshe knevv the truth.

She had placed t\\"enty-sev­enth in the Festival Queencontest. To get back at them,she had gone to Earth boast­ing that she ,vas no viaphobeand that nearly everybodyelse ill Luna City ,vas. Shehad insulted Luna City andleft it forever.

And ,vhen she caIne back,they treated her as a conquer­ing heroine.

Even J udgoe Adams nodded

73

to her civilly, if not with any:pretense of warmth. And shedanced with Bill Adams twice.He, too, was a good dancer.In Luna City everybody wasgood at things like that.

She liked Bill. She liked Billbetter than Tony Benson, no\vthat she knew them both bet­ter. Tony had asked her tothe ball because he had guess­ed shre,\\rdly even then thatshe'd be in the limelight, andTony liked to be in the lime­light. Besides, Tony hadspent half the evening so fartalking about his mother, andin Clare's opinion, men oft\ventY-Jfive who spent a lot oftime talking about theirmothers were not for her.

Bill had the beautiful man­ners of rather shy people, andalready he ,vas sorry for hav­ing spoken so bluntly to her.

"I'm glad you did, Bill,"she toJd him as they danced."I deserved every ,vord of it."

Bill flushed and missed astep. "I shouldn't have saidit."

"Of course you should.Why aren't more people likeyou? I did ,vhat I did becauseso many Lunans are via­phobes and vYon't adn1it it,and yet seem to think itmakes them something' spe­cial. "

The dance ended. "It \vasnatural, Clare," Bill said."All the san1e, you shouldn'thave painted lIenry Robertyellow because most of ushappen to be viaphobes."

74

"I didn't," said Clare. "Idid it because three fellowsbeat me up for what I'd said.Viaphobia apart, they wereyello,v. "

"I didn't know that. I thinkI understand, Clare."

TH~ high spot of the ~ve­nlng ,vas the FestIval

Queen contest. Next day thegirl chosen would preside ata score of festival events. Shewould open some new build­ings, present prizes at sportevents, dive in first at thegala (any excuse to get herinto a swimsuit was betterthan none), and put in an ap­pearance at all the majorcelebrations.

Clare didn't miss Tony'sfro\vn as Em paraded past."\\That's eating you?" she\vhispcl'ed to him. "'Vas it aquarrel ?"

"I asked her not to enter,"Tony said.

"\\Thy not'?""I said she ought to leave

things like this to teen­agers."

"She n1ust have loved that."1"ony n1ade no reply. He

eontinuect to fro\vn at Em.Clare could see no reason

\vhv Em shouldn't enter thecOl;test. Youth lasted long ina placid environment likeLuna City. Em at thirty-two\vas at no disadvantage \viththe other girls in the parade.Clare hoped she 'Yon, anddidn't think it at all unlikelvthat she ,vould. If Em ,von,

J. T. MciNTOSH

there would be peace betweenher and Clare.

At last Judge Adams cameto the micr-ophone to an­nounce the winner. He tookthe paper that ,vas handed tohim, started, glared at Emand then· at Clare, and step­ped away from the micro­phone to argue with someone.

"Wen," said Clare, "don'tyou know what that means?"

Tony's fro,vn changed topuzzlelnent. "They can't havechosen Em," he said. "NotE11L. Mother says ..."

Clare sighed. Em \vas inlove with hiln - anybodycould see that. It was easy toguess, too, that his relationsvrith Em hadn't been strictlyplatonic. And like all men,Tony thought very little ofanything he could easilyhave, and yearned for the un­attainabJe.

}Ie couJdn't have Clare, forexampJe. Sooner or later she'dtry to forget John, but it,vould be a long time beforeany 111an could engage herfull attention. And vvhen thathappened, she had no inten­tion of stealing her sister'sman-"~v]latever Em Inightthink.

Judge _-\dams ,vas stillarguing. Bill Adams \vas con1­ing toward Clare. He had anenvelope in his hand.

"This just arrived," hesaid, g"ivlng it to Clare. "Itold them I'd find you and de­liver it."

"Thanks, Bill," said Clare.

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL

From his curious expression,she could tell that he knewwhat the wire was about.

She tore it open. DecTee nisigranted. John.

Well, that was that. Nisididn't mean much when thet\VO parties were separated byumpteen light-years.

Judge Adams, his face red,\vas at the microphone again."It has been decided," he saidshortly, "that the duties ofthe Festival Queen will beshared by Clare and EmmaVernon."

CLARE was at a loss. Shehadn't even entered the

contest. Din1ly she \vas awarethat the announcelnent wasg"etting a mixed reception.There \vere some boos, agreat deal of ,vhispering, andthe applause sounded like afe\v people trying to make upfor the rest.

Em turned and stared atClare, and Clare realized thatEnl \vas already beginning toblame her for having cut in011 an honor \vhich shouldhave been Eln's alone.

Clare stepped forvrardquickly. "I appreciate the hon­or," she said, "but I shouldlike to \vithdra\v in my sis­ter's favor."

The \vhispering s\velled toa roar. Public opinion crys­tallized, and· Judge Adams,still red in the face, expressedit.

"I'm not surprised," hesaid angrily. "Everybody

75

knows what you think of ourfounder and the Adams Fes­tival and Luna City andeverybody in it."

"I said I appreciated thehonor," Clare repeated. Butthe uproar increased stillmore, and she cried: "Allright! I accept!"

There was sudden silence.Someone started to clap. Emwas pushed for\vard andturned to stand on the otherside of Judge Adams fromClare. The two girls ,vere cer­tainly an attractive couple,alike yet not alike. Everybodydecided the easiest thing to do\vas applaud, and did so.

In the confusion that fol­lowed, Clare had time foronly a quick word \vith Tony.She was amused and exasper­ated to find that it was allright for Clare to be FestivalQueen, but that he still hadn'tchanged his opinion aboutEm. And, of course, Motherwouldn't like it.

There ,vas an a\vkward lno­ment when the reporters ask­ed her ,vhat she thought ofviaphobia no,v.

"\Vhat's that got to do ,vithit?" she inquired.

It \vas an unfortunate ques­tion. A dozen people ,vereready to explain-and sheknew the ans\ver any\\ray.

You couldn't take part inan Adan1s I·'estival if youwere a heretic-if you be­lieved that Luna City ,vas asanitorium for neurotics. Youhad to recant.

76

But how could she recant?How could she say black waswhite?

She looked for Bill Adams,and couldn't see him.

"I've got nothing to say onthat subject," she said firmly.

That wouldn't do. Therewas a clamor and Clare real­ized that she'd have to make

. up her mind on the spot.Some young people like

Bill Adams were prepared toadmit privately that viapho­bia existed, that it was acrippling disease, that many(,f the citizens of Luna City\vould go elsewhere if theycould. However, publicly youcouldn't say any such thing.

If you ,,,ere going to stayin Luna City, you had to con­form. You could believe whatyou liked, but publicly youhad to agree ,,,ith everybodyelse.

There ,vas no such thing asviaphobia.

Was she going to stay inLuna City?

T1-IE \vire ,vas in her hand­bag. Decree n1:s£ granted.

Jolin. \\7ell, \vasn't she goingto stay in Luna City?

Then another thing struckhe~ The judges had chosenher as joint Festival Queen.They had knovvn they \vel'ebesto,ving a great honor onher ,vhen they did so.

Luna City could hardlyhave been lTIOre forgiving,more kind, \vhen the prodigaldaughter returl1eo.

J. T. MciNTOSH

"Viaphobia?" she said."What's that?"

JOHN'S timing had alwaysbeen bad. That wasn't

why they had quarreled, butit was certainly the reasonwhy this last breach hadnever been healed. The rightword at the rigoht time ...even the \vrong ,v"ord at theright time nlight have served.But he'd always picked thewrong time.

It \vas hardly to be expect­ed that from Scylla his tim­ing \vould be an}'" better.

The second "Tire arrivedjust as Clare ,vas leaving Col­quhoun Hall \vith l'ony. Itread: F~oTget last 'lei/'e. PleasecOlne back. John.

Clare stuffed it in herhandbag. It \vas too late. Shehad been telling herself forhours that life in Luna Cityhad a lot to offer, and she'dfinally convinced herself. JOhllhad kept up his record. Justan hour or so before askingher to come back, he had senta snide ,vire telling her he'darranged the divorce.

And Clare had thro\vn inher lot with Luna City. She\vasn't going to change hernlind again.

It \vas al\vays the sanle\,'"ith "John. If she \vent back,\vithin six months she'd beon the point of leaving himagain-and John vlould saythe \vrong word at the wrongtime.

Luna City had one thing to

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offer \vhich Clare, at the ad­vanced age of t\venty-eight,was beginning to appreciate.

There might have beensome doubt about it before,but no,v that she'd been chos­en joint Festival Queen, there,vas no doubt she ,vould gether due share of the loot. She,vas reinstated. She was se­cure.

"What's that you've gotthere?" Tony asked.

"Nothing," she said, snap­ping· her handbag shut.

She \vouldn't let him comefurther through the dark­ened streets ,vith her thanAdalns Square. She let himkiss her once, thell held himoff. .

"Look, Tony," she said."EU1'S crazy about you. If I'dkno\vn that, I'd never havegone \vith you."

"Em hasn't got muchchance \vith me or anybodyelse \vhile you're around,"said Tony, and reached forher again.

"Good night, Tony," saidClare firmly. She meant good­by. If she had to have some­body take her around, shedidn't think it ,vould be hardto enroll Bill Adams.

She turned a\vay, cuttingacross the square.

Abruptly half a dozen darkfigures detached themselvesfrom the shado,vs around thebase of the column.

"You needn't think you'regoing to be Festival Queentomorro\v," said a muffled

77

voice under a mask. "Yourlooks won't be up to it."

And as Clare dre\v a breathto scream, one of the mellknocked her navel back sixinches. Another fist founfi hermouth and she felt her lipspurt blood. Somebody elsehit her in the left eye and sheknew at once it \~lould be allthe colors of the rainbo"r thenext day.

But that was all they coulddo to her. This \vasn't theClare Vernon who had beenbeaten up in the same city tenyears before. Besides, the sixmen around her were attunedto a gravity one-seventh thatof Scylla.

Despite her long skirt Clarewas a"vay like a hare escap­ing from six turtles, and shedidn't stop until she ,,"as inher hotel bedroom, pantingbut reasonably triumphant.

Shiner or no shiner, she'dappear ,\\Tith Em tomorro\v asFestival Queen. She caughtHenry Robert's eye throughthe windo\v and nodded grim­ly to him.

"Call off your boys, FatherAdams," she said aloud. "Un­til that happened, I "vasashamed of myself. But ",'"hensix men try to beat up onegirl, I don't need to beashamed any more. I'll beFestival Queen tomorro,Y justto spite you."

BUT she couldn't sleep. Ho\vmany world-shattering in­

cidents have happened, or

78

not happened, because some­body couldn't sleep?

And when the six A.M.starship landed at the MareImbrium terminal, Clare Ver­non and all her bags were,vaiting for it.

Second Officer Jones wasstartled for only a moment.Then his face registered de­light. "Might have kno,vnyou couldn't take it for long,Miss Vernon," he said.

"Might have kno\vn/~ Clareagreed. "Mr. Jones, I've gotbad ne\vs for you. I'm goingback to my husband."

Jones's jaw dropped. "Hus­band? You never said any­thing about any husband."

"No," Clare sighed. "Youdon't when you've left himforever. But you see, 1\11".Jones, I was ,vrong. Wrongabout everything. Wrongabout John. Wrong aboutLuna City. Wrong about via­phobia."

Hurt and disillusioned,Second Officer J ones saidnothing.

"They know about viapho­bia," said Clare thoughtfully,"and they don't fight it. Theyaccept it. Luna City is a won­derful place-you're shelter­ed from everything. I didn'tknow it then, but when Icame back I \vanted sheltertoo. Shelter from misunder­standings, quarrels ... shel­ter from life. You don~t haveto be a viaphobe to want tobe where it's warm and safeand comfortable and nobody

J. T. MciNTOSH

ever hurts you so long as youdon't hurt them by tellingthem you see throughthem ..."

"So you ,vere married allthe time," said Second OfficerJones indignantly, disgustedafresh at the perfidy of wom­en.

"Are you sorry, Mr. Jones?Don't be. I'm going back toargue ,vith John, and misun­derstand him, and be mis­undeI~stood by him, and ,vishI'd nevel' met him ... but atleast' I'm not going to takeshelter from him. As you oncesaid, Mr. Jones, I'm no via­phobe.'n

"I'll have your bags sto,vec1,Miss Vernon," said the offi­cer, his nose in the air.

"What, still hurt, Mr.Jones? After all we've meantto each other"?"

Second Officer Jones stalk­ed off to sulk, and Clare re­flectively l'estored the ring tothe third finger of her lefthand.

It was strange, after ,vhatshe'd been saying to Jones,that she felt happy and sureof herself again and couldhardly wait for the ship to getback to Scylla.

JUDGE Adams awakened, ashe al,vays did, when the

lights came on to create LunaCity's artificial dawn.

He got out of bed, ya,vn­ing, and cleared his throatnoisily. Still only half a,vake,he \vas dimly aware of some­thing that \vas going to makethis day worse than mostdays.

Then he remembered. Itwas Adams Festival Day, andClare Vernon was going to bejoint Festival Queen. Hedidn't mind about Em. Ifonly those fool judges hadpicked Em without somegenius thinking of the bril­liant scheme of having twoQueens, and one of themClare Vernon. If only she\vould fall downstairs andbreak a leg.

If only ...Something caught his eye

and he stagogered to the win­dow. He blinked, unable tobelieve his eyes.

Then he roared ,vith therage of a mad elephant.

Someone had climbed upthe column and painted Hen­ry Robert Colquhoun Adamsyello,v.

END

"The test of a truth is simplicity itself. Partial truths are always co~..plicated ; a truth is a punchline."

-Dudley Dell

RETURN OF A PRODIGAL 79

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the gelzek businessBy WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

He was the luckiest guy in the Galaxy

-until I got luckier than he ever was!

WHEN Tad Peters met me said as he dragged me along.at the spaceport at An- "Took almost my last credit."

tarv, he had lost none of his He glanced at me sidelong.old exuberance. As he shook "That way, eh ? What happen­my hand he clapped me on the ed to your mining deal ?"shoulder. "Fell through."

"Glad you could make it, As we got my sparse bag-AI!" He waved toward the gage through the customs, Icustoms barrier. "I'll get you had more time to look at him.through. I've got plenty of pull Still the old Tad Peters. Thearound here." same sweeping gestures and

"I'm lucky I could come," I booming voice-but had he

81

aged in the two years since I'dseen him?

Within minutes we were outon the pink marble concourse,climbing aboard an aircar thatmust have been the most ex­pensive available.

"You look as though you'vefallen on your feet," I said.

"I have, AI, I have. In thelast six months, thirty-eightships calling here have beenfitted with Peters Deep-spaceRadar. C9mpletely new princi­ple."

