The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson

by Roger Elwood

  “Oh, they’ll wait at least a month before giving me up for dead and leaving the planet.”

  “We can get yo’ to the seacoast in that time, by hard ridin’, but it’d mean takin’ a shortcut through some territory which the Injuns is between us and it.” Slick paused courteously while Alex untangled that one. “Yo’d hardly have a chance to sneak through. So, it looks like the only way we can get yo’ to yore friends is to beat the Injuns. Only we can’t beat the Injuns without help from yore friends.”

  Gloom.

  To change the subject, Alex tried to learn some Hoka history. He succeeded beyond expectations, Slick proving surprisingly intelligent and well informed.

  The first expedition had landed thirty-odd years ago. At the time, its report had drawn little Earthly interest; there were so many new planets in the vastness of the galaxy. Only now, with the Draco as a forerunner, was the League making any attempt to organize this frontier section of space.

  The first Earthmen had been met with eager admiration by the Hoka tribe near whose village they landed. The autochthones were linguistic adepts, and between their natural abilities and modern psychography had learned English in a matter of days. To them, the humans were almost gods, though like most primitives they were willing to frolic with their deities.

  Came the fatal evening. The expedition had set up an outdoor stereoscreen to entertain itself with films. Hitherto the Hokas had been interested but rather puzzled spectators. Now, tonight, at Wesley’s insistence, an old film was reshown. It was a Western.

  Most spacemen develop hobbies on their long voyages. Wesley’s was the old American West. But he looked at it through romantic lenses, he had a huge stack of novels and magazines but very little factual material.

  The Hokas saw the film and went wild.

  The captain finally decided that their delirious, ecstatic reaction was due to this being something they could understand. Drawing-room comedies and interplanetary adventures meant little to them in terms of their own experience, but here was a country like their own, heroes who fought savage enemies, great herds of animals, gaudy costumes—

  And it occurred to the captain and to Wesley that this race could find very practical use for certain elements of the old Western culture. The Hokas had been farmers, scratching a meager living out of prairie soil never meant to be plowed; they went about on foot, their tools were bronze and stone— they could do much better for themselves, given some help.

  The ship’s metallurgists had had no trouble reconstructing the old guns, Colt and Derringer and carbine. The Hokas had to be taught how to smelt iron, make steel and gunpowder, handle lathes and mills; but here again, native quickness and psychographic instruction combined to make them learn easily. Likewise they leaped at the concept of domesticating the wild beasts they had hitherto herded.

  Before the ship left, Hokas were breaking “ponies” to the saddle and rounding up “longhorns.” They were making treaties with the more civilized agricultural and maritime cities of the coast, arranging to ship meat in exchange for wood, grain, and manufactured goods. And they were gleefully slaughtering every Slissii warband that came against them.

  As a final step, just before he left, Wesley gave his collection of books and magazines to the Hokas.

  None of this had been in the ponderous official report Alex read: only the notation that the ursinoids had been shown steel metallurgy, the use of chemical weapons, and the benefits of certain economic forms. It had been hoped that with this aid they could subdue the dangerous Slissii, so that if man finally started coming here regularly, he wouldn’t have a war on his hands.

  Alex could fill in the rest. Hoka enthusiasm had run wild. The new way of life was, after all, very practical and well adapted to the plains—so why not go all the way, be just like the human godlings in every respect? Talk English with the stereofilm accent, adopt human names, human dress, human mannerisms, dissolve the old tribal organizations and replace them with ranches and towns—it followed very naturally. And it was so much more fun.

  The books and magazines couldn’t circulate far; most of the new gospel went by word of mouth. Thus certain oversimplifications crept in.

  Three decades passed. The Hokas matured rapidly; a second generation which had been born to Western ways was already prominent in the population. The past was all but forgotten. The Hokas spread westward across the plains, driving the Slissii before them.

  Until, of course, the Slissii learned how to make firearms too. Then, with their greater military talent, they raised an army of confederated tribes and proceeded to shove the Hokas back. This time they would probably continue till they had sacked the very cities of the coast. The bravery of individual Hokas was no match for superior numbers better organized.

