Dusty Zebra: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  I have kept to myself. I have gained the reputation of being shy, modest, retiring. I have not allowed myself to be photographed, I have granted no interviews. I have remained the Great Enigma and become the better known and gained more publicity because of it.

  It was not that I cared for myself, for life is no longer valuable to me. It was fear that I would be discovered before the hour had struck, before I had completed all my plans. Now the hour is near and if I live a few more hours the world will never find me.

  Only a few hours now. My plans are well laid, all arrangements are made. The broadcasting station is completed. Here in the cragged hills of North American’s greatest mountains, there is a great vault, carved from the everlasting rock. Tonight Dr. John E. Barston, the world’s greatest surgeon, will perform an important operation in that vault. When he leaves, he will take with him a chest half filled with jewels, all that is left of the great Martian treasure. He will take them with him as the price of silence. The men who built the vault are silenced, too, on the criminal colonies on Mercury. It took several handfuls of the jewels to do that.

  At last revenge is in my grasp. In a few hours Mars will be the butt of the entire universe. In a few hours the Martian religion will be a joke.

  The Martians, who excluded me from their planet, who stole my friend’s radium deposits and then stole his body, the Martians, who made Kenneth Smith and me outcasts of the solar system, shall feel the point of our wrath. I am striking at them where it will hurt most. I am taking from them their proud religion, I am tumbling their card house down about the ears of their beastly priests. I am stealing their faith as they stole the body of Kenneth Smith.

  Good old Ken! We were pals ten years ago and we are still pals. He has played a wonderful game. He has pretended that it didn’t matter. It has been hard for him, as it has been hard for me. He has depended on me so much. It is I who have turned him on and off, who have shifted his cylinder so that he may rest his eyes on a different scene. With the passing of the years his senses and his brain have grown stronger. His reasoning power has increased until he thinks in almost pure logic. His one passion is revenge, revenge on the Martian race, and I am giving that to him.

  I have here an electrical transcription of my own voice. In a short time, I shall turn on the power to its fullest in the great station and shall set before the microphone a machine to transcribe the metal cylinder that lies before me, to repeat the transcription over and over again so that all may hear, may hear my voice in a declaration that will seal the doom of the Martian religion. I shall lock the doors of the station and before they batter them down every living soul in the universe will know my story. Every person will know how the bones of Kell-Rabin were filched from the Temple of Saldebar, how the Martian race has worshipped almost six years before an empty box. They will know of the skeleton that I found in the pyramid in the Arantian desert and of the religious frenzy that has driven the Martians to destroy every one of these pyramids they can find.

  They will know, too, the truth about Kell-Rabin, whose bones were worshipped for uncounted centuries as the Holy Relics and the Revered Remains. They will know that the bones of Kell-Rabin are the bones of a Terrestrial, of a human being who must have lived on Earth millions of years before Mu rose out of the sea. They will know that a Terrestrial was worshipped as a god by the Martian race and that his bones were religiously placed in a box to be worshipped long after he had died…and from the fact that the bones in the old pyramid and the bones of Kell-Rabin were both Terrestrial skeletons they may draw their own conclusions.

  The Martians, what of them? When my words flash out to the mining stations of Mercury and the trading outposts of Pluto, where, then, will be the proud religion of Mars? Crumpled, dissolved, gone! Gone, as are Ken Smith’s radium deposits and his body. My words will rob them of the thing they have held dear, all their teachings will be for nothing, all their creeds will be empty words whistling in the wind.

  A Martian has worshipped a Terrestrial! The Martian race, believing they have worshipped a god too great to give attention to the lesser races, will know that they have worshipped, not a god at all, but a man from Earth, one of the despised, money-grabbing, business-like men of the third planet.

  When that is done I shall hurry to keep my last earthly appointment. The appointment will be with Dr. Barston in the vault that is chiseled from the living stone. Weeks ago I placed in his hands complete directions, given me by Tarsus-Egbo, for the process of transferring a human brain to one of the cylinders. One of the cylinders, especially constructed under directions and specifications also given me by the Martian, now rests in the vault.

  There, in the vault, I shall lie down on an operating table and Dr. Barston will take my brain from its cavity and place it in the cylinder and when he leaves, with a jewel chest under his arm, there will be three cylinders, all standing in a row…waiting for what?

  He will close the door of stone behind him and the automatic bolts will shoot home. The three of us, Kenneth Smith, Tarsus-Egbo, and myself, will remain behind, awaiting our fate.

  Perhaps, in millions of years, men wonderfully advanced in science, will find us and mayhaps they will know how to release us from the cylinders and give us bodies again. Perhaps men will never come and we will remain forever in the deep sleep of seeming death. Perhaps we will never be aroused from that sleep, perhaps no one will ever attach the machine to our cylinders. If anyone of intelligence gains entrance to our vault, he will find there, imprinted on metal pages, definite information which should be easy for him to follow.

  Life holds no more for me. I might as well be dead. It is Ken’s idea, however, and I am going through with it. It was my suggestion that I destroy his cylinder and kill myself when vengeance was accomplished, but he suggested this other way, and it may be the better way.

