Dusty Zebra: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  Now Warren set out a bottle on his desk and sent for Bat Ears Brady.

  Warren heard him coming for some time before he finally arrived. He’d had a drink or two too many and he was singing most obscenely.

  He came through the tent entrance walking stiff and straight, as if there were a chalked line laid out for him to follow. He saw the bottle on the desk and picked it up, disregarding the glasses set beside it. He lowered the bottle by a good three inches and set it back again. Then he took the camp chair that had been placed there for him.

  “What’s the matter now?” he demanded. “You never send for me unless there’s something wrong.”

  “What,” asked Warren, “have you been drinking?”

  Bat Ears hiccupped politely. “Little something I cooked up.”

  He regarded Warren balefully. “Use to be we could bring in a little something, but now they say we can’t. What little there is you keep under lock and key. When a man gets thirsty, it sure tests his ingen … ingen … ingen …”

  “Ingenuity,” said Warren.

  “That’s the word,” said Bat Ears. “That’s the word, exactly.”

  “We’re in a jam, Bat Ears,” said Warren.

  “We’re always in a jam,” said Bat Ears. “Ain’t like the old days, Ira. Had some he-men then. But now…”

  “I know what you mean,” said Warren.

  “Kids,” said Bat Ears, spitting on the floor in a gesture of contempt. “Scarcely out of didies. Got to wipe their noses and…”

  “It isn’t that kind of a jam,” said Warren. “This is the real McCoy. If we can’t figure this one out, we’ll all be dead before two months are gone.”

  “Natives?” asked Bat Ears.

  “Not the natives,” Warren told him. “Although more than likely they’d be glad to do us in if there was a chance.”

  “Cheeky customers,” said Bat Ears. “One of them sneaked into the cook tent and I kicked him off the reservation real unceremonious. He did considerable squalling at me. He didn’t like it none.”

  “You shouldn’t kick them, Bat Ears.”

  “Well, Ira, I didn’t really kick him. That was just a figure of speech, kind of. No sir, I didn’t kick him. I took a shovel to him. Always could handle a shovel some better than my feet. Reach farther and…”

  He reached out and took the bottle, lowered it another inch or two.

  “This crisis, Ira?”

  “It’s the serum,” Warren told him. “Morgan waited until the ship had got too far for us to contact them before he thought to check the serum. And it isn’t any good—it’s about ten years too old.”

  Bat Ears sat half stunned.

  “So we don’t get our booster shots,” said Warren, “and that means that we will die. There’s this deadly virus here, the … the—oh, well, I can’t remember the name of it. But you know about it.”

  “Sure,” said Bat Ears. “Sure I know about it.”

  “Funny thing,” said Warren. “You’d expect to find something like that on one of the jungle planets. But, no, you find it here. Something about the natives. They’re humanoid. Got the same kind of guts we got. So the virus developed an ability to attack a humanoid system. We are good, new material for it.”

  “It don’t seem to bother the natives none now,” said Bat Ears.

  “No,” said Warren. “They seem to be immune. One of two things: They’ve found a cure or they’ve developed natural immunity.”

  “If they’ve found a cure,” said Bat Ears, “we can shake it out of them.”

  “And if they haven’t,” said Warren, “if adaptation is the answer—then we’re dead ducks for sure.”

  “We’ll start working on them,” said Bat Ears. “They hate us and they’d love to see us croak, but we’ll find some way to get it out of them.”

  “Everything always hates us,” Warren said. “Why is that, Bat Ears? We do our best and they always hate us. On every planet that Man has set a foot on. We try to make them like us, we do all we can for them. But they resent our help. Or reject our friendliness. Or take us for a bunch of suckers—so that finally we lose our patience and we take a shovel to them.”

  “And then,” said Bat Ears, sanctimoniously, “the fat is in the fire.”

  “What I’m worried about is the men,” said Warren. “When they hear about this serum business…”

  “We can’t tell them,” said Bat Ears. “We can’t let them know. They’ll find out, after a while, of course, but not right away.”

  “Morgan is the only one who knows,” said Warren, “and he blabs. We can’t keep him quiet. It’ll be all over camp by morning.”

  Bat Ears rose ponderously. He towered over Warren as he reached out a hand for the bottle on the desk.

  “I’ll drop in on Morgan on my way back,” he said. “I’ll fix it so he won’t talk.”

  He took a long pull at the bottle and set it back.

  “I’ll draw a picture of what’ll happen to him if he does,” said Bat Ears.

  Warren sat easily in his chair, watching the retreating back of Bat Ears Brady. Always there in a pinch, he thought. Always a man that you can depend on.

  Bat Ears was back in three minutes flat. He stood in the entrance of the tent, no sign of drunkenness upon him, his face solemn, eyes large with the thing he’d seen.

  “He croaked himself,” he said.

  That was the solemn truth.

  Dr. James H. Morgan lay dead inside his tent, his throat sliced open with a professional nicety that no one but a surgeon could have managed.

  About midnight the searching party brought in Falkner.

  Warren stared wearily at him. The kid was scared. He was all scratched up from floundering around in the darkness and he was pale around the gills.