"Your invention ?""I built the lot of them. Got

universal patents pending.""I didn't know you kne,v

anything about radar. Youactually invented this?"

"WeHr sort of. Basically anidea I pIcked up from my girlfriend. Luanu." He switchedon the antigravs, and the air­car lifted in a soaring arcabove the great sprawlingbuildings of the starport. "I'mmarrying her soon. ,She's ter­rific, boy, terrific! But you'llsee her for yourself in a fe\vminutes."

"When did you meet her?""About a year ago-in Has­

tek. Heard of it? Didn't' thinkso-it's an outpost planetaway in toward the Hub."

For a while he was silentas we sped southward abovethe shimmering to,vers liningthe broad esplanade, skirtinga sea flame-tipped beneath theswollen crimson disc of An­tares. Then he gave me a quickglance.

82

"You'll like Luanu. She'sdifferent."

HE SKIMMED down to alanding under the wing­

like carport of a new, strikinghouse on a promontory juttingout from the coast. As I step­ped out of the aircar onto aterrace of translucent stone inwhich waves of sapphire andemerald flame rippled, Ibreathed deeply. The air wasfresh and cool, with the intoxi­cating tingle of more than aquarter oxygen mingling \viththe salt tang of the floatingmarine vegetation that dap­pled the red-lit sea withpatches of smoky violet.

"Quite a place you havehere," I said, looking up at thesV/eeping facade of the house.

"I like it," Tad said."Bit different from the

dump we lived in behind theore-crushing plant at PortMondo! Remember when theytook our air-conditioner back,that day when the tempera­ture was a hundred andthirty?"

He shuddered. "Please, Al.Let's leave the past behindus."

He led the way into thehouse. The furnishings, themurals, all the decor had aqueer, outlandish touch thatsuggested some kind of alientemple. I stopped just insidethe door and looked about me.

"Like it'!" boomed Tad,standing with his feet apartand his fists on his hips.

WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

"Sure-in a way. But itisn't like you, somehow."

"Well, it's mostly Luanu'schoice. She should be here anyminute."

"I'm here right now."I'll never forget that voice.

Flexible and vibrant, somehowcool and warm at the sametime, with something within itthat made me think of fran­gipani and the night breezethrough palm trees. I turned.

She "ras standing in thedoor,vay behind us.

Different, he'd said!It was the understatenlent

of a lifetilne. She was slenderand tall, taller than either Tador myself, though we wereboth above average height;but it wasn't her height or herbuild that made me standthere "\\rith my mouth open.The hair that fell in thicl{waves to her shoulders wasgolden, but with a green tintthat I'd never seen before,although it looked natural,like the green-tinged pallor ofher skin. Broad forehead,pointed chin, huge upward­slanting eyes as green asemerald - everything abouther had an effect of unseizablestrangeness, yet at the sametime a weird beauty.

"Can I get you somethingto drink?" Her voice liftedwith the hint of some odd ac­cent.

Tad said something, and shesmiled and glided into an ad­joining room, her movementsswift and fluid and silent. I

THE GELZEK BUSINESS

suddenly realized that I wasstill standing with my eyesand mouth wide open.

"You'll like Luanu," saidTad. "Everyone does."

"Where did she come from?"I asked.-

"I met her in Hastek.It's-"

"1 know. In toward the Hubof the Galaxy. But where didshe come from originally?"

His eyes skittered awayfrom mine. "I think she's fromone of the planets of the Vo­rand Empire."

"The what?"He made a vague gesture.

"A\vay in to\vard the Hub,past the Lagoon Nebula."

"But that's more than athousand parsecs away!"

"I know. I've l1ever beenthere. The-er-the Voranihad space travel before wediscovered fire. That's why thefirst contacts with them putthe Federatioll in a spin acouple of years back-or hadyou not heard about that? It'slucky the two spheres of influ­ence are so far apart."

I looked at the door througll\vhich the girl had gone. "Youmean she's-she's not-"

"Human? Well, I suppose itdepends on your viewpoint.The Vorani would say we werenot exactly human." He gavean odd little laugh. "After all,what is a human being?"

AT THIS point Luanu sweptback into the room, hold­

ing a tray with three frail-

83

looking goblets sparkling withruby liquid. She leaned towardme and I caught the suggestionof an unfamiliar perfume. Herfull lips had an almost violetcoloring. As I took one of thegoblets, I fou-nd my hand wastrembling slightly.

She whirled toward Tad."Let's go down to Donelli's."

"I thought we'd decided toeat here," he said.

"I've changed my mind."Tad drained his glass al­

most at a gulp. "O.K.," he saidin a slightly resigned tone."We'll go to Donelli's."

Within minutes, the threeof us were in the aircar, skim­ming further southward alongthe coast. The sun was setting,its vast red disk leeringthrough dark slats of cloudbeyond a saw-toothed ridgeacross the bay. Donelli's wasa bizarre, ultra-modern build­ing on a small peninsula al­most level with the sea, withthe surf lapping the rocks onthree sides of it.

We sat at a table overlook­ing the 'water. Beside it, abroad dance floor of black ob­sidian swept in an irregularcurving shape, the transpar­ent walls giving it the effectof being open to the sea air.A few couples were dancing tothe surging music that filledthe room from no visiblesource. Tad, who had beenquiet since he had last spokento Luanu, began to recoverhis air of enthusiasm.

"Business is sure going

84

well," he said with intense slat­isfaction, ~eaning across thetable.

Luanu flashed him a side­long glance. "It would be bet­ter if we were making gel­zeks," she said.

"What's a gelzek?" I asked,but neither or them gave anyindication of hearing me.

"Don't let's start thatagain," Tad burst out irrita­bly.

The girl's eyes widened, thepupils dilating into black poolsof sudden anger. "You're afool!" She almost spat thewords at him, and then, asabruptly as it had come, hersurge of anger vanished. Shelooked at me with a silverylaugh. "Don't mind us, AI. Tadcan't help being stupid."

Tad's face was flushed."Look," he appealed to me,"here we are with orders forradar units flooding in, justcoming up to the crest of thewave-and she wants to dropeverything to make gelzeks."

"But what is a gelzek?" Ipersisted.

I-lis rage seemed to bemounting to the flash-point."I don't know! Ask Luanu!"

I REPEATED my questionto her, but she shook her

head. "I'm afraid I can't ex­plain it without building one,"she said. Her eyes glinted atTad. "You trusted me with theradar. Why do you doubt mewhen I tell you about the gel­zeks?"

WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

"Because you can't explainwhat they're for! All you sayis that the gelzek makes possi­ble a different way of life."

"And that's true. You'llsee."

His mouth opened, thenclosed like a trap. "We stickto making radar," he said withforced calm.

She sat looking at him for afew seconds, and then shestood up. vVithout saying aword to either of us, she strodeacross the floor and outthrough the foyer. I lookedquestioningly at Tad, but hepicked up his glass and drain­ed it before meeting my eyes.

"She'll be back," he said,then added uncertainlv: "Ithink." For a long tin1e ~he satstaring do\vn at the table, hisfingers drumming in quite dif­ferent tin1e from the music, asthough he \\J~ere cOlnpletelyunaware of his surrounding-so

"Are all the Vorani as tem­peramental as that?" I asked.

"Eh? Oh, I don't kno,\T. Inever met any others." Helooked across at the sunset."Very few people have."

I thought that one over fora n10ment, then decided not tofollo,v it up just yet; Taddidn't seeln in any n100d totalk. I looked around the dancefloor and its surroundingtables. When we had come in\vith Luanu a fe"," minutesago, the place had seemed bigand friendly and sparklingwith glamor. Now it ,\"as onlybig.

THE GELZEK BUSINESS

TAD drove me back into thecenter of Antarv and park­

ed the aircar on the landing\ving of a gigantic hotel facingthe esplanade.

"I stayed here when I fil'starrived," he said.

I looked up at the gleroningfacade of metal, reddened bythe last rays of the sunset."Say, this looks a bit expen­sive for me. I told you· I wasnearly do\vn to my last credit."

His old n1anner returned fora moment like the first gust ofa rising gale. "AI, old boy, Iforgot. Here!" He pulled out a\vallet, peeling a number ofgreen ten-credit bills from athick roll. "That should seeyou through. Think nothing ofit. Everything's going to be allright. Luanu will be back."

He said it as though the lasttwo facts ,vere closely con­nected, and immediately after­\vard he seemed to sink intogloom again. As he said good­by his eyes were focused be­yond me, ,vith the expressionof a man \vho is seeing some­thing he doeSll't like.

I shrugged and ,vent up tobed.

The days and nights on An­tarv are short, and \vhen Ia\voke the giant red sun wasalready thro,ving its luridglare over the city. The build­ings cast a pattern of green­edged shadows. I had break­fast in the cafe on the top floorof the hotel, with a vie\v overthe esplanade ~nd the sea.

Follo,ving the map Tad had

85

given me, I rode the beltwaysout t,o the edge of the city andlocated his factory-a long,plain building of recent con­struction. I found Tad in hisoffice, sitting behind a largedesk. I-Ie looked as if he hadn'tslept.

"1 can't find her," he said assoon as I was in the room.

"She'll be bacl\:," I told him."I'm, not so sure, AI. I'm

not sure at all." He got upslowly, and as '. he walkedacross to look at a production­flow ,chart on one wall, his stepseemed heavy. "She's an un­predictable girl. Brilliant butwild. And if she walks out atthis stage, we're sunk."

"Maybe there's somethingI haven't got straight, Tad,"I said. f4Didn't you say you'dalready fitted thirty-eightships with your radar in thelast six months ?"

"Well, they're all wired upand the heavy gear is in place.But they still have to be fittedwith, roto-azimuth integratorsbefore they'll function."

",\;Vhat's a roto-azimuth in­tegr~tor?"

"It's a thing about so big."He made gestures with hishands.•4We had one on thedemoDstl'ation ship and itworked fine. Sold all theseorders with it. Then it burnedout."

"'Can't you build another?""L~anu's been working on

it. We went ahead with all therest 'of the installations, butshe hasn't finished it yet." He

86

sat heavily down at his desk,fiddling with a six-color pen,his eyes far away and glazed.

"Well," I said heartily, "ifshe made one, she can makeanother."

" I think the first one wasmade somewhere in the Vo­rand Empire," he said,thoughtfully writing some­thing on his desk pad. "I hopeshe knows what was inside it.1 don't."

He drew two lines on thepad, then two others crossingthem. Very deliberately, he be­gan putting zeroes and crossesin the squares, finally drawinga line through three zeroes andsourly studying the result. Imoved toward the door.

"I'll see you sometime whenyou're not tied up," 1 said.

He looked at me as if he hadforgotten I was there. "Yes,do that, Steve-I mean AI."

When he started dra",-ingmore lines on the pad, I wentout.

SEVERAL times in the nextfew days I tried to call up

Tad on the visiphone, but oneach occasion I was told thathe \vas out of town. Nobodykne\v when he would be back.Once I went out to his office,only to find three other menthere who had been trying fordays to trace him.

After ten days a long-dis­tance call came through to meat my hotel, and when I an­swered it, Luanu's face smiledat me from th.e screen.

WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

"AI, I wanted to see youagain," she said.

"Where are you? When areyou coming back?"

"I'm never coming back­not to Tad. We simply don'tget along together. But I \vantyou to help me."

"Ho\v?" I asked.Her eyes sparkled. "Making

Gelzeks. I've found a factorythat will be ideal and I've al­ready got a lot of the n1ate­rials. I \vant you to help merun the factory."

"But why me?""Because I like you. Need

any other reason?"For a long time I examined

the brilliant eyes, the full,curving mouth. "No," I said."Where can I find you?"

"You mustn't tell Tad.""I won't."She frowned at me for a fe\v

seconds. "All right, I'll tell you\vhere to find me," she said,and she did.

It was a long journey toPavo City, up over the \vhite­fanged peaks of the Equatorial11ange and on over a thousandmiles of flat yell0\\"' plaintrenched by muddy, ,vindingrivers to the shore of the In­land Sea. The aircraft ,vas aprimitive flying triangle and I\vas glad to step out of it ontothe sun-scorched tarlnac.

Pavo City \\ras old, withmany of its buildings of patch­ed gray concrete, some of themin ruins. It had passed its peakcenturies ago, \vhen the near­by mines had been worked out.

THE GELZEK BUSINESS

Luanu met me at the air­port, very tall and slender ina long 1100ded cloak of someheat-reflecting material, hereyes shining within the darkshadow of the hood. She ledme to a small groundcar, anda fe\v minutes later we were'.veaving through twisting,narrow streets crowded withbuildings that l~epresented

many successive eras of archi­tectural style, some of metal,some of concret~, some even ofyellow brick.' ,

THE factory ","'a's a'· long,bare building on' tIle out­

skirts of the town, adjoininga landing field that served anumber of similar buildings\vhich appeared to be clisused.Luanu parked the car and ledthe \vay into the office ,block.

She must have been workinghard in the last few days-sheshowed me a number of in­credibly complex drawings\vhich I didn't begin to under­stand even after poriIlg overthenl for several minutes. Themaze of differently 'coloredlines and symbols that coveredthem \\~ere completely incom­prehensible to me.

"This," she said, waving aslim hand to the draV\rihgs, "isthe gelzek. With it, youl,,'wholecivilization will never be thesame again. Even after yourpeople have been using' it fora hundred years, they, w~ll. stillbe finding new possibili~iesforapplying it." .

"I see," I responded in a

87

tone that didn't convince evenmyself.

"Come through here," shesaid.

I followed her into a largeopen space, at one side ofwhich were a number of metalcabinets about the size ofsmall household refrigerators.

"These are gelzek cabinets,"she told me. "I had a fe,v madeby a firm near here; theyseemed satisfactory enough, soI've given them an order forten thousand. It meant raisinga substantial loan, but I man­aged to eonvince the bank peo­ple of the gelzek's possibilities-not that they could under­stand jt. but thev at least hadthe rleei)-~,pace radar as an in­dication of what \~;e can do.But I \V3J:t you to run this fac­tory \vith Ine."

"I dO)l"t understand "vhat\ve're ma~:ing yet," I objected.

"y?ou don't have to. I'veplanned the gelzek so it can bemade j.n about t,venty sub­asselnb}~€s. I can fix the 'mosttricky ,ones, and \ye can sub­divide the rest of the circuitsand parts into packaged unitsthat an unskilled tealTI can fittogether."

As she stood there smiling,she looked very young. "Yonhave got it well figured out,"I said.

Her snlile broadened. "We'llmake billions out of it."

I thought briefly, guiltily, ofTad sitting at his desk draw­ing zeroes and crosses on apad.

88

"Will you do it?" she asked.Well, after all, if this proj­

ect came off, I'd be in a posi­tion to give Tad all the help heneeded, wouldn't I? I nodded."O.K. But I wish you'd tellme-"

I-Ier eyes danced impishly asshe shook her head.

