Gordon R. Dickson's SF Best

by Gordon R. Dickson

  At some time during succeeding events he woke up again; but nothing was really clear or certain until he found himself looking up into the face of Doe Burgis, who was standing over him, with a finger on his pulse.

  "How do you feel?" said Burgis.

  "I don't know," said Chuck. "Where am I?"

  "Back at Base," said Burgis, letting go of his wrist. "Your leg is knitting nicely and we've knocked out your pneumonia. You've been under sedation. A couple more days' rest and you'll be ready to run again."

  "That's nice," said Chuck; and went back to sleep.

  V

  Three days later he was recovered enough to take a ride in his motorized go-cart over to Roy Marlie's office. He found Roy there, and his uncle.

  "Hi, Tommy," said Chuck, wheeling through the door. "Hi, Chief."

  "How you doing, son?" asked Member Thomas Wagnall. "How's the leg?"

  "Doc says I can start getting around on surgical splints in a day or two." Chuck looked at them both. "Well, isn't anybody going to tell me what happened?"

  "Those two natives were carrying you when we finally located the three of you," said Tommy, "and we –"

  "They were?" said Chuck.

  "Why, yes." Tommy looked closely at him. "Didn't you know that?"

  "I – I was unconscious before they started carrying me, I guess," said Chuck.

  "At any rate, we got you all back here in good shape." Tommy went across the room to a built-in cabinet and came back carrying a bottle of scotch, capped with three glasses, and a bowl of ice. "Ready for that drink now?"

  "Try me," said Chuck, not quite licking his lips. Tommy made a second trip for charged water and brought it back. He passed the drinks around.

  "How," he said, raising his glass. They all drank in appreciative silence.

  "Well," said Tommy, setting his glass down on the top of Roy's desk, "I suppose you heard about the conference." Chuck glanced over at Roy, who was evincing a polite interest.

  "I heard they had a brief meeting and put everything off for a while," said Chuck.

  "Until they had a chance to talk things over between themselves, yes," said Tommy. He was watching his nephew somewhat closely. "Rather surprising development. We hardly know where we stand now, do we?"

  "Oh, I guess it'll work out all right," said Chuck.

  "You do?"

  "Why, yes," said Chuck. He slowly sipped at his glass again and held it up to the light of the window. "Good scotch."

  "All right! " Tommy's thick fist came down with a sudden bang on the desk top. "I'll quit playing around. I may be nothing but a chairside Earth-lubber, but I'll tell you one thing. There's one thing I've developed in twenty years of politics and that's a nose for smells. And something about this situation smells! I don't know what, but it smells. And I want to find out what it is.

  Chuck and Roy looked at each other.

  "Why, Member," said Roy. "I don't follow you."

  "You follow me all right," said Tommy. He took a gulp from his glass and blew out an angry breath. "All right – off the record. But tell me!"

  Roy smiled.

  "You tell him, Chuck," he said.

  Chuck grinned in his turn.

  "Well, I'll put it this way, Tommy," he said. "You remember how I explained the story about Big Brother Charlie that gave us the name for this project?"

  "What about it?" said the Member.

  "Maybe I didn't go into quite enough detail. You see," said Chuck, "the two youngest brothers were twins who lived right next door to each other in one town. They used to fight regularly until their wives got fed up with it. And when that happened, their wives would invite Big Brother Charlie from the next town to come and visit them."

  Tommy was watching him with narrowed eyes. "What happened, of course," said Chuck, lifting his glass again, "was that after about a week, the twins weren't fighting each other at all." He drank.

  "All right. All right," said Tommy. "I'll play straight man. Why weren't they fighting with each other?"

  "Because," said Chuck, putting his glass back down again, "they were both too busy fighting with Big Brother Charlie."

  Tommy stared for a long moment. Then he grunted and sat back in his chair, as if he had just had the wind knocked out of him.