  And one of the Injun armies was now roaring down on Canyon Gulch. It could not be many kilometers away, and there was nothing to stop it. The Hokas gathered their families and belongings from the isolated ranch houses and fled. But with typical inefficiency, most of the refugees fled no further than this town; then they stopped and discussed whether to make a stand or hurry onward, and meanwhile they had just one more little drink… .

  §

  “You mean you haven’t even tried to fight?” asked Alex. “What could we do?” answered Slick. “Half the folks ’ud be ag’in the idea an’ wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with it. Half o’ those what did come would each have their own little scheme, an’ when we didn’t follow it they’d get mad an’ walk off. That don’t leave none too many.”

  “Couldn’t you, as the leader, think of some compromise— some plan which would satisfy everybody?”

  “O’ course not,” said Slick stiffly. “My own plan is the only right one.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Alex bit savagely at the sandwich in his hand. The food had restored his strength and the fluid fire the Hokas called whiskey had given him a warm, courageous glow.

  “The basic trouble is, your people just don’t know how to arrange a battle,” he said. “Humans do.”

  “Yo’re a powerful fightin’ outfit,” agreed Slick. There was an adoration in his beady eyes which Alex had complacently noticed on most of the faces in town. He decided he rather liked it. But a demi-god has his obligations.

  “What you need is a leader whom everyone will follow without question,” he went on. “Namely me.”

  “Yo’ mean—” Slick drew a sharp breath. ‘To?”

  Alex nodded briskly. “Am I right, that the Injuns are all on foot? Yes? Good. Then I know, from Earth history, what to do. There must be several thousand Hoka males around, and they all have some kind of firearms. The Injuns won’t be prepared for a fast, tight cavalry charge. It’ll split their army wide open.”

  “Wa’l, I’ll be hornswoggled,” murmured Slick. Even Tex and Monty looked properly awed.

  Suddenly Slick began turning handsprings about the office. “Yahoo!” he cried. “I’m a rootin’, tootin’ son of a gun, I was born with a pistol in each hand an’ I teethed on rattlesnakes!” He did a series of cartwheels. “My daddy was a catamount and my mother was a alligator. I can run faster backward than anybody else can run forrad, I can jump over the outermost moon with one hand tied behind me, I can fill an inside straight every time I draw, an’ if any sidewinder here says it ain’t so I’ll fill him so full o’ lead they’ll mine him!”

  “What the hell?” gasped Alex, dodging.

  “The old human war cry,” explained Tex, who had apparently resigned himself to his hero’s peculiar ignorances.

  “Let’s go!” whooped Slick, and threw open the office door. A tumultuous crowd surged outside. The gambler filled his lungs and roared squeakily:

  “Saddle yore hosses, gents, an’ load yore six-guns! We got us a human, an’ he’s gonna lead us all out to wipe the Injuns off the range!”

  The Hokas cheered till the false fronts quivered around them, danced, somersaulted, and fired their guns into the air. Alex shook Slick and wailed: “—no, no, you blo
ody fool, not now We have to study the situation, send out scouts, make a plan—”

  Too late. His impetuous admirers swept him out into the street. He couldn’t be heard above the falsetto din, he tried to keep his footing and was only vaguely aware of anything else. Someone gave him a six-shooter, he strapped it on as if in a dream. Someone else gave him a lasso, and he made out the voice: “Rope yoreself a bronc, Earthman, an’ let’s go!”

  “Rope—” Alex grew groggily aware that there was a corral just behind the saloon. The half-wild reptile ponies galloped about inside it, excited by the noise. Hokas were deftly whirling their lariats forth to catch their personal mounts.

  “Go ahead!” urged the voice. “Ain’t got no time to lose.”

  Alex studied the cowboy nearest him. Lassoing didn’t look so hard. You held the rope here and here, then you swung the noose around your head like this—

  He pulled and came crashing to the ground. Through whirling dust, he saw that he had lassoed himself.

  Tex pulled him to his feet and dusted him off. “I … I don’t ride herd at home,” he mumbled. Tex made no reply.