I FOUND a hotel overlookingthe Inland Sea and booked

a room. Within a week I hada team of twenty men and thefactory was in production.Most of the employees neversa'" Luanu, and only one­Joe Parks, a scra\vny littleEarthborn engineer I hadtaken on as assistant n1anager-kne\v that it \vas not I \vhohad been the sole driving forcebehind the whole project.

l;uanu \vas renting a housefacing· an enclosed courtyardnext to the factory, and shehad had a door\vay made tolink this \vith the laboratoryconnected to the office, so thatshe had a separate entrance.The fact that the city \vashalf-deserted had made it fair­Iv easy for her to find a com­bination of buildings thatsuited her purpose so \vell.

Consignments of gelzek cab­inets began to pour into theunloading bay by the truck­load. Thousands of coils ofthin insulated wire in variousthicknesses began to fill thestorage racks we had erected,together with uncounted vari­eties of transistors and othersmall parts.

WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

Several times, Joe Parksasked me \vhat the gelzek wasfor. Always, I evaded a directanswer, I told him it washighly secret, and he seemeda little upset by my failure totake him into full confidence.He suggested advance adver­tising and I said I had thematter in hand.

"Which agency is handlingthe account?" he asked.

I had to say something."Pavo -City Advertising Incor­porated."

"There's no such firm intown." He stepped bacI{ apace, looking at me with a new\visdom. "Say-mind if I askyou son1ething?"

"Go ahead.""Do you know \vhat you're

doing?""What do you mean?""Look. I like working for

you, AI. But I can't work fora guy \vho doesn't know whatthe hell he's doing. Gelzeks!I tell my frie~nds we're makinggelzeks, and they say to me:'\Vhat's a gelzek?' And thenI've got to tell them I don'tknow. Do you know?"

I stood up, walked aroundmy desk and put a hand on hisshoulder. "Joe, before I tellyou, I ",~ant you to come ,vithme."

I took him out into the en­closed courtyard and pressedthe buzzer on Luanu's frontdoor. The door slid open al­lnost at once.

"Come in, AI," she calledfrom within.

THE GELZEK BUSINESS

I led Joe .into the large roomon the left. The broad tableswere littered with delicate ap­paratus, and Luanu, in a plas­tic coverall, ,vas busy workingon some intricate, shimmeringdevice with a thin electric sol­dering iron. When she saw Iwas not alone, she stood up,shaking back her hair with atoss of her head.

"Joe," I said, "I'd like youto Ineet-"

"Call me Luanu," she said,and her smile seemed to dispelJoe's irritation instantane­ously.

"Joe wanted to know? ,vhata gelzek is for," I explained.

"Of course," she said. "Thatis perfectly natural. You cango back to the office if you like,AI. I'll explain things to Joe."

I went back to tIle office andsat looking at the latest batchof invoices for gelzek chassis,gelzek cabinets, gelzel\: infinite­ly variable trallsformers, andgelzek hyper - synchronizedvector analyzers. Maybe Joe\\;ould find out a bit about\vhat they were for.

He was gone half an hour.\Vhen he came back he had aslightly dazed expression, butsomehow he looked .youl1gerand more carefree.

"Marvelous girl," he said,his eyes shining. "I had noidea."

"Did she explain ,vhat thegelzek ,vas for?" I askedguardedly.

"Eh? Oh. I meant to askher that." Suddenly he shrug...

89

ged his shoulders. "Still, whatdoes it matter? She knowswhat she's doing."

"Sure, Joe. She knows."

ABOU'T the middle of theafternoon Luanu came in­

to my office. "AI! I've finishedit !"

She put a glittering mass ofcoiled crystalline tubes andwires and transistors anddelicate gears on my desk.

"What is it?" I asked."You might call it the gel­

zek's heart, or its brain," shesaid proudly. "You know, AI,that's the first thing I've everreally finished."

I looked at her with my ja,vswinging loose on its hinges.

"It's true," she said. "I'malways starting things, butthis is the first one I've reallyfinished. Wait a few minutesuntil I assemble the compensa­tor and I'l} show you ho\v itworks."

She ran lightly out of theoffice, leaving me sitting star­ing at the thing on the desk.I was still looking at it fiveminutes later when Joe burstin.

"Say," he panted, "there's astrange ship out on the land­ing field."

"P:robably some ne\v trans­port line," I replied.

"Not this thing. It's­different."

I didn't like the way he saidit. I went with him to the opendoor and looked across thefield.

90

The machine out there wascertainly different. Complete­ly, utterly unlike any aircraftor spaceeraft I'd ever seen­and craft built for special pur­poses can take some strangeshapes. This thing ,vas aboutfifty or sixty feet long, blunt­ly rounded, finned, fish-shaped,blue, with an eerie shimmerabout it that gave it the un­canny effect of being unreal,as if surrounded by some kindof field.

There was a man near it­or ,vas it some form of gigan­tic robot? Humanoid shape,but from this distance he look­ed about ten feet tall, unlesssomething had gone radicallywrong ,vith nlY sense of per­spective. He was dressed inskintight blue stuff that look­ed like a film of metal, with asort of haversack on his back.He reached over his shoulderand touched this, and he ,vasflying.

Just like that. No visiblejets or air foils-nothing butthat metal pack arrangenlenton his back. Yet he fIe\\'through the air, skimming to­,yard us easily and s\viftly.

Joe ,vas making strangled,gurgling noises. I tried to saysomething, but the \vords didnot come. A mOlnent later, thefantastic figure had landedlightly just outside the build­ing.

There was nothing wrong\vith llly eyes. The fellow 1vasabout ten feet tall. He lookeddo\vn at llle \\lith huge emerald

WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

eyes that seemed shockinglyfamiliar, though I couldn'tthink why.

"You are AI ,Sandry." Hedidn't ask me. He told me.

"That's-that's right," Isaid.

He made a sweeping move­ment with his arm. "Inside."

We went inside. Withoutany argument. Don't ask mewhy. The guy was just likethat.

Anyvvay, have you evertried arguing with a man tenfeet high?

Joe looked at me furtively."I'll-er-see to the unload­ing," he said, and before Icould stop him he was gone.

I sat down behind my desk."Take a seat," I invited.

THE stranger lifted theheavy electric typewriter

off the table with one hand,putting it on top of a filingcabinet as if it had been a hat.He sat on the table, his feetsquare]y on the flqor.

"\Vhcre is Luanu?" His eyesseen1ed to see inside my headthe "\vay Luanu's did some­times, and it ,vas then that Irealized 1vhy they looked fa­milial\

"I don't know," I said.His eyes took on a void, fix­

ed look as though he werestaring at something I couldn'tsee. He sat like that for someseconds, then seemed to relax.

"\Vhat are you makinghere ?" he asked.

If anyone else had asked me

THE GELZEK BUSINESS

that, I would have had a rea­sonable answer. But not to thisfellow. He just looked at mewhile I tried to say something.Then he leaned over and pick­ed up the device Luanu hadleft on the desk. He glanced atit, then stowed it into a kindof satchel at his side, his eyesholding mine. He reached overto the filing cabinet where wekept the drawings and pulledgently at the drawer, whichwas locked. He pulled a littleharder.

Part of the locI\: spanged offthe ceiling and rattled acrossthe floor. He pulled the drawerall the way out of the cabinet,put it on the table and riffledquickly through the drawings.S()me-the ones on whichLuanu had shown detailedconnections - he took out,glanced at, and stuffed into hissatchel. He looked at eachdrawing for no more than asecond, yet I had the feelinghe understood them at once.

The whole thing took a mat­ter of seconds. When he hadfinished, he looked at me withthose great catlike eyes.

"I am Kordl'u, of Vorand,"he said. "Unfortunate ifLuanu has disturbed you. Ourchildren are sometimes irre­sponsible."

"Child-ten?" I found myvoice creaking like a rustyhinge. "You call Luanu achild ?"

"Of course. One day she willbe almost as tall as I am. And,I hope, as mature."

91

At this moment Luanu camein, her eyes wide. She stoppedwhen she saw Kordru. It wasthe first and only time I eversaw her poise shattered.

Kordru didn't say anythingto her, but he got his meaningacross. He rose to his feet, hisface stern and commanding,but with the faintest trace ofamusement flickering in hiseyes.

Luanu turned to me. "I must

apologize, AI. My father istaking me home."

The giant took her hand andled her to the door. She lookedback at me over her shoulder.

"It's been fun, AI, hasn'tit ?"

And then they were gone.Fun? With all those bills I

owed for parts of~ofgelzeks?And that's something I still

haven't found out.What is a gelzek? END

HOW RESEARCH PAYS OFF

It is said that when Arthur Dehon Little sought $50,000 in New Eng­land to obtain the American rights to the Cross & Bevan viscose processabout 60 years ago, he was asked: "Do you mean to say, Dr. Little, thatman can ever produce fibers as good as those God has provided us?"according to Indust,rial Resea1'ch, a management-oriented magazine thatcovers 80 fields, which points out that the viscose process is the basisof the $420 million viscose rayon industry.

Challenged by the general lack of technological vision, Dr. Little de­voted much of his life to preaching industry's need for research. Hewrote extensively about scientists-the Fifth Estate, he called them:"those having the simplicity to wonder, the ability to question, the powerto generalize, the capacity to apply."

The experience of \Vorld 'Val' II gave the final impetus to industry'sgradual conversion to the research doctrine until today, ""hen it is abrave board c'hairman who does not report some kind of research effortto his stockholders.

"Research has meant the difference between growth and stagnationso that 90 cents out of every l"linnesota Mining sales dollar now comesfrom products developed by research," says 3-M president Herbert P.Buetow. Statements like this can be made of Dupont, RCA, and otherresearch-based companies, which are offering products, processes andservices that would surely have caused theological chaos scarcely morethan half a century ago. 'Vhat man cannot do has become so much lessim·portant than what man can do that a fantastic $12 billion will bespent on research next year-and Dr. Raymond H. Ewell, form-erly ofthe National Science Foundation, has calculated that research ,moneyyields an annual average of 100% to 200% over a 25-year period.

92 WYNNE N. WHITEFORD

Worlds of ifBook Reviews by Frederik Pohl

EVERY no,v and then some"Triter produces a story

,vhich can be regarded as adefinitive \vork. Heinlein didthat ¥lith Universe, so explor­ing the possibilities of amulti-generation spaces hipthat that particular storyneed never be vvritten again.T. L. Sherred did it for therear-vie"v time scanner in Efor Effort, Huxley for theantlike, automated future inBra1)C N e'lV Woriel. Therehave been manv stories \vrit­ten since on eac'h of these sub­jects, some of them quitegood, n1any of them fun, butthey really have said nothingHe,,, about their themes. Noth­ing has beell left by Heinlein,Sherred and Huxley to say.

In The Falling Torch(Pyramid), Algis Budrysmay have given us anothersuch definitive story.

Earth has been enslaved byinvaders froln another star'splanets. They are humanenough, barring a faint sal­lo,vness of complexion, butthey aren't Earthn1en andtheir total victory has drivenEarth's government into ex­ile, from whence they mounta feeble, reckless but success­ful underground attack ,vhich

93

ultimately liberates the planet~

This is the story: The gov­ernment in exile, the under­ground, the successful revolu­tion. It happens that Budryscomes to this theme with avast head start over his col­leagues. His father is a FreeLithuanian consul and Bud­rys himself has lived in theUnited States since earlychildhood on a diplomaticpassport. Certainly this hasbeen a help to him, but itdoesn't account for the book'sexcellence.

BUDRYS'S exiled govern­nlent is a creation of char­

acterization: The Pr imeMinister \vho is a master chefeight hours a day; the Secre­tary of Defense who sells in­surance; the exiled PresidentWireman \vho rules them allon paper, yet lives in relativesqualor. He must. Budrys tellsus vvhy: "Even Prime Min­isters could find ordinary\vork and bring no tarnish tothe bright melTIOry of Earth'sfreedom, but . . . tIle Presi­dent could not. The rest ofthenl could admit in publicthat Earth ,vas no longerthere, but someone had topreserve the fiction-someone

had to embody the legal fablethat the Government in Exilestill represented the people­and Wireman ,vas the man."\rVhen the chosen agent of theexiles lands on Earth he n1eetsan active though feeble un­derground. \Ve find it invest­ed with the same scrupulouslyprecise rightness. Perhapssome of it sho,vs the mark ofFor WhOl1~ the Bell TollB:much of it may have comefrom the stories of the Lithu­anian forest fighters. No mat­ter. The bulk of it is Budrys.

Budrys sho,vs us the greatlaw of politics : No one makes,veakness a gift of strength.He lets us perceive the barbsin the tempting bait otherpowers offer Earth's under­ground; he opens up the mo­tives of the partisan fighters,and shows us that they cancelout. What is left? The pro­tagonist. He is that inventionof recent science fiction, aman who sees what must bedone and does it, ,vho comeswithin reach of a success anrlgrasps it. He is a realizedman. And The Falling Torchis a realized book.

And yet there is this onething.

As a book, The FallinuTorch earns high marks. As as.cience fiction book, it has theserious defect of hardly beingscience fiction. Change namesand it becomes a story of mod­ern Lithuania, of \Vorld "TarII France-of any occupiedcountry any,vhere.

94

This should not l\:eep any­one from enjoying The Fall­ing Torch; the bool{ is a,vinner. But one can't helpfeeling that it is running onthe \vrong track.

FOR contrast, \vhat about C.P. Sno,v's TheSAarch

(Scribner's) or P·earl S.Buck's Con/~~nand the Morn­1~ng (John Day) ?

If \ve take for a rule that ascience fiction story must con­tain some element of extra­polation, some one thing thatcould be true but isn~t, thenneither of them qualifies asscience fiction. Yet surelythey are fiction about science,as Budrys's book just as sure­ly is not..

Sir Charles Snovv first\vrote The Search twenty-fiveyears ago. This new, rewrit­ten edition, he says in a pref­ace, is published to helpbridge the gap bet\veen Tech­nical Man and Lav l\fan. "It isvery stupid to" attempt ton1ake everybody into tech­nologists, but it is eS8entialthat everybody, includingthe technologists themselves,should understand somethingof the intellectual and humanmeaning of \vhat the tech­nologists are about." It is ina ,yay endearing of SirCharles to offer an excuse for,vriting a book; most writersn1erely bang them out. Butperhaps it is not an excuse.The gap yawns betvveen then1an in the' \vhite collar and

the man iIi the laboratorysmock, and a bridge is neces~sary.

The Sea'f'ch does not spanthe void. Sno,v's~hero, ArthurMiles, is quite believable andempathy evoking as a scien­tist and as a man. The sciencein the book, and there is agreat deal of it, is technicalenough to be exciting andcleverly presented enough tobe entirely digestible. (It is abit of a wrench that at onepoint Sir Charles gives theformula for sodium bromideas KBr. Slips happen; SirCharles was a good chemistbefore he became an even bet­ter writer.)

BUT' Arthur Miles is a sci­entist only so long as he

is very successful at it, andthen for just the few extramonths after a disaster thatit takes him to find some oth­er source of income. (Hemarries it.) The change inhis character from brightyoung zealot to cynic is de­picted with complete sl{ill.The book is a good book. Butit is not the book we ,verepromised in the preface. Wehave been offered a portrait;,vhat we find is an expose.