  "You see," said Roy, leaning forward over his desk, "what we were required to do here was something impossible. You just don't change centuries-old attitudes of distrust and hatred overnight. Trying to get the Lugh and the Tomah to like each other by any pressures we could bring to bear was like trying to move mountains with toothpicks. Too much mass for too little leverage. But we could change the attitudes of both of them toward us."

  "And what's that supposed to mean?" demanded Tommy, glaring at him.

  "Why, we might – and did – arrange for them to find out that, like the twins, they had more in common with each other than either one of them had with Big Brother Charlie. Not that we wanted them, God forbid, to unite in actively fighting Big Brother: We do need this planet as a space depot. But we wanted to make them see that they two form one unit – with us on the outside. They don't like each other any better now, but they've begun to discover a reason for hanging together."

  "I'm not sure I follow you," said Tommy, dryly.

  "What I'm telling you," said Roy, "is that we arranged a demonstration to bring home to them the present situation. They weren't prepared to share this world with each other. But when it came to their both sharing it with a third life form, they began to realize that the closer relative might see more eye-to-eye with them than the distant one. Chuck was under strict orders not to intervene, but to manage things so that each of them would be forced to solve the problems of the other, with no assistance from Earth or its technology."

  "Brother," Chuck grunted, "the way it all worked out I didn't have to 'manage' a thing. The 'accident' was more thorough than we'd planned, and I was pretty much without the assistance of our glorious technology myself. Each of them had problems I couldn't have solved if I'd wanted to . . . but the other one could."

  "Well," Roy nodded, "they are the natives, after all. We are the aliens. Just how alien, it was Chuck's job to demonstrate."

  "You mean –" exploded Tommy, "that you threw away a half-million-dollar vehicle – that you made that crash-landing in the ocean – on purpose!"

  "Off the record, Tommy," said Chuck, holding up a reminding finger. "As for the pot, it's on an undersea peak in forty fathoms. As soon as you can get us some more equipment it'll be duck soup to salvage it."

  "Off the record be hanged!" roared Tommy. "Why, you might have killed them. You might have had one or the other species up in arms! You might –"

  "We thought it was worth the risk," said Chuck mildly. "After all, remember I was sticking my own neck into the same dangers."

  "You thought!" Tommy turned a seething glance on his nephew. He thrust himself out of his chair and stamped up and down the office in a visible effort to control his temper.

  "Progress is not made by rules alone," misquoted Chuck complacently, draining the last scotch out of his glass. "Come back and sit down, Tommy. It's all over now."

  The older man came glowering back and wearily plumped in his chair.

  "All right," he said. "I said off the record, but I didn't expect this. Do you two realize what it is you've just done? Risked the lives of two vital members of intelligent races necessary to our future! Violated every principle of ordinary diplomacy in a hairbrained scheme that had nothing more than a wild notion to back it up! And to top it off, involved me – me, a Member of the Government! If this comes out nobody will ever believe I didn't know about it!"

  "All right, Tommy," said Chuck. "We hear you. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

  Earth District Member 439 Thomas L. Wagnall blew out a furious breath.

  "Nothing!" he said, violently. "Nothing."

  "That's what I thought," said Chuck. "Pass the scotch."

  Gordy is perhaps best known for the g
roup of stories and novels involving Dorsai – the world which produces as its only export the finest mercenary soldiers in known space. (The Hugo-winning "Soldier, Ask Not" is part of this cycle, which is itself only a part of a much larger scheme Gordy calls the Childe Cycle. Ultimately this should involve historical novels, mainstream novels, and possibly a series of concertos for the kazoo – if I recall correctly.) The Dorsai are among the most memorable characters in sf, dark and somber and inflexibly honorable to a man; not (as Gordy has said) men of the military, but men of war. The following story is the only representation of the Dorsai Saga in this collection – and a strikingly atypical one (well, the typical ones are already heavily anthologized). It is also one of my personal favorites.

