Few individuals of any race murder for pleasure. There are perfectly adequate reasons to kill, though, reasons which might satisfy any philosopher. But, once accepted, there are more reasons, and more and more. And murder, once accepted, is hard to stop. It leads ¦ irresistibly to war and, from there, to annihilation.
Kalen felt that this murder somehow involved the destiny of his race. His abstinence had been almost a matter of race-survival.
But it didn’t make him feel any better.
He watched his ship dwindle to a dot in the sky. The aliens were leaving at a ridiculously slow speed. He could think of no reason for this, unless they were doing it for his benefit.
Undoubtedly they were sadistic enough for that.
Kalen returned to the ship. His will to live was as strong as ever. He had no intention of giving up. He would hang onto life as long as he could, hoping for the one chance in a million that would bring another ship to this planet. Looking around, he thought that he might concoct an air substitute out of the skull-marked cleanser. It would sustain him for a day or two. Then, if he could open the kerla nut . . .
He thought he heard a noise outside and rushed to look. The sky was empty. His ship had vanished, and he was alone.
He returned to the alien ship and set about the serious business of staying alive.
AS Agee recovered consciousness, he found that he had managed to cut the acceleration in half, just before passing out. This was the only thing that had saved his life.
And the acceleration, hovering just above zero on the dial, was still unbearably heavy! Agee unsealed the door and crawled out. Barnett and Victor had burst their straps on the takeoff. Victor was just returning to consciousness. Barnett picked himself out of a pile of smashed cases.
“Do you think you’re flying in a circus?” he complained. “I told you minimum acceleration.”
“I started under minimum acceleration,” Agee said. “Go read the tape for yourself.”
Barnett marched to the control room. He came out quickly.
“That’s bad. Our alien friend operates this ship at three times our acceleration.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Barnett said thoughtfully. “He must come from a heavy planet—a place where you have to blast out at high speed, if you expect to get out at all.”
“What hit me?” Victor groaned, rubbing his head. There was a clicking in the walls. The ship was fully awake now, and its servos turned on automatically.
“Getting warm, isn’t it?” Victor asked.
“Yeah, and thick,” Agee said. “Pressure buildup.” He went back to the control room. Barnett and Victor stood anxiously in the doorway, waiting.
“I can’t turn it off,” Agee said, wiping perspiration from his streaming face.
“The temperature and pressure are automatic. They must go to ‘normal’ as soon as the ship is in flight.”
“You damn well better turn them off,” Barnett told him. “We’ll fry in here if you don’t.”
“There’s no way.”
“He must have some kind of heat regulation.”
“Sure—there!” Agee said, pointing. “The control is already set at its lowest point.”
“WHAT do you suppose his normal temperature is?” Barnett asked.
“I’d hate to find out,” Agee said. “This ship is built of extremely high melting-point alloys. It’s constructed to withstand ten times the pressure of an Earth ship. Put those together . . .”
“You must be able to turn it off somewhere!” Barnett said. He peeled off his jacket and sweater. The heat was mounting rapidly and the deck was becoming too hot to stand on.
“Turn it off!” Victor howled.
“Wait a minute,” Agee said. “/ didn’t build this ship, you know. How should I know—”
“Off!” Victor screamed, shaking Agee up and down like a rag doll. “Off!”
“Let go!” Agee half-drew his blaster. Then, in a burst of inspiration, he turned off the ship’s engines.
The clicking in the walls stopped. The room began to cool. “What happened?” Victor asked.
“The temperature and pressure fall when the power is off,” Agee said. “We’re safe—as long as we don’t run the engines.”
“How long will it take us to coast to a port?” Barnett asked.Agee figured it out. “About three years,” he said. “We’re pretty far out.”
“Isn’t there any way we can rip out those servos? Disconnect them?”
“They’re built into the guts of the ship,” Agee said. “We’d need a full machine shop and skilled help. Even then, it wouldn’t be easy.” Barnett was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “All right.”
“All right what?”
“We’re licked. We’ve got to go back to that planet and take our own ship.”
AGEE heaved a sigh of relief and punched a new course on the ship’s tape.
“You think the alien’ll give it back?” Victor asked. “Sure he will,” Barnett said, “if he’s not dead. He’ll be pretty anxious to get his own ship back. And he has to leave our ship to get in his.”
“Sure. But once he gets back in this ship . . .”
“We’ll gimmick the controls,” Barnett said. “That’ll slow him down.”
“For a little while,” Agee pointed out. “But he’ll get into the air sooner or later, with blood in his eye. We’ll never outrun him.”
“We won’t have to,” Barnett said. “All we have to do is get into the air first. He’s got a strong hull, but I don’t think it’ll take three atomic bombs.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Agee said, smiling faintly.
“Only logical move,” Barnett said complacently. “The alloys in the hull will still be worth something. Now, get us back without frying us, if you can.” Agee turned the engines on. He swung the ship around in a tight curve, piling on all the Gs they could stand. The servos clicked on, and the temperature shot rapidly up. Once the curve was rounded, Agee pointed Endeavor II in the right direction and shut off the engines.