Miss Buck's book does notgive us even an expose. Thisis fiction, but it is also at bot­tom fact, or is supposed to be,for if the names of the char­acters have been changed(Szilard becoming Szigny,Slotin becoming Feldman,

Oppenheimer becoming, prob­ably, Burton Hall), the workthey are all doing is the manu­facture of the atomic bomb.Command the Morning isprobably the most glandularinterpretation of the compli­cated motives of the bomb in­ventors ever to see printany,vhere. They are supposedto be the brightest humansalive, but they talk and actlike boobs.

What is most interestinghere about these two books,though, is not whether theyare good or bad, but whatkeeps them outside the cate­gory "science fiction" whileThe Falling Torch must beadmitted. Perhaps we shouldbe liberal and call them allscience fiction-of a sort. Butthat sort is only one of thevarieties of the science fictionexperience, and not the trans­cendental one which lifts usa,vay from here and nou)­not to escape our lives, but tosee them more clearly.

A PURER form of sciencefiction is well exemplified

in two new novels and a re­print. The reprint is FredHoyle's The Black Cloud(Signet), which not onlygives us as luminous a por­trait of the technologist as SirCharles Sno,v's but providesthe technologist team with adon1inating problem-the so­lution to which raises alarger problem still.

Fred Hoyle, of course, is

95

the English astronomer ,vhoseSteady State Hypothesis hasaroused such comment in thescientific ,vorld-much of itin the furm of shrill, agonizedscreams. His thesis is thatthere was no "prilnordialultimate atom" ,vhich inbursting generated the atolnsand the galaxies \ve kno\v. In­stead, says Hoyle, old matterdies into energy and nevv­matter is constantly bornfrom energy; the universe isin a steady state \vhere ,vith­drawals continually balancedeposits, so that ~ ,vhat thestars burn up is regeneratedin new gas clouds forming be­t,veen the galaxies. In TheBlack Cloud one such cloudinvades the Solar System.What it is, and ""hat l\Iandoes about it, is not merely anexciting story; it is also a ve­hicle in which a 111an ,,"ithfresh and important ideas canfind a suitable pulpit fronlwhich to deliver them.

In Hoyle's ne\ver novel,Ossian's Ride (Harper), ,vehave something quite di ffer­ent. In Ireland a mighty neVitechnical po,ver has appeared.Great cities are built, oflnaterials that have never be­fore been seen. It is a ,,~onder

to the world, and naturallythe world does its best tosolve the mystery. In Dublin,now a very Lisbon for spiesand plots, the hero of Ossian'sRide begins a Hitchcock jour­ney across bogs, up nl0un­tains and through storln-toss-

96

ed seas to a mysteriousisland \vhere all the ans\versare.

This is fine cloak-and-dag­gel" ; it has plausible andexciting characters and, aboveall, an informed foundationof fact. It is not only techni­cal fact, either, fo~r Hoyledemonstrates that he kno\vs agreat deal about Ireland,about intrigue and about hu­man nature. Only in suchfaintly prissy literary conven­tions as the I - set - do\vn ­the - true - story - so - that ­the - ,vorld - may - judgeframe (present in Thp BlackCloud and retained in Ossian'sRide) does I-Ioyle display hisacademic disposition. Neitheruse of the frame serves anypurpose, but neither mattersvery much; these are goodboo]{s all the ,yay through.

PauL ANDERSON is not ascientist; he is a science

'fiction \yriter and one of thebest. Still, he does have a de­gree in physics and, like mostof the better ,vriters in thefield, has nlade it his businessto lieep informed of \\"hat isgoing on in the area of sci­ence. His l1e\vest novel, TheEne'my Sta'rs (Lippincott),shoy\'s ,vhv this is ,Yorth\vhiJe. "

J.\Iatter transmitters operateanlost instantaneously allover the Galaxy, says Ander­son, but for the nlatter to bet)·ansmitted, it must be re­ceived. This requires a receiv-

ere This requires a ship. Andships cannot exceed the speedof light-Einstein has seen tothat.

Therefore great rockets aresent out 9n hundred-yearjourneys, their principal car­go a matter transmitter, theircrews a constant changingsuccession of thirty-day con­scripts. It is dull aboard astar rocket, but it is bearable;once the thirty days are up,the old crew matter-transmitshome, the new cre\v aboard.

Except once.For our crew has an acci­

dent. The matter transmitteris destroyed. All at once thefour men are mar')oned. Theonly possible salvation lies inthe repair of the mattei· trans­mitter, and that seems impos­sible. Is impossible, though it,v'ould hardly be fair here todiscuss the rabbits Andersonpulls out of his hat to give thestory an ending. It is a per­fectly splendid science fictiondilemma, and all its \vondersare ingenious and enjoyable.}\.llo\v Anderson his mattertransmitter and the rest ofthe story can be defendedagainst any attack.

Unfortunately the plot isonly eenie meenie minie moe,'~lho the heck is next to go?But for setting and theme thestory has all that a properscience fiction story should.

I N Encounter (Avalon), J.Hunter Holly gives us a

mind-eating alien named Eze-

kiel (he saw a Wheel)' who isas vulnerable as Achilles. Hisheel is cats. Bantam has justreissued Jerry SohI's PointUltimate (Rinehart), whichconcerns a tight-fisted tyran­ny governing Earth, and afreedom revolt sparked by aMartian colony. It lacks verylittle of being a first-classscience fiction adventure. Thelittle it lacks is a single flesh­and-blood human character.In Stat"haven (Ace), IvarJorgensen offers a routine butfast picture of an outlawplanet. The other half of thedouble volume is EdmondHamilton's The Sun Smasher,concerning the last of thegalactic emperors and theweapon that can restore tohim his throne. Voodoo Planetand Plague Ship (Ace) areboth by Andrew North, andboth are former Gnome Pressjuveniles. As juveniles theywere fine. As presumptiveadult fare, the~ still are ju­veniles.

Brian Aldiss is perhaps themost promising new sciencefiction writer on the horizon,as anyone can plainly see byreading No Time Like Tomor­ro~v (Signet), a collection ofhalf a dozen. very good storiesand no very bad ones. Hisgreat virtue is the selection ofthe right word or phrase; thedefect of his virtue is thatsometimes his precision be­comes precious. Aldiss is notafraid to tackle new and diffi­cult themes, either. But his

97

first novel, -Vanguard fromAlpha (Ace) is a spy-and­counterspy exercise which un­fortunately gives his well­drawn characters no problemmore challenging than a hiton the head. It too is a doublevolume, the other being TheChangeling Worlds, by Ken­neth Bulmer, concerning aculture of star-roving billion­aires whose big problem isthat-passengers will pleasefasten seat belts-they don't!{now where babies comefrom. Bulmer makes thismore plausible than youwould think by hard work andgood writing, but how plausi­ble can it be made?

Alan E. Nourse and J. A.Meyer give us a dictatorshipwhich needs overthrowing inThe Invaders Are Coming(Ace), and in spite of every-thing find freshness and ex­citement in the telling. Prob­ably most readers will haveguessed page 187's big secretno later than the second para­graph of page 17, but onlybecause Nourse and Meyerplay fair with their readersby using words exactly.

PHILIP K. DICK is an ad­venturous sort of byline

for the science fiction reader,because he never knows whathe will get. In Dick's firstnovel, Solar Lottery, whichAce has just reissued, he gaveus a complicated and quiteunsatisfying picture puzzle ofan Earth governed by some

98

sort of quiz-show device forselecting a ruler. It was per­haps even more complex thanvan Vogt. His newest book isTime Out of Joint (Lippin­cott)-"oh, cursed spite,"says Hamlet, finishing thequotation, "that ever I wasborn to set it right." ButDick's hero does not set itright. He gets less use out ofmore power than any sciencefiction hero of recent years.This is a most uneven book.There is a masterful openingin which Dick supplies thereader, with skill and econo­my, just the right hints as towhat the surprises will be.Then there is some adroit,veaving of the threads, andthen ... The book doesn't ex­actly end. It disintegrates.Lippincott, for reasons bestknown to Lippincott, haschosen to hide the fact thatthis is science fiction bylabeling it "A Novel of Men­ace." Well, so is Moby Dick.But Time Out of Joint is sci­ence fiction, all right, and fineof its kind in the first hun­dred-odd pages.

Donald A. Wollheim hasput together two more Aceanthologies. In The HiddenPlanet, the motif is the planetVenus, and Oliver, McIntosh,del Rey, Weinbaum andBrackett give us their severalviews of what's happeningunder all those clouds. Aftera quarter of a century Wein­baum's The Lotus Eaters isstill the best story in the

book, but there aren't any badones. Wollheim's second an­thology, The Macabre Reader,is horror-fantasy and, asWollheim is a traditionalist,naturally includes Lovecraft,Smith, Wandrei and Ho,vard.But it also has a fine scaryRobert Bloch and a worri­some piece by that masterlyOld Hand (presently manipu­lating real estate and contem­lating the cobwebs on histypewriter), Thorp McClusky. . . There is also a novel bvJohn C. Cooper, The Ha,untedStrangler (Ace), which is tobecome a movie starringBoris Karloff. Karloff callperhaps make credible thisflight of idiocy involving aMad London Doctor, but theprinted page cannot.

Friends of the family maylike to kno'" of a new anthol­ogy, The Fourth Galaxy Read­er (Doubleday), and a ne\vshort story collection, Tomor­-row Times Seven (Ballan­tine). As the anthology isedited by our editor, and theshort stories are \vritten bythe undersigned, this columnis forbidden to praise and un­,villing to blame.

FOUR scientific classics areback in print. Mentor has

just reissued Bertrand Rus­sell's The ABC of Relativity,probably the first layman'sguide to space-time, and(with scrupulous editing andrevising by Felix P'irani)probably still the best. D. E.

Smith's History of Mathe­matics (Dover) is in two fat,full volumes, the first a seriesof biographical sketches ofsome 1200 mathematicians,the second an orderly narra­tive of the growth of mathe­matical thought. It omitsnothing. Another Smith,Homer W., gives us again hisfamous Man and His Gods(Grosset), which shows usthe origins of all human re­ligions. Finally there is Wolf­gang Kohler's The Mentalityof Apes (Vintage). Sciencefiction readers have comeacross these experiments onchimpanzee minds in manystories. (In de Camp andMiller's Genus Homo, for ex­ample, the apes are testingthe men!) Here is the orig­inal text, aft~r forty yearsstill fresh and fascinating.

In Soviet Space Science(Basic Books), Ari Shtern­feld does not tell us anyguarded secrets of the Rus­sian rocket effort. Indeed, thebook's only fault is the word"soviet" in the title, for it isnationless, worldwide science,vhich is discussed here.Among its attractive featuresare a foreword and an epi­log"ue by Willy Ley, whobrings Shternfeld up to dateand comments on the book it­self.

To WRITE Brighter Thana Thousand Suns (Har­

court, Brace), Robert Jungkinterviewed nearly every nu-

99

clear physicist of any conse­quence. The result is asvivid as Pearl S. Buck's fic­tional treatment of the themeis flat. Jungk lets us under­stand Einstein's fears, sympa­thize with Oppenheimer'sconflicts. Yet this boole makesone claim so incredible thatthe whole work must be heldto question. Jungk tells us,with no visible skepticism,that ,Hitler had no atomicweapon to destroy us with be­cause Nazi scientists had toomany moral scruples to makeone. Think of the "experi­mental medicine" of the con­centration camps, the system­atic annihilation of Jews,Poles and Gypsies. It ,vouldseem to need more than a self­serving declaration from theparties involved to make sucha thesis convincing.

AN ABSOLUTE model of atechnical book for the layreader is Hans Thirring'sEnergy for Man (IndianaUniversity Press). Dr. Thir­ring assumes that his readercan understand English andcan concentrate, and assumesnothing else. Although thebook makes use of muchshorthand notation and a cer­tain minimum employment ofmath, everything is explainedand defined-once. It is nec­essary to keep' your mind onit, but it. is not necessary tobe trained up to reading it.Dr. Thirring does that chorefor you as you go along.

.100

What he also does is to ex­plain his predictions by:means of that useful old in­vention of logic, the reductioad absurd'llm. Future eventswill take just this sort ofshape, says Dr. Thirring, be­cause, look, if they don't, then,ve find ourselves in this fool­ish contradiction. This is asolid, thoughtful, interestingjob; and if there is any essen­tial fact bearing on Man'sprospects of future powergeneration that isn't here,you'll never miss it.

Norman Lansdell's TheAtom and the Energy Revo­lution (Philosophical Li­brary), which covers some­,vhat similar ground, cannothelp but suffer by comparison,vith Thirring. Few bookscould. Yet on its own termsLansdell's book has much totell us.' As an Englishman,Lansdell is principally inter­ested in the work now goingon in the United Kingdom;and for a glimpse of what'shappening at Calder Hall andHar,vell-which is to say,vhat's happening anywherein the free world on fusionpo,ver-his book is very: valu­able.

JEAN ROSTAND'S ne,vbook asks us in its title

Can Man Be Modified? (BasicBooks), and he gives us ananswer of sorts in the lessthan 100 pages of text thatmake up this slim, odd vol­ume. Dr. Rostand is an ex-

END

perimental biologist of goreatfame (as well as being theson of the man \vho ,vroteCyrano de Be1'gerac) , and ,yemight hope for some stimu­lating and original inforn1a­tion in this book. Unfortu­nately ,ve \vould not be entire­ly gratified. For ,vhat is hereis more a discussion of thephilosophical implications ofself-remaking than a glimpseof ,,,hat that task might ulti­mately lead to.

In The Ea-rth Beneath theSea (Johns Hopkins), Fran­cis P. Sheppard tells us agreat deal we never learnedin school (if only becauseeven the experts didn't knov{much of it until the past dec­ade) about the three-quartersof the Earth's surface thatlies under ,vater. The book isoften technical but never in­cOlnprehensible; and the au­thor does not neglect suchnon-technical entries as hisown eye,vitness account of thegreat Ha,vaiian tsunami of1947, or full directions forskindiving on a coral reef.

Douglas Botting's Island ofthe Dragon's Blood (\\rilfredFunk) is exploration and ad­venture on the island of Soco­tra, ,,,here Indian Ocean andGulf of Aden meet. It is a hot,dirty, pestilential place, andthe very accuracy of Mr.Botting's reporting makes itappear unpleasant and dull.

C. G. Jung ranks next to

Adler and just under Freu'din the pantheon of modernpsychiatry. In World inCrisis (Mentor), Jung leavesthe ,vorld within the mind toexamine the problems of the,vorld that our minds seemabout to destroy . . . In TheCalendar for the ~1odernAge ( Thomas Nelson), Elisa­beth Achelis argues for "TheWorld Calendar." The ne\vsystem ,vould malre all quar­ters equal and insure thatone's birthday ,vould fallonthe same day of the \veek eachyear; but it offers fe\v otherimprovements. And the evi­dence l\Iiss Achelis summonsup is sometimes queerly mys­tical and sometimes (e.g., "Incolor ,ve are told there are theprin1ary colors-red, blue, yel­lo\\' and also \vhite·') quite\Yl'ong.