  History says that very often it is the people who do the most for their race that suffer most greatly: Prometheus, Moses, and a Nazarene carpenter come to mind. But the Law of Karma insists that the books always balance in the end – that inherent in every destruction is an . . .

  ACT OF CREATION

  Now that I have had time to think it over, the quite commonsense explanation occurs to me that old Jonas Wellman must have added an extra, peculiar circuit to cause the one unusual response. He was quite capable of it, of course – technically, that is. And I don't know but what he was equally capable of it psychologically. Nevertheless, at the time, the whole thing shook me up badly.

  I had gone up to see him on a traditionally unpleasant duty. His son, Alvin, had been in my outfit at the time of Flander's Charge, off the Vegan Warhold. The boy was liaison officer from the Earth Draft, and he went with the aft gun platform, the Communications Dorsai Regulars, when we got pinched between a light cruiser and one of those rearmed freighters the Vegans filled their assault line with.

  The cruiser stood off at a little under a thousand kilometers and boxed us with her light guns. While we were occupied, the freighter came up out of the sun and hit us with a CO beam, before we caught her in our laterals and blew her to bits. It was their CO beam that did it for Alvin and the rest.

  At any rate, Alvin had been on loan to us, so to speak, and, as commanding officer, I owed a duty-call to his surviving relatives. At that time, I hadn't connected his last name – Wellman – with Jonas Wellman. Even if I had, I would have had to think a long minute before remembering just who Jonas Wellman was.

  Most people using robots nowadays never heard of him. Of course, I had, because we Dorsai mercenaries were the first to use them in combat. When I did make the connection, I remember it struck me as rather odd, because I had never heard Alvin mention his father.

  I had duty time-off after that – and, since we were in First Quadrant area, I shuttled to Arcturus and took the short hop to Sol. I had never been on the home world before and I was rather interested to see what Earth looked like. As usual, with such things, it was somewhat of a disappointment. It's a small world, anyway, and, since it lost its standing as a commercial power, a lot of the old city areas have been grubbed up and turned into residential districts.

  In fact, the planet is hardly more than one vast suburb, nowadays. I was told that there's a movement under way to restore some of the old districts as historical shrines, but they'd need Outsystem funds for that, and I can't, myself, see many of the large powers sparing an appropriation at the present time.

  Still, there's something about the planet. You can't forget that this was where we all started. I landed in the South Pacific, and took a commuter's rocket to the Mojave. From there, I put in a call to Jonas Wellman, who lived someplace north and west of the mountain, range there – I forget the name of it. He was pleased to hear from me, and invited me up immediately.

  I located one of these little automatic taxi-ships, and we puttered north by northwest for about half an hour and finally set down in a small parking area in the Oregon woods. There was nothing there but the glassy rectangle of the area itself, plus an automatic call station for the taxis. A few people were waiting around for their ships to arrive, and, as I sat down, what looked like an A-5 robot came across the field to meet me.

  When he got close, I saw he wasn't an A-5, but something similar – possibly something a bit special that Jonas had designed for himself.

  "Commandant Jiel?" he asked.

  "That's right," I said.

  I followed him across the parking area, toward a private hopper. The few people we passed on the way turned their backs as we passed, with a deliberateness and uniformity that was too pointed to be accidental.

  For a moment, it occurred to me that I might be the cause of their reaction – certain creeds and certain peoples, who have experienced wars, have no use for the mercenary soldier.

  But this was the home world nobody would think of attacking, even if they had a reason for doing so, which, of course, Earth will never be able to give them, as long as the large powers exist.

  Belatedly, it occurred to me that the robot with me might be the cause. I turned to look at him. An A-5 – particularly an A-5 – is built to resemble the human form. This was, as I have said, a refined model. I mulled the matter over, trying to phrase the question, so I could get information out of the mechanical.

  "Are there Anti-R's in the community here?" I asked finally.

  "Yes, sir," he said.