  “He saw our light, sir,” said Peabody, “and let out a yell. That’s the way we found him.”

  “Thank you, Peabody,” said Warren. “I’ll see you in the morning. I want to talk to Falkner.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Peabody. “I am glad we found him, sir.”

  Wish I had more like him, thought Warren. Bat Ears, the ancient planet-checker; Peabody, an old army man, and Gilmer, the grizzled supply officer. Those are the ones to count on. The rest of them are punks.

  Falkner tried to stand stiff and straight.

  “You see, sir,” he told Warren, “it was like this: I thought I saw an outcropping…”

  Warren interrupted him. “You know, of course, Mr. Falkner, that it is an expedition rule you are never to go out by yourself; that under no circumstances is one to go off by himself.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Falkner, “I know that…”

  “You are aware,” said Warren, “that you are alive only by some incredible quirk of fate. You would have frozen before morning if the natives hadn’t got you first.”

  “I saw a native, sir. He didn’t bother me.”

  “You are more than lucky, then,” said Warren. “It isn’t often that a native hasn’t got the time to spare to slit a human’s throat. In the five expeditions that have been here before us, they have killed a full eighteen. Those stone knives they have, I can assure you, make very ragged slitting.”

  Warren drew a record book in front of him, opened it and made a very careful notation.

  “Mr. Falkner,” he said, “you will be confined to camp for a two-week period for infraction of the rules. Also, during that time, you shall be attached to Mr. Brady.”

  “Mr. Brady, sir? The cook?”

  “Precisely,” said Warren. “He probably shall want you to hustle fuel and help with the meals and dispose of garbage and other such light tasks.”

  “But I was sent on this expedition to make geologic observations, not to help the cook.”

  “All very true,” admitted Warren. “But, likewise, you were s
ent out under certain regulations. You have seen fit to disregard those regulations and I see fit, as a result, to discipline you. That is all, Mr. Falkner.”

  Falkner turned stiffly and moved toward the tent flap.

  “By the way,” said Warren, “I forgot to tell you. I’m glad that you got back.”

  Falkner did not answer.

  Warren stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. After all, he thought, what did it matter? Within another few weeks nothing would matter for him and Falkner, nor for any of the rest.

  The chaplain showed up the first thing in the morning. Warren was sitting on the edge of his cot, pulling on his trousers, when the man came in. It was cold and Warren was shivering despite the sputtering of the little stove that stood beside the desk.

  The chaplain was very precise and businesslike about his visit.

  “I thought I should talk with you,” he said, “about arranging services for our dear departed friend.”

  “What dear departed friend?” asked Warren, shivering and pulling on a shoe.

  “Why, Dr. Morgan, of course.”

  “I see,” said Warren. “Yes, I suppose we shall have to bury him.”

  The chaplain stiffened just a little.

  “I was wondering if the doctor had any religious convictions, any sort of preference.”

  “I doubt it very much,” said Warren. “If I were you, I’d hold it down to minimum simplicity.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said the chaplain. “A few words, perhaps, and a simple prayer.”

  “Yes,” said Warren. “A prayer by all means. We’ll need a lot of prayer.”

  “Pardon me, sir?”

  “Oh,” Warren told him, “don’t mind me. Just wool-gathering, that’s all.”

  “I see,” said the chaplain. “I was wondering, sir, if you have any idea what might have made him do it.”

  “Who do what?”

  “What made the doctor commit suicide.”

  “Oh, that,” said Warren. “Just an unstable character, I guess.”

  He laced his shoes and stood up.

  “Mr. Barnes,” he said, “you are a man of God, and a very good one from what I’ve seen of you. You may have the answer to a question that is bothering me.”

  “Why,” said Mr. Barnes, “why I …”

  “What would you do,” asked Warren, “if you suddenly were to find out you had no more than two months to live?”

  “Why,” said Mr. Barnes, “I suppose that I would go on living pretty much the way I always have. With a little closer attention to the condition of my soul, perhaps.”

  “That,” said Warren, “is a practical answer. And, I suppose, the most reasonable that anyone can give.”

  The chaplain looked at him curiously. “You don’t mean, sir …”

  “Sit down, Barnes,” said Warren. “I’ll turn up the stove. I need you now. To tell you the solemn truth, I’ve never held too much with this business of having you fellows with the expedition. But I guess there always will be times when one needs a man like you.”

  The chaplain sat down.

  “Mr. Barnes,” said Warren, “that was no hypothetical question I asked. Unless God performs some miracle we’ll all be dead in another two months’ time.”

  “You are joking, sir.”

  “Not at all,” said Warren. “The serum is no good. Morgan waited to check it until it was too late to get word to the ship. That’s why he killed himself.”

  He watched the chaplain closely and the chaplain did not flinch.

  “I was of a mind,” said Warren, “not to tell you. I’m not telling any of the others—not for a while, at least.”

  “It takes a little while,” said Mr. Barnes, “to let a thing like that soak in. I find it so, myself. Maybe you should tell the others, let them have a chance…”

  “No,” said Warren.