T1-IOSE ,vho have a morbidinterest in ,vitchcraft and

diabolism will like A P?:ctorlalAnthology of Witchcraft,11lagic a.'nd Alchemy (Univer­sity Books), by Emile GrillotDe Givry. This volume in­cludes 400 quite horribleillustrations and many usefulspells. To make a girl loveyou, for exan1ple, you needonly touch her hand and mut­tel": "Bestarberto corrumpitviscera ej us mulieris."

If you try it, let us lrllowv;hat happened.

101

By JERRY SOHL

COUNTERWEIGHT

EtJery f01V!l has crime-but

eJ!Jecially a to'wn that tj

trazJeling from star to star!

SURE I"m a Nt~lly, and I't'edied seven tin~es, alluays

in the blackness of the outer'reaches, and I'm not alone, al­though there a,ren't t~ery

many of us, never 10ere.It made sense. Interstellar

was ne"v and they ,,,anted hinlon the ship because he ,vas atrained observer. Thev "rant­ed facts, not gibberish~. But toask a man to give up t,voyears of his life-,vell, that

102

,vas asking a lot. T,vo yearsin a sardine can. Still, it hadan appeal Keith ElIason kne,vhe couldn't deny, a ne,,,"sman'sjoy of the clean beat, a plan­etary system far afield, acloseup vie\v of the universe,history in the making.

Interstellar Chief Rexroadknocked the dottle from hispipe in a tray, saying,"Trans\vorld Press is ,villingto let you have a leave of ab-

scence, if you're interested."He knew Secretary Phipps

from years of contacting, andnow Phipps said, "Personally,I don't \vant to see anybodyelse on the job. You've got afine record in this sort ofthing."

Keith ElIason smiled, butjust barely. "You shouldhave called me for the firsttrip."

Phipps nodded. "I wish ,vehad had you on the WeblorI."

"Cre\vmen," Rexroad said,"make poor reporters."

The W eblor I had taken offon the first trip to Antheonfive years before ,vith athousand families, reachedthe planet ,vith less thali fivehundred surviving colonists.Upon the return to Earth ayear later, the cre,v's reportof suffering and chaos duringthe year's outgoing voyage\vas t,visted, distorted andfrag·mentary. Ellason remenl­bered it ,veIl. The decision ofInterstellar vias that thecolonists started a revolutionfar out in space, that it ,vasfanned by the ignorance ofCaptain Sessions in dealing\vith such matters.

"Space affects men in a pe­culiar \vay," Phipps said. "Wehave conquered the problemof small g"roups in space­witness the discovery of An­theon, for example-but ,vhenthere are large groups, con­trol is more difficult."

"Sessions," Rexroad said,

COUNTERWEIGHT

",vas a bully. The troublestarted at about the halfwaypoint. It ended ,vith passen­gers engaging in open war­fare with each other and thecre,v. Sessions ,vas lucky toescape \vith his life."

"As I recall," Ellason said,"there was something aboutstunners."

Phipps rubbed his chin."No ~"'eapons were allov,red onthe ship, but you must re­member the colonists '~Tere se­lected for their intelligenceand resourcefulness. Theyutilized these attributes to setup ,veapon shops to armthemselves." .

"The second trip is his­tory," Rexroad said. "And apuzzle."

ELLASON nodded. "Theship ·disappeared."

"Yes. We gave cOlltrol tothe colonists."

"Assuming no accident inspace," Phipps said, "it ~ras

a ,vrong decision. They prob­ably took over the ship."

"And no\v," ElIason said,"you're going to try again."

Rexroad said very gravely,"\\re've got the finest captainin Interplanetary. I-IarveyBranson. No doubt you'veheard of him. He's spent hislife in our o\vn system, andhe's handpicking his owncrew. We have also raisedprerequisites for aljplicants."re don't think anything isgoing to happen, but if itdoes, ,ve want to get an im-

103

personal, unprejudiced view.That's \vhere you come in.You do the observing, the re­porting. We'll evaluate it 011your return."

"If I return," said Ellason."I suppose that's problem­

atical," Phipps said, "but Ithink you will. Captain Bran­son and his fifty cre,vmen\vant to return as badly asyou do." He grinned. "Youcan write tllat novel you're al­ways talking about on yourreturn trip on the Weblor II."

Being a N1~lly ,is 'inL]Jortant,probably as intpoTtant as Tun­nin,g the ship, and I think itis this thought that keeps ussatisfied, tvilling to be 1vhat10e are.

THE Weblor II had beenbuilt in space, as had its

predecessor, the fl'eblor I, at

a tremendous cost. Basically,it was an instrument ,vhich,vould open distant vistas tocolonization, reducing theshoulder-to-shoulder pressureof a crowded solar sYstem. Agoigantic, hollo,v Sl)ike, theship would never land any­,vhere, but ,vould circle Au­theon as it circled Earth,shuttling its cargo and pas­sengers to the promised land,the new frontier. A space­borne metropolis, it ,vould bethe home for three thousandpersons out,vard bound, onlythe cre,v on the return trip.It was equipped \vith everyconceivable facility and com­fort-dining rooms, assembly

104

hall, individual and fam­ily compartments, recreationareas, s,vimming pool, library,theater. Nothing had beenoverlooked.

The captain's briefing room"vas crowded, the air ,vasheavy \vith the breathing ofso many men, and the ventila­tors could not quite clear theail' of tobacco smoke thatdrifted aimlessly here andthere before it ,vas caughtand \vhisked away.

In the tradition of ne,vs­papel'n1an and observer, KeithEllason tried to be as incon­spicuous as possible, pressingagainst a bulkhead, but Cap­tain Branson's eyes soughthis several tilnes as Bransonlistened to final reports fro111his engineers, record keepers,fuel BleB, computermen, andall the rest. lIe gruntedhis approval or disapproval,made a suggestion here, a re­striction there. There \vas nodoubt that Branson ,vas incharge, yet there ,vas a hu­man quality about him thatEllason liked. The captain's,vas a lean face, ,veIl tanned,and his eyes were chunks ofblue.

"Gentlemen," Branson saidat last, as Ellason kne\v he\vould, "I want to introduceKeith ElIason, whose pres­ence Interstellar has impress­ed upon us. On loan fromTrans\vorld, he will have anobserver status." He intro­duced him to the others. Allof them seemed friendly;

JERRY SOHL

Ellason thought it was a goodstaff.

Branson detained him afterthe others had gone. "Onething, Mr. ElIason. To makeit easier for you, I suggestyou think of this journeystrictly from the observervie\vpoint. There ,viII be 110story for Transworld at theend."

ElIason was startled. Whilehe had considered the possi­bility, he had not d,velt on it.Now it loomed large ill hismind. "1 don't understand,Captain Branson. It seems tome-"

"Let me put it differently.Let me say that you \vill notunderstand why I say that un­til the journey ends." Hesmiled. "Perhaps I shouldn'thave mentioned it."

ELLA;SON left the captain'squarters with an odd taste

in his mouth. No'v why hadBranson said that? Whvhadn't Rexroad or Phipps saidsomething, if it was inlpor­tant?

He made himself conlfort­able in his seven-foot-by-sev­en-foot cubicle, which is tosay he dropped on his bed,found it more comfortablethan he thought it \vould be,put his arms behind his head,stared at the ceiling. Metalwalls, no windows, one floorvent, one ceiling vent, and asolitary ceiling Inolding tube­light. This '\vould be his homefor a year, just as there were

COUNTERWEIGHT

homes like it for three thous­and others, except that t~efamily rooms would be larg­er. His quarters were near thefront of the spike near theofficers' quarters.

He felt rather than heardthe dull rumble. It was asound he knew would be withhim for two years-one yeargoing and one year returning.

He looked at his watch,picked up his notebook andlnade an entry. The ship rightnow ,vould be slipping everso slowly away from Earth.He got up. He'd have to goforward to the observationdome to see that. Last viewof Earth for t\VO years.

The penetration of spaceby large grou~ps is the comingout from under the traditionsof thousands of years, and asthese planet-o/rginated rulesfall away, the flounderinggroup seeks a ne1.V control,for they are humanity adrift,1·udderless, for 'lvhom thestars are no longe1'" bearingsbut nonexistent things, andfl'alues are alte1"ed if they arenot sho1.vn the 'lvay.

The theft of Caryer Jans­sen's attache case occurred onthe thirty-first day out. InEliason's mind the· incident,though insignificant from thestandpoint of the ship as a,vhole, could very ,veIl be thecause of dissension later on.I-lis notes covering it \veretherefore very thorough.

Janssen's case containedvegetable and flower seeds-

105

thousands of them, accordingto the Captain's Bulletin, theship's daily newsletter \vhichwent to all hands and passell­gel's. In the Bulletin the cap­tain appealed to the thief toreturn the case to Mr. Jans­sen. I-Ie said it \vas significantthat all en route had passedstability tests, and that it wasto the ship's discredit thatsomeone with criminal ten­dencies should have beell per­mitted aboard.

Ellasol1 had to smile at that.What did Captain Bransonthink of those colonists whokilled each other on the Web­lor I? They had passed sta­bility tests too. This, then,was vvhat happened when youtook three thousand strangersand stuck them in a can for ayear.

WHEN ElIason saw Bran­son about it, the captain

said, ",Of course I realize ittakes only a little thing likethis to set things off. I kno\vpeople g'et tired of seeing eachother, playing the same tapes,looking at the stars from theobservatjon dome, \valkingdo\vn the same' corridors,reading the same books, eat­ing the same meals, thougIlGod kno1vs \ve try to vary itas 111uch as \ve can. Spacecreates rough edges. But thepoint is, ,\ve kno"v all this, andkno\ving it, \ve shouldn't letit happen. \Ve've got to findthat thief."

"What \vould he \vant seeds

106

for? Have you thought ofthat?"

"Of course. They'd havereal value on Antheon."

Ellason sought out CarverJanssen. He was a middle­aged man ,vith a tired faceand sad eyes. He said, "Now,vhat am I going to Antheonfor? I could only tal\:e alongso much b.aggage and I thre,vout some comfort items tomake room for the seeds. I'ma horticulturist, and Inter­stellar asked me to go along.But what use am I no\v?Where am I going to getseeds like those? Do you knowho\v long it took me to collectthem? They're not ordinaryseeds, Mr. ElIason."

There was an appeal fromJanssen in the next day'sne\vsletter describing theseeds, telling of their value,and requesting their returnin the interests of the An­theon colony and vf humanity.

On the thirty-fourth day a\vitness turned up who saidhe had seen a man elnergingfrom Janssen's compartment\vith the black case. "I didn'tthink anything of it at thetime," Jamieson Dievers said.

Branson asked hinl to de­scribe the man.

"Oh, he "vas about six feettall, stocky build, and he worea red rubber mask that cov­ered his head completely."

"Didn't you think that wasimportant '?" Branson askedin an outraged voice. "A man\vearing a red mask 7"

JERRY SOHL

Dievers shrugged. "This isa spaceship. How would Ikno\v \vhether a red mask­or a blue or green one-doesor doesn't belong on a space­ship ?"

Altll0Ugh Dievers' accountappeared in the ne,vsletter, itVias largely discounted.

"If it is true," Branson toldElIason, "the theft must bethe \vork of a psychotic. ButI don~t believe Jamieson Diev­ers. It may ,veIl be he's thepsychotic." He snorted. "Redrubber mask! I think I'll haveDievers put through psychia­try."

Attendant to tal\:ing 110teson this incident, Ellasonnoted a strange thing. J ans­sen lived in that part of theship known as the FirstQuadrant, and those who livedin that quadrant-more thanseven hundred men, ,vomenand children-felt that thethief must surely live inQuadrant T\vo or Four. EliasCromley, ,vho had the com­partnlent next to Janssen's,sounded the consensus \vhenhe said, "Surely a man would­n't steal from his own quad­rant, now ,vould he, Mr.Ellason ?"

And so, Ellason observed inhis notebook, are wars creat­ed.

Scr:n -in space, stars are un­uto'cing, silent, sterile brightryes c/verlcatch!lll and accus­ing. To 1nen unused to it,such a sight nurnbs, com­1Yfesscs, stult'l°jies. He intro-

COUNTERWEIGHT

duces a countermeasure, proofhe exists, 1vhich is any overtact, sometimes violent.

ON THE forty-fifth dayJune Failright, the young

wife of one of the passengermeteorologists, ran screamingdo\vn one of the long corri­dors of the Third Quadrant.She told the captain she hadbeen attacked in her compart­ment ,vhile her husband wasin the ship's library. She wastaken to one of the ship's doc­tors, ,vho confirmed it.

She said the culprit was ahusky man ,vearing a redrubber mask, and though herdescription of \vhat he haddone did not appear I in thestory in the newsletter, it lostno time in penetrating everycompartment of the ship.

ElIason ,vas present ,vhena delegation from the ThirdQuadrant called on CaptainBranson, demanding action.

Branson remained seatedbehind his desk, unperturbed,saying, "I have no cre'\vmento spare for police duty."

The delegation commencedspeaking vehemently, to bequieted by Branson's raisedhanel. .

"I syn1pathize," Bransonsaid, "but it is up to eachquadrant to deal with itsproblems, ,vhatever they maybe. My job is to get us to An~theon."

The group left in a surlymood.

"You wonder at my reluc-

107

tance, Mr. ElIason," CaptainBranson said. "But suppose Iassign the crew to patrolduties, the culprit isn'tcaught, and further incidentsoccur. What then? It soon be­comes the crew's fault. Andsoon the colonists will beginthinking these things mightbe the crew's doing in thefirst place."

"Yes," Ellason said, "butwhat if the intruder is acrewman?"

"1 know my men," Bransonsaid flatly.

"You could have a shake­down for the Inask and theseed case."

"Do you think it is a mem­ber of the crew?" Branson'seyes were bright. "No, I trustmy men. I won't violate thattrust."

Ellason left, feeling un­easy. If he were Branson,he'd initiate an investigation,if nothing else than to provethe crew guiltless. Whycouldn't Branson see the wis­dom of setting an exanlple forthe colonists?

As a Nilly, I kne~v thatspace breeds hate. There is aseed of malevolence 1:n everyman. It sometimes blossornsout a1nong the staTS. On theWeblor II it ~vas ready forripening. "

Raymond Palugger ,vaskilled in the ship's hospital onthe sixty-first day. Palugger,a Fourth Quadrant passenger,had complained of feeling ill,had been hospitalized with a

108

diagnosis of ileus. He had puthis money belt in the drawerof the small stand beside hisbed. A man in a red mask wasseen hurrying from the hos­pital area, and a staff investi­gation revealed that Paluggerhad died trying to prevent thetheft of the belt.

Captain Branson did notwait for the newsletter.Through the ship's speakersystem, he reported that Pa­lugger had a fortul1e in cred­its in the belt and had died ofa severe beating. He said thatsince the incident occurred inthe staff section of the ship,his crew would be forced tosubmit to a thorough inspec­tion in an effort to find themask, the seed case, themoney and the man.