  Well, that explained it. The AR's are, in general, folk with an unpleasant emotional reaction to robots. They are psychopathic in my opinion and in that of any man who has used robots commercially or for military purposes. They find robots resembling the human form – particularly the A-5 model and the rest of the A-series – obscene, disgusting, and so forth. Some worlds which have experienced wars are almost completely AR.

  I didn't, however, expect to find it on Earth, especially so close to the home of Jonas Wellman. Still, a prophet in his own country, or however the old saying goes.

  We took a ground car, which the robot drove, and, eventually, reached a curious anachronism of a house, set off in the woods by itself. It was a long, rambling structure, made in frame of native stone and wood, the only civilized thing about it being vibratory weather-screens between the pillars of the frame, to keep out the rain and wind.

  It had a strange aura about it, as if it were a dwelling place, old not so much in years as in memories, as if something about it went back to the very dawn of the race. The rain and the falling night, as we approached it, heightened this illusion so that the tall pines, clustered closely about house and lawn, seemed almost primeval, seemed to enclose us in an ancestral past.

  Yet, the house itself was cheerful. It's lighting was inlaid in the archaic framing, and it glowed internally, with a subdued, casual illumination that did not dim the flames in a wide, central fireplace. Real flames from actual burning wood – not an illusion! It touched me, somehow. Few people, unless they have seen the real article, appreciate the difference between the actual flames of a real fire, and those of an illusion.

  I, who have experienced the reality, on strange planets, of a need for warmth and light, know the difference very well. It is a subjective reaction, not easily put into words. Perhaps, if you will forgive my straining to be fanciful, who am not a fanciful man, it's this – there are stories in the real flames. I know it can mean nothing to those of you who have never seen it but – try it for yourself, sometime.

  Illustration by RICK BRYANT

  Jonas Wellman, himself, came forward to meet me, when we stepped through the front screen lens. He was a short, slim man, a little bent about the shoulders, who had let his hair go completely white. He had a gnome's face, all wrinkled, sad and merry in the same instant. He came forward and held out his hand.

  "Commandant Jiel," he said.

  His voice was as warm as the hissing flames of his fireplace. I took his hand without hesitation, for I am no hater of old traditions.

  "Good of you to come," he said. "Sorry about the rain. The district requires it for our trees, and we like our trees around here."

  He turned and led the way to a little conv
ersation-area. The robot glided on silent feet behind us, towering over both of us. Though I have the hereditary Dorsai height, the A-5 run to a two-and-a-quarter-meter length, which is possibly one of the reasons the AR dislike them so.

  "Sit down, Commandant, sit down, please," Jonas said. "Adam, would you bring us some drinks, please? What would you like, Commandant?"

  "Plain ethyl and water, thanks," I said. "It's what we get used to on duty."

  He smiled at me in the light of the fire, which was dancing to our right and throwing ruddy lights on his time-marked face.

  "Whatever is your pleasure," he said.

  The robot brought the glasses. Jonas was drinking something also colorless. I remember I meant to ask him what it was, but never got around to doing so. Instead, I asked him about the robot.

  "Adam?" I said. Jonas chuckled.

  "He was to be the first of a new series," he answered.

  "I didn't mean that," I said. "I meant your naming him at all. Very few people do, nowadays."

  "The vogue has passed," he said. "But I've had him for a long time, and I live alone here." The last words reminded us both of my errand, and he stopped rather abruptly. He hurried back into conversation, to bridge the gap. "I suppose you know about my connection with robotics and robots?"

  "We used them on Kemelman for land scouts, first, eighty years or so back."

  "That's right," he said, his gnome's face saddening a little. "I'd forgotten."

  "They were very successful."

  "I suppose they were – militarily." He looked squarely at me, suddenly. "No offense to you Dorsai, Commandant, but I was not in favor of military use of my robots. Only – the decision was taken out of my hands. I lost control of the manufacturing and licensing rights early."

  "No offense," I said, but I looked at him curiously. "I didn't know that."