  The chaplain stared at him. “What are you hoping for, Warren? What do you expect to happen?”

  “A miracle,” said Warren.

  “A miracle?”

  “Certainly,” said Warren. “You believe in miracles. You must.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Barnes. “There are certain miracles, of course—one might call them allegorical miracles, and sometimes men read into them more than was ever meant.”

  “I am more practical than that,” said Warren, harshly. “There is the miracle of the fact that the natives of this place are humanoid like ourselves and they don’t need any booster shots. There is a potential miracle in the fact that only the first humans who landed on the planet ever tried to live on Landro without the aid of booster shots.”

  “Since you mention it,” said the chaplain, “there is the miracle of the fact that we are here at all.”

  Warren blinked at him. “That’s right,” he said. “Tell me, why do you think we’re here? Divine destiny, perhaps. Or the immutable performance of the mysterious forces that move Man along his way.”

  “We are here,” said Barnes, “to carry on the survey work that has been continued thus far by parties here before us.”

  “And that will be continued,” said Warren, “by the parties that come after us.”

  “You forget,” the chaplain said, “that all of us will die. They will be very wary of sending another expedition to replace one that has been wiped out.”

  “And you,” said Warren, “forget the miracle.”

  The report had been written by the psychologist who had accompanied the third expedition to Landro. Warren had managed, after considerable digging in the file of quadruplicates, to find a copy of it.

  “Hog wash,” he said and struck the papers with his fist.

  “I could of told you that,” said Bat Ears, “before you ever read it. Ain’t nothing one of them prissy punks can tell an old-timer like me about these abor … abor … abor …”

  “Aborigines,” said Warren.

  “That’s the word,” said Bat Ears. “That’s the word I wanted.”

  “It says here,” declared Warren, “that the natives of Landro have a keen sense of dignity, very delicately tuned—that’s the very words it uses—and an exact code of honor when dealing among themselves.”

  Bat Ears snorted and reached for the bottle. He took a drink and sloshed what was left in the bottom discontentedly.

  “You sure,” he asked, “that this is all you got?”

  “You should know,” snapped Warren.

  Bat Ears wagged his head. “Comforting thing,” he said. “Mighty comforting.”

  “It says,” went on Warren, “that they also have a system of what amounts to protocol, on a rather primitive basis.”

  “I don’t know about this proto-whatever-you-may-call-it,” said Bat Ears, “but that part about the code of honor gets me. Why, them dirty vultures would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes. I always keep a shovel handy and when one of them shows up…”

  “The report,” said Warren, “goes into that most exhaustively. Explains it.”

  “Ain’t no need of explanation,” insisted Bat Ears. “They just want what you got, so they sneak in and take it.”

  “Says it’s like stealing from a rich man,” Warren told him. “Like a kid that sees a field with a million melons in it. Kid can’t see anything wrong with taking one melon out of all that million.”

  “We ain’t got no million melons,” said Bat Ears.

  “It’s just an analogy,” said Warren. “The stuff we have here must look like a million melons to our little friends.”

  “Just the same,” protested Bat Ears, “they better keep out of my cook tent …”

  “Shut up,” said Warren savagely. “I get you here to talk with you and all you do is drink up my liquor and caterwaul about your cook tent.”

  “All right,” said Bat Ears. “All right
. What do you want to know?”

  “What are we doing about contacting the natives?”

  “Can’t contact them,” said Bat Ears, “if we can’t find them. They were around here, thicker than fleas, before we needed them. Now that we need them, can’t find hide nor hair of one.”

  “As if they might know that we needed them,” said Warren.

  “How would they know?” asked Bat Ears.

  “I can’t tell you,” Warren said. “It was just a thought.”

  “If you do find them,” asked Bat Ears, “how you going to make them talk?”

  “Bribe them,” said Warren. “Buy them. Offer them anything we have.”

  Bat Ears shook his head. “It won’t work. Because they know all they got to do is wait. If they just wait long enough, it’s theirs without the asking. I got a better way.”

  “Your way won’t work, either.”

  “You’re wasting your time, anyhow,” Bat Ears told him. “They ain’t got no cure. It’s just adap … adap …”

  “Adaptation.”

  “Sure,” said Bat Ears. “That’s the word I meant.”

  He took up the bottle, shook it, measured it with his thumb and then, in a sudden gesture, killed it.

  He rose quickly to his feet. “I got to sling some grub together,” he said. “You stay here and get her figured out.”

  Warren sat quietly in the tent, listening to his footsteps going across the compound of the camp.

  There was no hope, of course. He must have known that all along, he told himself, and yet he had postponed the realization of it. Postponed it with talk of miracles and hope that the natives might have the answer—and the native answer, the native cure, he admitted now, was even more fantastic than the hope of a miracle. For how could one expect the little owl-eyed people would know of medicine when they did not know of clothing, when they still carried rudely-chipped stone knives, when their campfire was a thing very laboriously arrived at by the use of stricken flint?

  They would die, all twenty-five of them, and in the days to come the little owl-eyed natives would come boldly marching in, no longer skulking, and pick the camp to its last bare bone.