"I will not countenancesuch an act by a crewman,"Branson said. "If and whenhe is found, he will be severe­ly dealt with. But he mightnot be a member of the cre,v.I am ordering an assembly ofall passengers at nine tomor­row morning in the auditor­ium. I will speak to you allthen."

FACES were angry, tongueswere sharp at the meet­

ing, eyes suspicious and tem­pers short. Above it all wasthe overpowering presence ofCaptain Branson speaking tothem.

"It is not my desire to in­terfere in passenger affairs,"he said. "Insofar as the ship

JERRY SOHL

is concerned, it is my duty toInake certain no cre\vman isguilty. This I am doing. Butmy cre\v is not and cannot bea police force for you. It is upto you people to police andprotect yourselves."

"Ho,v can \ve protect our­selves \vithout stunners '!" onecolonist called out.

"Has Red Mask a gun ?"Branson retorted. "It seemsto me you have a better \veap­on than any gun."

"\Vhat's that?""This ship is only so \vide,

so long and so deep. If everyinch is searched, you'll findyour nlan. He has to be SOlne­\\there aboard."

The colonists quieted. Ben­jamin Simpson, one of theolder men, \vas elected presi­dent of the ne\vly formedQuadrant Council. One manfrom each .of the quadrantswas named to serve underhim. Each of these men inturn selected five others fron1his -o\vn group.

Those assembled \vaited inthe hall \vhile each team ofsix inspected the compart­ments of the others. Thesecompartments ,vere then lock­ed, everyone returned to hiscompartment, and the largersearch ,vas conducted. It tookt,venty hours.

No mask was found. Nomask, no case, no money, noInan.

The captain reported thathis search had been equallyfruitless. At another assem-

COUNTERWEIGHT

bly the follo"ring day it wasdecided to make the inspec­tion teams permanent, toa\vait further moves on thepart of Red Mask. The Quad­rant Council held periodicmeetings to set up a methodof trial for him ,vhen he ,vascaught. It ,vas all recorded inthe ne,vsletter and by KeithEllason.

JVe Nillys kn01.o about hateand about 1,iolence. We k1'tOlV

too that lvhere the1~e is hateth ere is 'violence, and 1vherethere ris violence there isdeath.

....DURING sleep time on theseventy-ninth day Bar­

bara Stoneman, awakened bya strange sound, sat up in thebed of her compartment tofind a n1an in a red mask inher room. Her cries broughtneighbors into the corridor.The flight of the man was\vitnessed by many, and sev­eral men tried to stop him.But the intruder \vas light ·onhis feet and fast. He escaped.

The Quadrant Council con­fronted the captain, demand­ing- \veapons.

"Are you out of yourminds?" Branson exclaimed.

Ton1 Tilbury, Fourth Quad­rant leader, said, "We ,vantto set up a police force, Cap­tain. We ,vant stunners."

"There's no la,v againstit," Branson said, "but it's arule of mine that no weaponsare to be issued en route."

"If \ve had had a gun, ,ve'd

109

have got Red Mask," Tilburysaid.

"And I might have a mur­der. on my conscience."

Tilbury said, "We've alsothought of that. Suppose yousupply us ,vith half-po,,'"erstunners? That ,yav \ye canstun but not kill." ~

They got their guns. N O\Vthere \vere t\venty-four po­licemen on duty in the corri­dors-eight on at a tinle.Ellason observed that for thefirst time the passengersseemed relaxed.

Let Red l\iask lTIOVe againstarmed men, they said.

Yeah, let him see ,yhathappens now.

Red l\tlask did.

ON THE lOlst day he ,,,"asseen in a corridor in

Quadrant Four. Emil Pierce,policeman on duty, managedto squeeze off several shots athis retreating figure.

Red Mask ,vas seen againon the 120th day, on the 135thday, and the 157th day. I-Ie\vas seen, shot at, but not hit.lIe was also unable to com­mit any crime.

We've got him on the run,the colonists said.

He's afraid to do anything,now that we've got police pro­tection, they said s111ugl,Y.

The Quadrant Council con­gratulated itself. The pas­sengers ,vere proud ofthemselves. A special congrat­ulatory message fron1 Cap­tain Branson appeared one

110

day in the Bulletin newslet­ter.

The colonists settled do,,'"nto living out the rest of thevoyage until the landing onAntheon.

But on the 170th daycalamity struck. Red Maskappropriated one of the stun­ners, made his \vay do"vn one,vhole corridor section inQuadrant T,vo, put occupantsto sleep as he ,vent, takinglnany articles of value' andleaving disorder behind.

ElIason interviewed asnlany victinls as he could,noted it all in his book. Thethings taken \vere keepsakes,photographs and iten1s ofpersonal value. It seemed tobe the ,vorl\: of a lnactman. IfRed l\Iask \vanted to makeeveryone furious, he certain­ly succeeded.

"vVhat does he want thatstuff for '?" Casey Stromberg,a passenger doctor, a~ked. "Ican see him taking nlY nar­cotics, my doctor's kit-butnlY dead ,vife's picture? ThatI don't understand."

It ,vas the saIne with oth­ers. "The Blan's insane, lVIl'.Ellason., Positively insane."Many people said it.

The council issued ordersthat all passengers from no,von \vould be required to locktheir compartments at alltimes. ~lore guns \vere ob­tained fl'On1 the captain~ l\Iorepolicemen \\Tere appointed.

ElIason ,vas busy noting itall in his book. It becarrlc 1ill-

JERRY SOHL

cd with jottings about inno­cent people being accidentallystunned ,,,,hen trigger-happypolicemen thought their move­ments suspicious, about oneman's suspicion of anotherand the ensuing search ofcompartlnents, people ,vhosa\\' Red Mask here, sa"r hinlthere. Hardly a day went bywithout some nc\\' develop­ment.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Eliason, ,ve'regoing to get him," said Til­bury, no\v chief of police,cracl~ing his knuckles, hiseyes glovving at the thought."We're bound to get him.We've got things \\forked outto the finest detail. He \van'tbe able to get through our1ingeI-s llO\V. Just let himmake so much as a move."

"And \vhat will you do\vhen you get him '!"

"Kill him," Tilbury said,licking his lips, his eyes glo\v­ing more fiercely than ever.

'·Without a trial?""Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr.

Ellason, but you don't thinkany jury'd let him live afterall the things he's done, doyou?"

RED MASK was stunned inQuadrant Four in a cor­

ridor by a policeman namedTer:ryl Placer on the 201stday. The criminal ,vas car­ried to the assembly roomsurrounded by guards, for hesurely would have been maul­ed, if. not killed, by angrycolonists \vho crowded around.COUNTERWEIGHT

In the assembly hall his masl{\vas ,vhipped off. The cro,vdgasped. Nobody kne\v him.

Ellason's first thought wasthat ·he must be a sto\va,vay,but then he l·emembered theface, and Captain Branson,\vho came to have a look athim, unhappily admitted theman \vas a member of thecre\v. l-lis nanlC \vas IIarrelCritten and he \vas a record]i:eeper third class.

"Well, Critten," Bransonroared at him, "\vhat haveyou got to say for yourself?"

"Go to hell," Crittell saidquietly. As if it ,vere an after­thought, he spat at the cap­tain.

Branson looked as if he\vere going to kill the manhimself right there and then.

It \vas a long trial-fromthe 220th to the 241st day­and there didn't seem to bemuch doubt about the out­come, for Critten didn't helphis own cause during any ofit.

Lemuel Tarper, \vho wasappointed prosecutor, askedhim, "What did you do \viththe loot, Critten?"

Critten looked him squarein the eye and said, "I thre,vit out one of the escapechutes. Does that answeryour question?"

"Threw it a\\ray?" Tarperand the crowd \vere incredu­lous.

"Sure," Critten said. "Youcolonists got the easy lifeas passengers, just sitting

111

around. I had to "vork myhead off keeping records foryou lazy bastards."

The verdict was, of course,death.

They executed Harrel Crit­ten on the morning of the270th day with blasts froln sixstunners supplied ,vith fullpower. It was witnessed by agreat crowd in the assembly11all. A detail from the ship'screw disposed of llis - bodythrough a chute.

It was all duly recorded inKeith Ellason's notebooks.

Dying is eo:sy for a· Nilly.Espec'ially if 'it's arranged forbeforehand, 'ltvhich it al'lDaysis.

THE Weblo'i' II was only oneday out of orbit ,,,,hen

Captain Branson sent forEllason and introduced himto the executed man.

"Hello," Critten said, grin­ning from ear to ear.'

"I figured as much," Ella­son said. "I've been doing alot of thinking."

"You're perhaps a little toogood as an observer," Bran­son said. "Or maybe it ,vasbecause you real'ly "reren'tone of the colonists. But nomatter, Critten did a goodjob. He ,vas trained by an oldfriend of mine for this job,G·elthorpe Nil!. Nill used to bein counter-espionage ,vhenthere ,,,ere ,val's."

"You were excellent," ElIa­son said.

"Can't say I enjoyed the'

112

role," said Critten, "but Ithink it saved lives."

"Let me get this straight.Interstellar thought that itvvas idleness and boredomthat caused the killing"s on theWeblor I, so they had youtrained to be a scapegoat. Isthat right?"

Critten nodded. "Whellg"reat numbers are beingtransported, they ,are apt to.1l1agnify each little event be­cause so little happens. It ,vasmy job to see that they direct­ed none of their Ven01TIagainst each other or thecre,v, only to,vard me.~'

Branson snliled. '~It madethe tin1e pass quickly and in­terestingly for the passen­gers."

"To say nothing or me,"Critten said.

"And you, Mr. Ellason,,vere along to observe it all,"Captain Branson put in. "In­terstellar ,vanted an accuratepicture of this. If it v,~ol'ked,

they told me they'd use it onother trips to Antheon."

ElIason nodded. "No tinlefor brooding, for differencesof opinion on small matters.Just tinlC to hate 1\'lr. Critten.Unanirnously."

"Probably," Critten said,"you are \vondering about theexecution."

"Naturally.""We removed the charges

before the guns ,vere used.""And Carver J8..nssen's

case'!""lIe'll get it back Ytrhen he's

JERRY SOHL

shuttled to Antheon. And allthe other items will be re­turned. They're all tagged,vith their o\vner's names.Captain-Branson will say theywere found some\vhere on theship. You see, I was a liar."

"Ho\v about that assault onJune Failright?"

Critten grinned again. "Sheplayed right into our hands.She ran out into the hallclaiming I'd attacked her,which I did not. She was cer­tainly amazed ,vhen the ship'sphysicians agreed with her.Of course Captain Bransontold them to do that."

"And the murder?""Raymond Palugger died

in the hospital all right, buthe died from his illness on theoperating table. We turned itinto an advantage by makingit look suspicious."

Ellason brightened. "Andby that time everybody ,vasseeing Red Mask everywhereand the colonists organizedagainst him."

"Gave them something todo," Branson said.

"Every time things gotdull, I livened them .up. I got

a stunner and robbed alongthe corridor. That really stir­red them. Lucky nobody gothurt during any of it, includ­ing that Stoneman woman. Iwas trying to rob her whenshe wo}{e up."

BRANSON cleared histhroat. "Ah, Ellason about

that story. You understandyou can't write it, don't you ?"

Ellason said regretfullythat he did understand.

"The colonists will neverknow the truth," Bransonvvent on. "There will be otherships outvvard bound."

Critten sighed. "And I'llhave to be caught again."

Yes, we're anonymous,nameless, 'Zve Nillys, for that's1vhat we call each other, andare a theme, with variations,in the endless stretches ofdeep space, objects of hatredand contempt, professionalheels, dying once a trip whenthe time is ripe, antidote toboredom, and we'll ply ourtrade, our little tragedies, ona tho~lsand ships bringing hu­rJ~anity to neu) worlds.

END

NEW LIGHT"EL"-electroluminescence-is the next stage beyond incandescent andfluorescent light; made up of phosphor-plastic "sandwiches," EL allowsextremely uniform and flexible lighting, promising ,valls of light, drapesof light, picture-frame TV, and safer X-raying. Already on the marketis an EL night light-a two-inch square panel that will burn a yearfor less than a penny's electricity-and breakthroughs are expected todevelop brighter phosphors, says Industrial Research.

COUNTERWEIGHT 113

ORAN'GEBy E. C. TUBB

THE man wore gray pants,gray socks, gray shoes.

His blouse was gray, his hair,his eyes, the color of his skin.I didn't have to ask his name.

(114

He looked at me and hiseyes widened. "Ruby?"

I nodded, ignoring the ex­pression. It was one I hadseen too often. One day, per-

Sweet choice they gave me-to make a living on

DisparJ 1 had. to be someone's m:urder proxy!

haps, I might get used to it.One day.

He ordered rye on rocks,double rye and not too manyice cubes. The liquor stung my

throat as it went down. It wasgood rye. It had traveled wellacross space.

Gray said, "Someone wantsto kill me."

115

"So?" I asked."So n9w you know why I

sent for you." He picked uphis glass, the ice rattling ashe lifted it to his mouth. "1don't want to die."

"Who does ?" The drink wasfree. 1 finished it and \vaitedfor him to say something.

"It's a business lnatter, Ithink," he said. "You }{nowhow it is. I've done prettywell out here and anyone whodoes that makes enemies. Nowone of them wants to killme."

"Do you kno\v who?""Someone called Orange."

He shrugged at that. "I re­ceived notification of- intentthis morning, effective asfrom dawn tomorrow. Theusual thing: either I leaveDispar or I get killed." I-Ietried to smile and didn'tquite make it. "A simplechoice."

"Then why not take it?""Run away?" He looked

past me, his imaginationpenetrating the walls andreaching to the lush, fertilelands at the foot of the Rag­ing Hills. Meltin grew inthose lands and meltin fetch­ed ahundred solars an ounce,port of entry, Earth. It isnever easy to run a,vay froma fortune. Gray, apparently,was finding it impossible.

The empty glass in myhand was a nuisance. I set itdown. The bartender \vaitedfor Gray's nod before he re­filled it..

116

"So you don't want torun," I said. "What do youwant?"

"I want you to act asproxy." He didn't look at meas he said it. "If you agree,you can file notification andtake care of things for me."He hesitated. "I'll pay youwell." .

"How well?"

THE hesitation gre\v. Moneyand Gray v;ere obviously,

closer than husband and v;ife.I waited. It is always an edu­cation to find out just howmuch a man values his exist­ance.

"Five thousand solars­payable when my enemy hasbeen eliminated."

I swallowed my drink andheaded toward the door. Hecaught my arm as I passed.

"Ruby! For God's sake!""What?""How much do you want'?""Ten thousand solars now.

Ten more when the job is fin­ished."

"That's robbery!"I jerked my arm away from

his hand. "It's your skin."He bit his lip, thinking of

all the money his life was go­ing to cost him. Money hecould earn in a few weeks'hard "vork at his concession.His eyes drifted over my face.