They coasted most of the way. But when they reached the planet, Agee had to leave the engines on, to bring them around the deceleration spiral and into the landing.
They were barely able to get out of the ship. Their skins were blistered and their shoes burned through. There was no time to gimmick the controls. They retreated to the woods and waited.
“Perhaps he’s dead,” Agee said hopefully.
They saw a small figure emerge from Endeavor I. The alien was moving slowly, but he was moving.
They watched. “Suppose,” Victor said, “he’s made a weapon of some kind. Suppose he comes after us.”
“Suppose you shut up,” Barnett said.
The alien walked directly to his own ship. He went inside and shut the locks.
“All right,” Barnett said, standing up. “We’d better blast off in a hurry. Agee, you take the controls. I’ll connect the piles. Victor, you secure the locks. Let’s go!”
They sprinted across the plain and, in a matter of seconds, had reached the open airlock of Endeavor I.
EVEN if he had wanted to hurry, Kalen didn’t have the necessary strength to pilot his ship. But he knew that he was safe, once inside. No alien was going to walk through those sealed ports.
He found a spare air tank in the rear and opened it. His ship filled with rich, life-giving yellow air. For long minutes, Kalen just breathed it. Then he lugged three of the biggest kerla nuts he could find to the galley and let the Cracker open them.
After eating, he felt much better. He let the Changer take off his outer hide. The second layer was dead, too, and the Changer cut that off him, but stopped at the third, living layer.
He was almost as good as new when he slipped into the pilot’s room. It was apparent to him now that the aliens had been temporarily insane. There was no other way to explain why they had come back and returned his ship. Therefore, he would find their autho
rities and report the location of the planet. They could be found and cured, once and for all.
Kalen felt very happy. He had not deviated from the Mabogian ethic, and that was the important thing. He could so easily have left the thetnite bomb in their ship, all set and timed. He could have wrecked their engines. And there had been a temptation.
But he had not. He had done nothing at all.
All he had done was construct a few minimum essentials for the preservation of life.
Kalen activated his controls and found that everything was in perfect working order. The acceleration fluid poured in as he turned on the piles.
VICTOR reached the airlock first and dashed in. Instantly, he was hurled back.
“What happened?” Barnett asked.
“Something hit me,” Victor said.
Cautiously, they looked inside.
It was a very neat death trap. Wires from the storage batteries had been hooked in series and rigged across the port.
If Victor had been touching the side of the ship, he would have been electrocuted instantly.
They shorted out the system and entered the ship.
It was a mess. Everything movable had been ripped up and strewn around. There was a bent steel bar in a corner. Their high-potency acid had been spilled over the deck and had eaten through in several places. The Endeavor’s old hull was holed.
“I never thought he’d gimmick us!” Agee said.
They explored further. Toward the rear was another booby trap. The cargo hold door had been cunningly rigged to the small starter motor. If anyone touched it, the door would be slammed against the wall. A man caught between would be crushed.
There were other hookups that gave no hint of their purpose.
“Can we fix it?” Barnett asked.
Agee shrugged his shoulders. “Most of our tools are still on board Endeavor II. I suppose we can get her patched up inside of a year. But even then, I don’t know if the hull will hold.”
They walked outside. The alien ship blasted off.
“What a monster!” Barnett said, looking at the acid-eaten hull of his ship.
“You can never tell what an alien will do,” Agee answered.
“The only good alien is a dead alien,” Victor said. Endeavor I was now as incomprehensible and dangerous as Endeavor II. And Endeavor II was gone.
PARADISE II
The space station revolved around its planet, waiting. Properly speaking it was without intelligence, for intelligence was unnecessary. It had awareness, however, and certain tropisms, affinities, reactions.
It was resourceful. Its purpose was stamped into the very metal, impressed into the circuits and tubes. And perhaps the machine retained some of the emotions that had gone into its building—the wild hopes, the fears, the frenzied race against time.
But the hopes had been in vain, for the race was lost, and the great machine hung in space, incomplete and useless. But it had awareness, and certain tropisms, affinities, reactions. It was resourceful. It knew what it needed. So it scanned space, waiting for its missing components.
In the region of Bootes he came to a little cherry-red sun, and as the ship swung in, he saw that one of its planets was the rare, beautiful blue-green color of Earth.
“Look at this!” Fleming shouted, turning from the controls, his voice breaking with excitement. “Earth type. It is Earth type, isn’t it, Howard? We’ll make a fortune on this one!” Howard came forward slowly from the ship’s galley, munching on a piece of avocado. He was short and bald, and he carried a dignified paunch the size of a small watermelon. He was irritated, for he had been deeply involved in making dinner. Cooking was an art with Howard, and had he not been a businessman, he would have been a chef. They ate well on all their trips, because Howard had a way with fried chicken, served his roasts with Howard sauce, and was especially adept at Howard salad.
“It might be Earth type,” he said, staring coldly at the blue-green planet.