  Only a few minutes remain. I must soon start for the broadcasting station. Then I must hurry to keep my appointment with Dr. Barston.

  My last thought shall be, I know, whether or not I will ever live again, or if, when I go under the anaesthetic, my days are ended. It matters little either way. My vengeance will then have been complete.

  When the knife cuts into my skull, all the universe will be listening to my final words, and the name of Kell-Rabin will be bandied about in laughter from world to world.

  SENSATIONAL DISAPPEARANCE

  FIRE IN NEW INTERPLANETARIAN RADIO STUDIO VEILS DEEP MYSTERY

  _______________________________________________

  By Amalgamated Press

  Ventnor, Calif., October 5th—As the new gigantic interplanetarian station IXXB went on the air tonight for the first time, the whole universe held its breath for what its new and generous owner, Mr. Robert Humphrey would have to say. Much mystery had surrounded the building of this station and untold wealth had been poured into it, yet no one seems to have the confidence of the silent Humphrey who intimated that the mystery would be speedily ended with the first broadcast.

  Mr. Humphrey had spent much time in arranging his inauguration address, and instead of facing the microphone himself, he had preferred to make a record of his voice and it is understood that a number of these had been made as he was not satisfied with the first one. He intended to have the first broadcast letter-perfect, and it was personally “edited” by him a number of time to make it 100% perfect.

  The station, as is well known, was to go on the air last night at 8 o’clock sharp, and the populace of not only our own earth but all the other planets were at a fever pitch to hear this first broadcast. The reason of course, was that Mr. Humphrey had spent millions in the week before the broadcast was to come off in newspapers, radio broadcasting on other stations, and, as a matter of fact, he used every means of publicity he could to draw attention to the first broadcast of his station. Sensational copy was used in all his advertising to make sure that everybody would listen. Such sentences as “The
Greatest Dramatic Story Ever Told in the Universe,” “Revelations That Will Set the Universe Agog,” had caused heated speculation as to what the first broadcast would be.

  A few minutes before 8 o’clock, when the memorable event was to come off, a heavy thunderstorm was at its height near this city, and at exactly five seconds before 8, a lightning bolt struck the studio of the immense station. The listeners heard the announcer introduce Mr. Humphrey whose voice from the record had just gone on the air, with the words, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am about to make the most dramatic revelation of the ages…” This terminated the broadcast because when the lightning struck it set fire to the studio, and inasmuch as the announcer and the two control men at the studio had been stunned, the fire immediately gained some headway and the record was destroyed in the ensuing blaze.

  There was no duplicate record, but strangest of all, Bob Humphrey was not in the building, and he is strangely missing. The mystery has now deepened, as for sixteen hours no word has been had from Humphrey. It is certain that if he had been near the scene, he would have been able, in person, to make his announced broadcast or supply another record. The fire was not so extensive, and the main radio generating plant was not damaged excepting the studio, and the station could have gone on the air within three hours after the fire. Yet, there is no word from Humphrey. His station staff hint that he bid them good-bye in the afternoon telling them that “they might have to get new positions after tomorrow.” Foul play is feared.

  Retrograde Evolution

  This story was named “The Googles Are a Funny Race” when Clifford D. Simak sent it to Sam Moskowitz in November 1952. The following April, Cliff was paid $270 for it, at about the same time that the story, having been renamed, was published in the second issue of Hugo Gernsback’s doomed magazine, Science Fiction Plus.

  Gernsback, perhaps abusing his status as one of the founding fathers of magazine science fiction, included in that same issue a long editorial in which he excoriated “pseudo science-fiction,” by which he meant stories, represented as science fiction, that were based on “science” that was not possible—an attitude that would, a few months later, lead him to take unusual liberties with a different Simak story, “Target Generation” (you can find that story in volume seven of this series, which is entitled A Death in the House and Other Stories).

  But for the purpose of publishing “Retrograde Evolution,” Gernsback made a number of changes to Cliff’s story—including one that likely amuses the modern reader: he changed the name of the alien race featured in the story, “Googles,” to “Kzyzz”—a name, he explained in a dreadful footnote purportedly written by the author of the story, which was given them because of the “strange sibilant sound” they made while eating. I do not believe for an instant that the change was Cliff’s idea, and I will always wonder what his reaction was to Gernsback’s alterations—the situation, after all, was complicated, since it was Gernsback who had published the very first piece of Cliff’s fiction to appear before the public, more than two decades earlier … In any case, along with deleting the footnote, I’ve reversed that change, and several others, for this publication.

  —dww

  The trader had saved some space in the cargo hold for the babu root which, ounce for ounce, represented a better profit than all the other stuff he carried from the dozen planets the ship had visited.

  But something had happened to the Google villages on the planet Zan. There was no babu root waiting for the ship and the trader had raged up and down, calling forth upon all Googles dire malefactions combed from a score of languages and cultures.

  High in his cubbyhole, one level down from the control room and the captain’s quarters, Steve Sheldon, the space ship’s assigned co-ordinator, went through reel after reel of records pertaining to the planet and studied once again the bible of his trade, Dennison’s Key to Sentient Races. He searched for a hidden clue, clawing through his close-packed memory for some forgotten fact which might apply.