"Acid! My client nearly lostout that time. \Vell?"

His fingers trembled asthey counted out the money.They were moist when they

E. C. TUBB

clutched my hand. "Ruby!You'll make sure?"

The money went into mypocket.

"I'll do my best.""Of course you will." He

seemed to want convincing."Look, I'll hole up some,vhereuntil it's over. The TerraHotel. You know it?"

"No, but I'll find it.""I'll ,vait there for your

call." He scowled at his golass,more relaxed now that thething ,vas done. "A hell of asituation," he complained. "Athing like this could neverhappen on Earth."

He didn't have to remindme that \ve weren't on Earth.

TI1:E office of the DisparGeneral ,vas on the edge of

the spaceport, do,vn ,vherethe fat-bellied freighters lift­ed for home, their holdsstuffed with meltin for an in­satiable market. IVleltin could­n't exactly cure cancer, but itcould arrest it. It could giveinlmunity as ,veIl, and ,vithsomething like over four bil­lion people clamoring for inl­munity, it was in high de­mand.

1"1here ,vasn't a day, seenl­ingly, \vhen freighters didn'tdrop do,vn to the spaceport,their holds stuffed ,vith lux­ury goods. But it was a rareclay \-vhen one of those sameships headed back to Earth.On the face of it the problem\-vas a sinlple one: merely col­lect enough meltin to satisfy

ORANGE

the demand. But there weresnags.

One of them stared at meas I entered the office. He wasa native Disparian, sevenfeet tall, lithe, dressed in asimple toga-type garment. Hiseyes were like je\\rels.

"You ,vant?" He question­ed.

"l\fy name is Ruby. I amacting as proxy for a mannamed Gray who has receivednotification of intent fromsomeone called Orange. I,vish to register myself asthat proxy."

From a desk behind thecounter a form lifted itselfinto the air and fluttereddo,vn before me. 4\ stylothrust itself into my hand. I,vasl1't startled; it had hap­pened to Ine before.· But I ,vasilnpressed.

"~-'ill out the docu.ment.Sign it and place the imprintsof the balls of both yourthumbs on the sheet.. l' TheDisparian ,vas bored. "Youkno\v \vhat to do; this is notthe first time you have doneit."

His voice had no tone. It,vould have soullded the samein empty space. Telepathshave no need to comlnunicateby sound vibration, and eachand every Disparian wasmore than just a telepath. It,vas their mental powers­their psi faculties, to quotethe long-hairs-that madethem absolute masters oftheir world.

117

I filled in the form, signedit, placed the balls of "boththumbs on the sensitized sur­faceof the form.

"You ,viII notify the personconcerned that I am officialproxy for Gray?"

"Yes."With a normal man I would

have s\\Tapped gossip, tried tofind out, maybe, just whichOrange the would-be killerwas, paid for his address, per­haps--thingg like that. Witha Disparian that ,vas impos­sible. I-Iow can you pump anutterly cold and remote con­ception of justice? You can't.It ,,,ould have been a wasteof time to try.

"Is there anything else '?"He was polite, but distantlyso. I had probably broken hiscommunion with his fello\vs,or interrupted his game oftelepathic patience, or ,vhat­ever Disparians did foramusement.

"T'hank you, no."I vralked out of the office,

by choice a man no\v markedfor death. I ,vas Gray's proxy,vvhich meant that Orange,\vhoever he ,vas, had to killme, not Gray. If he succeeded,then Gray was officially dead.He vvould lose his concessionand could do as he liked aboutstaying or going home. If, onthe other hand, I killed Or­ange, then no one could fileintent against Gray for an­other three months.

It was a hell of a ,yay toearn a living.

118

SURROUND a spaceport by\varehouses, depositories,

houses and bars, hotels andflop-joints. Add the bigstores, the yeast and algaeplants, the supply sheds. Cutit ,vith a few roads, hang outa fe,v lights, install a fewphone booths. Squeeze toomany people into too small anarea. Dispar!

I'd hated it for five years.I'd landed ,vith high hopesand no money and had runsmack up against some of theuglier facts of life. I'd almoststarved before I cottoned on.Almost ran into debt, which,vas ,vorse. N 0\", five yearslater, I had a face I hated tolook at, a reputation no nor­mal man should be proud of.But I ,vas beating the system.

The bank was open allnight. I entered, ignored thet,vo guards and deposited fiveof the ten thousand Gray hadgiven me. The teller ,vas aserf, the silver of his collarbright against the jet of hisskin. He fingered my money,vith loving hands.

"Doing well, Mr. Ruby?""Doing 'veIl, Mr. Black."He stamped my passbook

and handed it back, envy inhis eyes. He was surroundedby money and couldn't toucha minim of it. He \\lorked forbed, board and a reduction ofhis debt. He ,vould probablydie long before he had clearedit.

A man brushed past me asI left the bank. The lights

E. C. TUBB

shone on puce clothing, puceshoes, puce skin'. lIe looked atme with puce eyes. Pucewasn't orange, so it didn't,vorry me.

I dropped into a phonebooth and checked on Orange.Fifty-t\vO ,vere listed, any ofwhich could be the one gun­ning for Gray. Gunning forme, rather, or ,vould be atda\vn.

I looked outside the booth.Puce ,vas ,vaiting near a cor­ner. I stepped out of thebooth and held the door open,fumbling in my pocket as iffor a coin. I looked helplesslyat him. I

"Change," I said. "Couldyou oblige 7"

He came for,val'd, and ashe came ,vithin rang'e, I re­leased my hold of the doorand pushed him into thebooth. I leaned nlY \veightagainst the door, found ametal ,veclge in my pocket andthrust it home. lie beatagainst the panel, ~'ellect

something I couldn't hear. Ismiled at him and shook nlYhead. As I \valkcd a,vay }le\vas desperately using thephone.

I had no time to ,vaste­Puce hacl already fingerect me.Conle da,vn, Orange ,vouldkno,v just "There to find me,,,,ould probably be ,vaitinguntil the sun lifted so as tostrike before 1 could protectmyself.

At the Bureau I checkedthe residents' ledger. Of the

ORANGE

fifty-t\vO Oranges, I 'concen­trated only on those who hadrecently landed and cou}(1have had money enough tohire lookouts, and those whohad been around long enoughto have learned the ropes andnlaybe made friends. I elim­inated about half the numberand felt lucky at that. It couldhave been a White who wasafter Gray; there were sixhundred and thirty of them.Or Black, seven hundred andtlfty-eight. Orange, fortunate­l~~ for me, was not a popularcolor.

It ,vas near da\vn when Ileft the Bureau and I had to1110Ve fast. The supply clerk,a Bro,vn, fingered his silvercollar and looked \vistfully atthe Raging H ills in tl1e dis­tance.

"Supplies for a seven-daytrip ? You going to try a littlepoaching, Ruby?"

"You kno,v better thanthat," I said.

"I ]'{now, but do you?" liestudied me. "I guess you do.\,rell, \vhat do you want? Acar?"

"I'll ,valk." Cars cost Inoneyto hire and could be seen fora luile.

"Pack, rations, ,vater, com­pass, medical kit, bush outfit,enlcrgency radio-"

"I~o radio.""It's the Ja,v." He added it

to the heap of supplies. "I'"ouget into trouble, you press thebutton and they come out aft-er you." .

119

"And charge you both armsand a leg."

"Practically," he admitted."But it could nlean your life."His fingers strayed to his col­lar. "Such as it is."

"I'll take the radio. And aknife."

He added an eighteen-inchbush knife to the heap. Helooked at me. He was no fool."A gUll?"

"How much?""Five thousand.""No." Five thousand for a

single shot ,vas too much."How much do I owe?"

"Two for the hire and fivefor the deposit." He countedout the money I passed tohim. "Good luck, Ruby."

"Thanks."It was almost da\vn. Time

was running out.

THE sun lifted before I ,vasa furlong fronl to,vn.

Crouching beneath a spinedbush, I \vatehed my back­trail, \\1ondering if Orangewould be dumb enough toCOlne straight out after me.Re wasn't that dumb. I \vait­ed an hour and then had tomove. I headed for the Rag­ing Hills.

Nowhere in the Galaxy isthere undergro\vth like thereis on Dispar. Every bush is­covered ,vith spines, eachblade of grass is a tiny s\vord,the very leaves are jaggedknives. Silicon, of course.Life on Dispar has evolvedaround it as we evolved

120

around carbon. And there is\vild life, too-nasty wildlife.

I stepped from the narrowpath made by some creatureand let a shimmering thing ofscales and claws lumber past.It ignored me, but the insectsdidn't. A group of them triedto bore a hole through nlYbush outfit. I brushed themoff \yith a gloved hand andthen stepped out again, tryingnot to let the t\vitching be­t\veen my shoulder blades getthe better of me.

Orange couldn't be thatclose.

I \vondered about Orangeas I forced my ,yay throughthe undergro\vth. A lot de­pended on just ho\v expe­rienced he vias. An amateurwould hesitate, perhaps tall(in order to bolster up hiscourage. A personal enemy\voulcl \vant to gloat. Moreimportant, a personal enero.y\vould have no real satisfac­tion in killing a proxy. Hemight do it, but his motiva­tions \vouldn't be the s~me.

A golinting ,vcb of spunglass dissolved beneath theslash of my bush knife. I tookno trouble to hide my trail. Iwanted Orange to follo\v me.Later, when I had reachedthe correct spot, then I ,vouldset my snare.

A car drifted past over­head, the phutt - phutt ­phutt of its rotors -soundinga continent away. I stared upat it enviously. Some conces-

E. C. TUBB

sionaire, probably, going outto his leasehold, there tospend a few days collectingmeltin, and eal~ning, in thosefew days, more money than Isaw in months. .

The car vanished in thedistance toward the RagingHills. The sound of the rotorsfaded and I hacked at the un­dergrowth with vicious exas­peration. Damn Dispar! Anddamn the Disparians for mak­ing life what it was!

It took most of two days toget where I was going. Somerocket ship Ilad blasted aclearing in the vegetationway back before the space­port had been built, and thelocal shrubbery had only justmanaged to encroach on thefused area. I took trouble toleave no traces as I crossedthe clearing, and when I fi­nally squatted down, it wouldhave taken more than an ex­pert to guess at my presence.That done, I had nothingmore to do but wait.

I waited three days.

ORANGE was more cleverthan I had guessed. He

had employed tails, whichwas the reason I had left thecity. Normally I would havemet him on my own ground,but with paid shadows report­ing n1Y every move, the dicewere loaded against me. So Ihad left the city, hoping thathe would come after me. Ithad been a calculated risk. Hecould have waited until my

ORANGE

supplies ran out, then am­bushed me on my return.That would have been thesmart thing to have done. In­stead he had lost patienceand, with luck, it would costhim his life.

But it almost cost memine.

I'd made a hideout beneatha spined bush, scooping ashallow hole and lying in itso that I blended with thevegetation. From my positionI could see every inch of theclearing, the trail I had fol­lowed· being directly oppositeto me. I wasn't too \vorried atnight. Not even the beastscould move around withoutsounding as if they'd run intoa chandelier. But the dayswere something else.

Lying in one position hourafter hour, a man has tobrush off the borers, open hismask to take a drink or to eat,ease cramped muscles, a doz­en little moves. I'm prettygood at emulating a robot, butI have my limit. I'd opened aration pack, eaten, taken adrink of water and had lim­bered up a little. I was justcrawling back .into my hole,vhen a shot blasted theground before me.

I should have had m~T headincinerated by the blast, butOrange had been j llst a shadetoo eager. The shot missedme, and before the echoes haddied a\vay, I ,vas twentyyards distant, rolling with asound of broken glass. A sec-

121

ond shot followed me. A third.Then I was in a crouch, myeyes searching the under­growth.

It was quiet, too quiet. Thetinkling and brittle snappinghad died with the echo of theshots. From far away a carsent down a Inurmuring hum,but in the undergrowth lifeseemed to have paused infrozen immobility.

Then I heard it. Somethinglunged through the bush. Ashot blasted toward it. Therewas a deep, hissing roar, ascream and then a final shot.The hissing died into a liquidgurgle which faded as thecreature died. It had probablysaved my life, but I was toobusy to feel sorry for it. Itwas dead, but I wasn't sureabout the gunner.

I found Orange lying in aheap against the bole of astunted tree. The animal wasnearby, already thickly cov­ered vvith scavenger beetles.I crept forward, bush kniferaised to delivel" a l\:illingblo\v, then dropped it as Icame close enough for a goodlook.

Orange \vas a woman.

"you spared my life," shesaid. "Why?"

It was a reasonable ques­tion. As official proxy, it wasmy duty to kill or be killed.Instead I had picked her up,checked her for damage,found an ugly gash on onethigh and had injected her

122

with the contents of mysurvival hypo. Given soonenough, the antibiotics wouldsave her from infection.

"You're a woman." The ex­cnse sounded lame. "'I'm cu­rious about why a womanshould file intent to kill."

"Anything against it?""No. It's just unusual.""I ]{now." She winced as

she eased her thigh. "Youthink that a ,voman on Dis­par can make out quite nice­ly in other ways. Maybe somecan. I don't happen to be oneof them."

"You're not a killer either.""Anyone can squeeze a trig­

ger." She didn't look at me."Well, \vhen are you going toget it over?"

She had courage. She hadother things too-I couldsense her femininity eventhrough a double layer ofbush clothing. Her orange­dyed skin, eyes and hair didnothing to spoil-~ her pretti­ness. I{illing her was some­thing I didn't \vant to do.

When the beast had attack­ed, it had scattered herequipment and supplies. I\vent back to my hideout andfound \vhat I'd been afraidof: her first shot had missedmy head, but had incineratedmy gear.

I returned to \vhere she layand made a quick check. Acanteen of \vater had escapeddamage; a single ration \vasstill edible. Aside from thatwe had nothing but the

E. C. TUBB

enlergency radios hooked toour belts. A

I picked up her rifle and ex­amined il The magazine wasempty.

"Five shots at five thous­and a shot," I said. "Addrental of other stuff" depositand the rest, and it comes outto about fifty thousand."

"So?'~ -"That's a lot of money for

a girl "\¥ho only landed a cou­ple of vveeks ago. Who putyou up to it, Orange?"

"You're smart. Why asl\:me?"

"Because I think that youare being used for a pigeon."I sat down beside her. "Ichecked the residents' ledgerat the Bureau. I've got a goodmemory, but I discounted youas the killer. You just didn'tfit, a vvoman, fresh on Dis-

-par, the rest of it. Why didyou w'ant to kill Gray?"

"For his concession.""Reason enough. In fact,

it's the only reason anyone,vould ille intent to kill-theonly logical reason, that is.\'lho briefed you, Orange?"

"No one.""But you kne\v about prox­

ies? You knew that I'd agreedto take Gray's place?" Ileaned back, the canteen inmy hand. "You haven't beellon Djspar long enough tolearn all you have picked up.How about coming clean, 01'­ange?"

"Why should I? You're go­ing to l(ill me anyway."