  “I got a bronc for yo’,” cried another Hoka, reeling in his lariat. “A real spirited mustang!”

  Alex looked at the pony. It looked back. It had an evilly glittering little eye. At the risk of making a snap judgment, he decided he didn’t like it very much. There might be personality conflicts between him and it.

  “Come on, let’s git goin’!” cried Slick impatiently. He was astraddle a beast which still bucked and reared, but he hardly seemed to notice.

  Alex shuddered, closed his eyes, wondered what he had done to deserve this, and wobbled over to the pony. Several Hokas had joined to saddle it for him. He climbed aboard. The Hokas released the animal. There was a personality conflict.

  Alex had a sudden feeling of rising and spinning on a meteor that twisted beneath him. He grabbed for the saddle horn. The front feet came down with a ten-gee thump and he lost his stirrups. Something on the order of a nuclear shell seemed to explode in his vicinity.

  Though it came up and hit him with unnecessary hardness, he had never known anything so friendly as the ground just then.

  “Oof!” said Alex and lay still.

  A shocked, unbelieving silence fell on the Hokas. The human hadn’t been able to use a rope—now he had set a new record for the shortest time in a saddle—what sort of human was this, anyway?

  Alex sat up and looked into a ring of shocked fuzzy faces. He gave them a weak smile. “I’m not a horseman either,” he said.

  “What the hell are yo’, then?” stormed Monty. “Yo’ cain’t rope, yo’ cain’t ride, yo’ cain’t talk right, yo’ cain’t shoot—”

  “Now hold on!” Alex climbed to somewhat unsteady feet. “I admit I’m not used to a lot of things here, because we do it differently on Earth. But I can out-shoot any man … er, any Hoka of you any day in the week and twice on Sundays!”

  Some of the natives looked happy again, but Monty only sneered. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ll prove it.” Alex looked about for a suitable target. For a change, he had no worries. He was one of the best ray-thrower marksmen in the Fleet. “Throw up a coin. I’ll plug it through the middle.”

  The Hokas began looking awed. Alex gathered that they weren’t very good shots by any standards but their own. Slick beamed, took a silver dollar from his pocket, and spun it into the air. Alex drew and fired.

  Unfortunately, ray-throwers don’t have recoil. Revolvers do.

  Alex went over on his back. The bullet broke a window in the Last Chance Bar & Grill.

  The Hokas began to laugh. It was a bitter kind of merriment.

  “Buck!” cried Slick. “Buck … yo’ thar, sheriff … c’mere!”

  “Yes, sir, Mister Slick, sir?”

  “I don’t think we need yo’ for sheriff no longer, Buck. I think we just found ourselves another one. Gimme yore badge!”

  When Alex regained his feet, the star gleamed on his tunic. And, of course, his proposed counterattack had been forgotten.

  §

  He mooched glumly into Pizen’s Saloon. During the past few hours, the town had slowly drained itself of refugees as the Injuns came horribly closer; but there were still a few delaying for one more drink. Alex was looking for such company.

  Being official buffoon wasn’t too bad in itself. The Hokas weren’t cruel to those whom the gods had afflicted. But—well —he had just ruined human prestige on this continent. The Service wouldn’t appreciate that.

  Not that he would be seeing much of the Service in the near future. He couldn’t possibly reach the Draco now before she left—without passing through territory held by the same Injuns whose army was advancing on Canyon Gulch. It might be years till another expedition landed. He might even be marooned here for life. Though come to think of it, that wouldn’t be a lot worse than the disgrace which would attend his return.

  Gloom.

  “Here, sheriff, let me buy yo’ a drink,” said a voice at his elbow.

  “Thanks,” said Alex. The Hokas did have the pleasant rule that the sheriff was always treated when he entered a saloon. He had been taking heavy advantage of the custom, though it didn’t seem to lighten his depression much.

  The Hoka beside him was a very aged specimen, toothless and creaky. “I’m from Childish way,” he introduced himself. “They call me the Childish Kid. Howdy, sheriff.”

  Alex shook hands, dully.