“Of course it is,” Fleming said. Fleming was young, and more enthusiastic than any man had a right to be in space. He was gaunt, in spite of Howard’s cooking, and his carroty hair fell messily over his forehead. Howard tolerated him, not only because Fleming had a way with ships and engines; above all, Fleming had a businesslike attitude. A businesslike attitude was most necessary in space, where it cost a small fortune just to raise ship.
“If only it’s not populated,” Fleming was praying in his enthusiastic, businesslike way. “If only it’s all ours. Ours, Howard! An Earth type planet! God, we can sell the real estate alone for a fortune, to say nothing of mineral rights, refueling rights, and everything else.”
Howard swallowed the last of his avocado. Young Fleming still had a lot to learn. Finding and selling planets was a business, exactly like growing and selling oranges. There was a difference, of course; oranges aren’t dangerous, and planets sometimes are. But then, oranges don’t make the profits a good planet can.
“Shall we land on our planet now?” Fleming asked eagerly.
“By all means,” Howard said. “Only—that space station ahead leads me to believe that the inhabitants might consider it their planet.”
Fleming looked. Sure enough, a space station, previously hidden by the planet’s bulk, was swinging into sight.
“Oh damn,” Fleming said, his narrow freckled face twisting into a pout. “It’s populated, then. Do you suppose we could—” He left the sentence unfinished, but glanced at the gunfire controls.
“Hmm.” Howard looked at the space station, appraised the technology that had built it, then glanced at the planet. Regretfully he shook his head. “No, not here.”
“Oh well,” Fleming said. “At least we have first trading rights.” He looked out the port again and caught Howard’s arm. “Look—the space station.”
Across the gray metal surface of the sphere bright lights were winking in sequence.
“What do you suppose it means?” Fleming asked.
“I have no idea,” Howard told him, “and we’ll never find out here. You may as well land on the planet, if no one tries to stop you.”
Fleming nodded, and switched the controls to manual. For a few moments, Howard watched.
The control board was covered with dials, switches and gauges, which were made of metal, plastics and quartz. Fleming, on the other hand, was flesh and Mood and bone. It seemed impossible that any relationship could exist between them, except the most perfunctory. Instead, Fleming seemed to merge into the control board. His eyes scanned the dials with mechanical precision, his fingers became extensions of the switches. The metal seemed to become pliable under his hands, and amenable to his will. The quartz gauges gleamed red, and Fleming’s eyes shone red too, with a glow that didn’t seem entirely reflection.
Once the deceleration spiral had been entered, Howard settled himself comfortably in the galley. He estimated his fuel and food expenditures, plus depreciation on the ship. To the sum he added a safe third, and marked it down in a ledger. It would come in useful later, for his income tax.
They landed on the outskirts of a city, and waited for the local customs officials. No one came. They ran the standard atmosphere and micro-organism tests, and continued waiting. Still no one came. After half a day, Fleming undogged the hatch and they started toward the city.
The first skeletons, scattered across the bomb-torn concrete road, puzzled them; it seemed so untidy. What civilized people left skeletons in their roads? Why didn’t someone clean up?
The city was populated only by skeletons, thousands, millions, packed into crumbling theaters, fallen at the doorways of dusty stores, scattered across the bullet-ripped streets.
“Must have had a war on,” Fleming said brightly.
In the center of the city they found a parade grounds where rank upon rank of uniformed skeletons lay upon the grass. The reviewing stands were packed with skeleton officials, skeleton officers, skeleton wives and parents. And behind the stands were skeleton children, gathered
to see the fun.
“A war, all right,” Fleming said, nodding his head with finality. “They lost.”
“Obviously,” Howard said. “But who won?”
“What?”
“Where are the victors?”
At that moment the space station passed overhead, casting a shadow across the silent ranks of skeletons. Both men glanced up uneasily.
“You think everyone’s dead?” Fleming asked hopefully.
“I think we should find out.”
They walked back to the ship. Fleming began to whistle out of sheer high spirits, and kicked a mound of pocked bones out of his way. “We’ve struck it rich,” he said, grinning at Howard.
“Not yet,” Howard said cautiously. “There may be survivors—” He caught Fleming’s look and smiled in spite of himself.
“It does look like a successful business trip.”
Their tour of the planet was brief. The blue-green world was a bomb-splattered tomb. On every continent, the towns contained their tens of thousands of bony inhabitants, each city its millions. The plains and mountains were scattered with skeletons, and there were skeletons in the lakes, and skeletons in the forests and jungles.
“What a mess!” Fleming said at last, as they hovered over the planet. “What do you suppose the population was here?”
“I’d estimate it at nine billion, give or take a billion,” Howard said.
“What do you suppose happened?”
Howard smiled sagely. “There are three classic methods of genicide. The first is pollution of the atmosphere by poison gas. Allied to that is radio-active poisoning, which kills the plant life as well. And finally, there are mutated laboratory germs, created solely for the purpose of attacking whole populations. If they get out of hand, they can wipe out a planet.”
“Think that happened here?” Fleming asked, with lively interest.
“I believe so,” Howard said, wiping an apple on his arm and biting into it. “I’m no pathologist, but the marks on those bones—”
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