ORANGE

"No, Orange, not me." Iclimbed to my feet. "I'll justwalk away and leave youhere. You've no food, nowater, and you can't eat thelocal produce. You'll sit herefor a while and maybe you'lltry to make it back to town.You'll get panicky and thirstyand hungry. You'll be aloneand you'll get lost. You'll dis­cover that you're dying andthen you'll press the buttonon your radio. You know\vhat happens then?"

"A Disparian ,viII come outfor me."

,"That's right. And thenyou'll get a bill for servicesrendered and you'll have topay it. If you can't, you'll besold into bondage and wear asilver collar. Can you guess,vhat your life \vould be likethen, Orange?" I steppedaway from her. "No, I won'tkill you. I dOll't have to."

I HAD gone maybe twentyyards before she called to

me. She ,vas scared."Did you mean that? About

me being sold into slaverr?""Bondage? Yes.""It's the same thing." She

fro,vned into the distance."Ruby, \vhy do they do it?"

"It's their system, the Dis­parians'."

"It's a lousy system.""It's the one we're stuck

with." I slipped an armaround her shoulders andheaved her to her feet. "Let'sget moving."

123

"But you wanted to talk.""We can do that on the

way back to town."She talked. Her story didn't

surprise me-I'd lost the ca­pacity for surprise some timeago-but it gave me time tothink. But I wasn't surprised.

Dispar grew meltin andEarth wanted it. Normallywe would have stepped in andtaken what we "\vanted, butthis time we couldn't do that.Not when the natives couldteleport themselves into theengine room of a spaceshipand detonate it at will. Notwhen the enemy was a ,vill­of-the-wisp no one couldfight, bribe, bro,vbeat orcheat. If Earth wanted melt­in, it had to get it on Dispar­ian terms.

And so the system. Thelucky ones had concessions tocollect meltin and grew rich.The others worked for thelucky ones or killed them andtook over their concessions.Others made out by supplyingfood -and supplies ,vithoutwhich human life on Disparwas impossible. The Dispar­ians had forced us to found acolony in which money ,vasthe keynote of survival. Andthey had done more.

"You can't kill anyonewithout their permission," Iexplained. "When you landthey do more than just giveyou a name and make you liveup to it." I glanced at her."Why orange?"

"Why, ruby?" She shrug-

124

ged. "I knew I had to playalong. Orange used to be myfavorite color."

"No more?""'Vhat do you thinl{?" She

stumbled and I saved herfrom falling. She didn't thankme ; the necessity for that hadlong since passed. "Why dothey do it?"

"Make us ,vear colors? Awhim, a law, a state of mind-anything. There's a lotabout the Disparians '\vedOll't know."

"Like vvhat happens if youl{ill someone ,vithout theirpermission ?"

"No. That I do knowabout." It was something Ididn't like to think of. "Theyread minds and there's no ap­peal. Stick to their rules andyou're all right. Defy themand that's the end of you. Avery unpleasant end it is too."

"You've seen it?""Yes."She didn't pursue the sub­

ject.She'd landed as we all land,

full of high hopes and eagerto get rich quick. The systemhad slapped her in the face asit does all of us. Dispar wasno Eldorado, not unless youcould get a concession. Shedidn't get a concession, butshe did get an offer.

"It sounded so simple­These people would stake meand tell me exactly ,vhat I hadto do."

"Pull a trigger and kill aman."

E. C. TUBB

"Yes." If she flushed Icouldn't kno\v it, not \vith herdyed skin. "So maybe it wasa little ra,v, but so what? Itwas the system, they said, killor be killed, and no one \vouldthink it bad. Just pull a trig­ger and collect."

"Ho\v much?""Fifty thousand. I \vas to

hand over the concession tothe syndicate."

"Naturally."I halted and gave her a

drink of ,vater. \\Te'd eatenthe ration long ago and thecanteen ,vas almost dry. vVithher damaged thigh ,,'"e ~veren'tnlaking good progress. I \von­dered ho\v she'd managed tofind me. I asked.

"They led me out and sho\\'­en me about \vhere YOU \vereand left me to do tIle job."

It \vas a logical outcolne ofthe system, nlany trying todo what one couldn't. Andstaying' \yell \vithin the regu­lations too; I had no doubt ofthat. Each menlber of thesvndicate \vould onlY do sonluch. One ,vould \vatch nle,another \vould suppl~r hergear, others ,vould lead herout into the underbrush. Or­ange \vas simply a chosen\VeapOll, a finger to pull thetrigger. She could have killedme easily, but somethinghad prevented her aimingstraight. She \vas no killer, nomatter \vhat she said.

"Did they tell you \vhy theypicked a woman?"

"I guessed. Even on Dispar

ORANGE

a man thinks of a woman asbeing ,veakel" than himself.And, as you said, a ,vornancan get by without having torisk her neck."

She stumbled again, andagain I saved her. Beneaththe dye ,vere pale blotches.

"And I am ,veaker thanyou."

"Right no\v, at least." ."It's my leg." She touched

it and \vinced. Around us theundergro\vth tinkled to theimpact of a slight breeze. Thesound ,vas lonely, mournful."Ruby."

"Yes?""vVe aren't going to make

it, are \ve?""We'll nlake it."She shook her head. "Alone

you mig'ht have made it, not\vith me. I guess there's onlyone thing I can do."

My hand caught hers as itreached for her belt. It feltsoft and very helpless. I smil­ed into her eyes.

"Not yours, Orange," I toldhel'.t

My finger pressed the but­ton on my o\vn radio.

TI-1E bill T\vas a hundredthousand, fifty for each of

us. The Disparian who hadcome out and teleported usback to tOWll was the twinbrother to the one in the Dis­par General's office. Or may­be he was the same one; Icouldn't tell and it didn'tmake any differellce. The billwas one hundred thousand,

125

and because I had pressed mybutton, I had to pay it. .

One-third of my passagemoney back to Earth; twiceas much as I owned on Dis­par; enough to make me '~lear

a collar for the rest of my life.I didn't want to wear a collarfor any time at all.

It had been a quicl{ rescue.One second ,ve had been inthe undergro,vth. There hadbeen a snap of displaced airand a Disparian had stood be­side us. In less than a momentwe had stood in the DisparGeneral's office. I doubted ifmy heart had beaten onceduring the trip. It had madeup for it since.

Fear is a ,vonderful spur.The prospect of a life of bond­age had thro,vn my brain intotop gear, oiled my tongue andsharpened my ideas. I hadtalked fast and logically andhad won a little time. It ,vassomething I felt proud of.Gray wasn't impressed.

"So you failed," he said."Too bad."

"I've run into a little trou­ble, but I haven't failed."

"No ?""I'm still alive. The trouble

is nothing that money ,Yon'ttake care of."

"So you told me." He ,vascasual. Why not ? He V\Tould­n't have to wear a collar.

"The charge is a hundredthousand. Someone ,viII haveto pay it."

"Not me." He sat up in hischair. "It has nothing to do

126

with me. You should havekilled· the woman."

"Woman?" I covered thedistance between us in threestrides. "How did you kno,vit was a woman ?"

"You told me.""No, I didn't. All I told you

,vas that the job ,vas over andthat I'd had to call for help."Suspicions became certain­ties. "It was a setup, wasn'tit? You \vanted to be safe andsnug and thought up a schemeto protect yourself. Maybe allyou concessionaires thought itup together-it fits \vellenough. Find a pigeon..Havethat pigeon send you notifica­tion of intent. I-lire a proxyand let them fight it out.Either ,vay you're safe. Ifyour proxy ,vins, then you aresafe for three more Inonths.If the pigeon wins, thenyou've already arranged tohave your forfeited conces­sion handed back. Agoainst,vhat you earn collecting .melt­in, the cost ,vas nothing."

"Pipe dreams.""I think not.""Who cares \vhat you

think? You're just a hiredkiller and not such a gooad oneat that. If you ,vere, you,,,"ould have killed the womanand not come ,vhining· to me."

He \vas confident, too confi­dent. I, looked around'. TheTerra Hotel ,vas the ultimatein luxury on Dispar. It tooka mint to live there, anothermint to live there in Gray'sstyle. Gray had the arrogant

E. C. TUBB

confidence of wealth. He wasone of the aristocrats of Dis­par and no,v he was crackingthe whip.

"Loo]{," I said reasonably."To you a hundred thousandisn't rnuch. Can't you let mehave it and get this thingsquared up?"

A sn1art man would havepaid, but Gray \vasn't smart,just gTeedy. He ya\vned andpointed to,\"ard the door.

"On .your ,yay, Ruby.""H.O'N about the money?""You· can ,vhistle for it."He had me and he kne\v it.

Unless 1 paid my debt, I,vould .be sold, and a bonds­man couldn't file notificationof intent. I couldn't harm himllO'V or later.

"So I'nl disowned, is thatit 7"

"T'hat's it." He said \vhatI'd "\Nanted to hear. He'dcanceled n1Y standing as hisproxy and he could neverdeny it. H!\O'V get out beforeI have you thro\vn out."

I crossed the room andopened the door. Orangestood just outside where shehad been ,vaiting. She car­ried a bush knife in her hand.I stepped back as she enteredthe room.

"There he is." I pointedto,vard Gray. "I'm no longerhis proxy. Kill him and get itover with."

MOl\TEY breeds more thanarrogance. Ten years ear­

lier Gray \vould have had to

ORANGE

rely on himself, but now hehad money and he was soft.Re cringed in his chair asOrange advanced, the bigknife lifted above her head,the light reflecting from the,vicked blade.

Gray didn't kno,v, couldll'tkno,v that she ,vouldn't killhim. There was nothing pre­venting her but her o,vn na­ture, but he didn't know that.He gave a sound like a screamand dived for a desk. Heturned, a gun in his hand. Icould have smashed it fromhis hanel, but there ,vas noneed. He had made me hisofficial proxy, and until heofficially resumed responsi­bility, he could no more killOrange than she could killhim.

But he tried. He held thegun \vith both hands and des­perately fought to squeezethe trigger. He finally man­aged that, but by that timethe muzzle ,vas pointing atthe ceiling. He blew a hole inthe plaster.

I took the gun from hishand. "Take it easy. No needfor ,vitnesses."

"Save me!" He ,vas shak­ing ,vith fear.

"I'm not your proxy. Youdiso,vned me, remember?" I\vinked at Orange. She ,vait­ed, lowering the knife andrunning her thumb along theedge. In her way she was anartist.

"This isn't Earth, Gray," Isaid. "Maybe you made a mis-

127

take in not rememberingthat. Sure, we've got a strict­ly commercial society, but\ve've got sonlething else too.We've got the Disparians\vatching over us like a bunchof guardian angels."

"Keep that ,vonlan a\vayfrom me!" The knife seen1edto fascinate Grav. I-Ie could­n't stop looking at it.

"I--Io"r long do you think asetup like this ,vould last ifmen ,,,ere free? Not long. Not,vhen any man could take agun and go hunting formeltin and \vasn't too par­ticular '''ho he shot to get it.You have a nice, safe lTIOney­making system here, Gray,you and the other concession­aires. It's a pity that youcouldn't be satisfied ,vith tak­ing a part instead of ,\~allting

it all."I could have told him more,

but there ,vas no need. lIe al­ready kne\v the log'ic of theDisparians. Make a lnan yourproxy and he is exattly that.The inability to kill or injure,instilled on landing, ,vas l'e­placed. A man ,vas pel'lnittectto defend himself or C01l11nitan official murder, but that,vas all. Gray had tired ll1e ashis proxy but, as ~~et, hehadn't Inade official notifica­tion of that fact. He \\~as '\l'ayout on a limb.

"All right." He managed to]ool{ away from the knife."What do you ,,,,ant?"

"Money."He recovered some of his

128

courage. "You're a fool,Ruby, a bigger one becauseyou don't know it. Maybe Idid· fire you, but as far as theDisparians are concerned,you're still my proxy. If this\voman kills me, then she's introuble." .

"No. I've told her that I'mno longer your proxy. Theycan read her mind and provethat."

"Then you'll be in trouble.lJritil you notify the Dispar­ians, I can't protect D1yself."

Orange lifted the knife.""Tait !"

GR.l\Y ,vas s\veating. Icould see the moisture on

his forehead. "If you Idll me,you'll be sorry. The setuphere is based on fail' play andlogic. That 111eanS I have tobe given a c:hance to defend111yself or get someone to doit for lne."

"An interesting' point. H Inodded to Orange. She step­ped closer to Gray. "Of usthree, only t\VO have the cJ)il­ity to kill. \Ve could kill eachother or Orange could kill meor I her. If she kills nle, thenshe's in trouble because shekno\ys that I'n1 no longer yourproxy. If I kill her, the same.But she can kill you."

"Then you get into trou­ble," said Gray savageiy. "DoI have to remind you ho\v un­pleasant it ,viII be?"

"It ,von't be pleasant," Iadmitted. "But as far as youare concerned, the question is

E. C. TUBB

purely academic. By thattime you'll be dead."

He got the point. No mat­ter what he said, I wasn't go­ing to stop Orange fromusing that knife. He broke asthe blade swung toward him.

"All right," he said. "Whatdo you want?"

I blocked the sv{ing of theknife with my arm, ,vhile Or­ange turned the edge j list intime, and I got do\vn to busi­ness. I wanted a hundredthousand to clear my debt,plus a double passage home..I would have asked for morebut for the fact that I could­n't get it. Even as it was, hedidn't like paying out. Orange\vasn't too big, but I morethan made up for her"reight. In effect, I ,vas de­nlanding our combined weightin delivered meltin.

"vVait a minute! How areyou going to get a\vay \viththis?" .. ~

I kne\v what he meant. Or­ange had filed notification ofintent and there was no timelimit. One or the other had tobe eliminated.

"I've fixed that part of it."I waved to the communicator."Just transfer that money."

"But-""It's simple. Orange filed

notification of intent. To washit out, Orange must cease to.exist. Well, Orange will ceaseto exist."

"You'll kill her?""In a way, yes."The communicator hununed

ORANGE

just then and Gray becamebusy giving me lots of hiseasily earned money. Orangedropped the knife and cameinto my arms. It was the firsttime I had held her like thatand it was good.

"No regrets?" I smiled intoher eyes.

"None.""Not even-?" I touched

my acid-burned face."Not evifn." Her fingers

\vere coolon my cheek. "Doyou think it will work,Ruby?"

"It will work."

I T WOULD too. I knew that.Old habits die hard and

the Disparians were logical.When an Earthwoman mar­ried, she changed her name.Orange· would legally die, hername erased from the Resi­dents' Ledger and the notifi­cation of intent annulled.Gray would be back where hestarted,. a little poorer, butperhaps a lot wiser. And I\vould be the happiest mallaround.

I touched Orange's hair.Maybe we \vould leave Dispar,maybe not. It was a good\vorld if you had money. Withthe money we had, we couldstart a small business or dealin bondservants. Open a res­taurant, maybe, or even studyDisparian law.

And Orange would lookwonderful when her nameand .color were changed toRuby. END

129

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