  They elbowed their way to the bar. Alex had to stoop under Hoka ceilings, but otherwise the rococo fittings were earnestly faithful to their fictional prototypes—including a small stage where three scantily clad Hoka females were going through a song-and-dance number while a bespectacled male pounded a rickety piano.

  The Childish Kid leered. “I know those gals,” he sighed. “Some fillies, heyr, Stacked, don’t yo’ think?”

  “Uh … yes,” agreed Alex. Hoka females had four mammaries apiece. “Quite.”

  “Zunamian' Goda an' Torigi, that’s their names. If I wam’t so danged old—”

  “How come they have, er, non-English names?” inquired Alex.

  “We had to keep the old Hoka names for our wimmin,’’ said the Childish Kid. He scratched his balding head. “It’s bad enough with the men, havin’ a hundred Hopalongs in the same county … but how the hell can yo’ tell yore wimmin apart when they’re all named Jane?”

  “We have some named ‘Hey, you’ as well,” said Alex grimly. “And a lot more called ‘Yes, dear.’ “

  His head was beginning to spin. This Hoka brew was potent stuff.

  Nearby stood two cowboys, arguing with alcoholic loudness. They were typical Hokas, which meant that to Alex their tubby forms were scarcely to be distinguished from each other. “I know them two, they’re from my old outfit,” said the Childish Kid. “That one’s Slim, an’ t’other’s Shorty.”

  “Oh,” said Alex.

  Brooding over his glass, he listened to the quarrel for lack of anything better to do. It had degenerated to the name-calling stage. “Careful what yo’ say, Slim,” said Shorty, trying to narrow his round little eyes. “I’m a powerful dangerous hombre.”

  “You ain’t no powerful dangerous hombre,” sneered Slim.

  “I am so too a powerful dangerous hombre!” squeaked Shorty.

  “Yo’re a fathead what ought to be kicked by a jackass,” said Slim, “an’ I’m just the one what can do it.”

  “When yo’ call me that,” said Shorty, “smile!”

  “I said yo’re a fathead what ought to be kicked by a jackass,” repeated Slim, and smiled.

  Suddenly the saloon was full of the roar of pistols. Sheer reflex threw Alex to the floor. A ricocheting slug whanged nastily by his ear. The thunder barked again and again. He hugged the floor and prayed.

  Silence came. Reeking smoke swirled through the air. Hokas crept from behind tables and the bar and resumed drinking, casually. Alex looked for the corpses. He s
aw only Slim and Shorty, putting away their emptied guns.

  “Wa’l, that’s that,” said Shorty. “I’ll buy this round.”

  “Thanks, pardner,” said Slim. “I’ll get the next one.”

  Alex bugged his eyes at the Childish Kid. “Nobody was hurt!” he chattered hysterically.

  “O’ course not,” said the ancient Hoka. “Slim an* Shorty is old pals.” He spread his hands. “Kind o’ a funny human custom, that. It don’t make much sense that every man should sling lead at every other man once a month. But I reckon maybe it makes ’em braver, huh?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Alex.

  Others drifted over to talk with him. Opinion seemed about equally divided over whether he wasn’t a human at all or whether humankind simply wasn’t what the legends had cracked it up to be. But in spite of their disappointment, they bore him no ill will and stood him drinks. Alex accepted thirstily. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  It might have been an hour later, or two hours or ten, that Slick came into the saloon. His voice rose over the hubbub: “A scout just brung me the latest word, gents. The Injuns ain’t no more’n five miles away an’ cornin’ fast. We’ll all have to git a move on.”

  The cowboys swallowed their drinks, smashed their glasses, and boiled from the building in a wave of excitement. “Gotta calm the boys down,” muttered the Childish Kid, “or we could git a riot.” With great presence of mind, he shot out the lights.

  “Yo’ fool!” bellowed Slick. “It’s broad daylight outside!”

  Alex lingered aimlessly by the saloon, until the gambler tugged at his sleeve. “We’re short o’ cowhands an’ we got a big herd to move,” ordered Slick. “Get yoreself a gentle pony an’ see if yo’ can help.”

  “Okay,” hiccoughed Alex. It would be good to know he was doing something useful, however little. Maybe he would be defeated at the next election.