  But the records were not much help.

  Zan, one of the planets by-passed on the first wave of exploration, had been discovered five centuries before. Since that time traders had made regular visits there to pick up babu root. In due time the traders had reported it to Culture. But Culture, being busy with more important things than a backwoods planet, had done no more than file the report for future action, and then, of course, had forgotten all about it.

  No survey, therefore, had ever been made of Zan, and the record reels held little more than copies of trading contracts, trading licenses, applications for monopolies and hundreds of sales invoices covering the five hundred years of trade. Interspersed here and there were letters and reports on the culture of the Googles and descriptions of the planet, but since the reports were by obscure planet-hoppers and not by trained observers they were of little value.

  Sheldon found one fairly learned dissertation upon the babu root. From that paper he learned that the plant grew nowhere else but on Zan and was valuable as the only known cure for a certain disease peculiar to a certain sector of the galaxy. At first the plant had grown wild and had been gathered by the Googles as an article of commerce, but in more recent years, the article said, some attempts had been made to cultivate it since the wild supply was waning.

  Sheldon could pronounce neither the root’s drug derivative nor the disease it cured, but he shrugged that off as of no consequence.

  Dennison devoted less than a dozen lines to Zan and from them Sheldon learned no more than he already knew: Googles were humanoid, after a fashion, and with Type 10 culture, varying from Type 10-A to Type 10-H; they were a peaceful race and led a pastoral existence; there were thirty-seven known tribal villages, one of which exercised benevolent dictatorship over the other thirty-six. The top-dog village, however, changed from time to time, apparently according to some peaceful rotational system based upon a weird brand of politics. Googles were gentle people and did not resort to war.

  And that was all the information there was. It wasn’t much to go on.

  But, for that matter, Sheldon comforted himself, no co-ordinator ever had much to go on when his ship ran into a snag. A co-ordinator did not actually begin to function constructively until everyone, including himself, was firmly behind the eight-ball.

  Figuring the way out from behind the eight-ball was a co-ordinator’s job. Until he faced dilemma, a yard wide and of purest fleece, he was hardly needed. There was, of course, the matter of riding herd on traders to see that they didn’t cheat, beyond a reasonable limit, the aliens with whom they traded, of seeing that they violated no alien tabus and outranged no alien ethics, that they abided by certain restraints and observed minimum protocol, but that was routine policing—just ordinary chores.

  Now, after an uneventful cruise, something had finally happened—there was no babu root and Master Dan Hart of the starship Emma was storming around and raising hell and getting nowhere fast.

  Sheldon heard him now, charging up the stairs to the co-ordinator’s cubbyhole. Judging the man’s temper by the tumult of his progress, Sheldon swept the reels to one side of the desk and sat back in his chair, settling his mind into that unruffled calm which went with his calling.

  “Good day to you, Master Hart,” said Sheldon when the irate skipper finally entered.

  “Good day to you, Co-ordinator,” said Hart, although obviously, it pained him to be civil.

  “I’ve been looking through the records,” Sheldon told him. “There’s not much to go on.”

  “You mean,” said Hart, with rage seething near the surface, “that you’ve no idea of what is going on.”

  “Not the slightest,” said Sheldon cheerfully.

  “It’s got to be better than that,” Hart told him. “It’s got to be a good deal better than that, Mister Co-ordinator. This is one time you’re going to earn your pay. I carry you for years at a good stiff salary, not because I want to,
but because Culture says I have to, and during all that time there’s nothing, or almost nothing, for you to do. But now there is something for you to do. Finally there is something to make you earn your pay. I’ve put up with you, had you in my hair, stumbled over you, and I’ve held my tongue and temper, but now that there’s a job to do, I’m going to see you do it.”

  He thrust out his head like an angry turtle. “You understand that, don’t you, Mister Co-ordinator?”

  “I understand,” said Sheldon.

  “You’re going to get to work on it,” said Hart. “You’ll get on it right away.”

  “I’m working on it now.”

  “Indeed,” said Master Hart.

  “I’ve satisfied myself,” said Sheldon, “that there’s nothing in the records.”

  “And what do you do now?”

  “Observe and think,” said Sheldon.

  “Observe and think!” yelped Hart, stricken to the core.

  “Maybe try a hunch or two,” said Sheldon. “Eventually we’ll find out what’s the trouble.”

  “How long?” asked Hart. “How long will all this mummery take?”

  “That’s something I can’t tell you.”

  “So you can’t tell me that. I must remind you, Mister Co-ordinator, that time spells money in the trading business.”

  “You’re ahead of schedule,” Sheldon told him calmly. “You’ve shaved everything on the entire cruise. You were brusque in your trading almost to the point of rudeness despite the standards of protocol that Culture has set up. I was forced time after time to impress upon you the importance of that protocol. There were other times when I let you get away with murder. You’ve driven the crew in violation of Labor’s program of fair employment. You’ve acted as if the devil were only a lap behind you. Your crew will get a needed rest while we untangle this affair. The loss of time won’t harm you.”