Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Stellman seized him by the ankles, arresting the flight of the disk once more. Herrera wrenched one foot free and threw himself over the edge. The other ankle was held for a moment, then the tough grass parted under his weight. He dropped headfirst to the ground, at the last moment ducking his head and landing on his shoulders. Paxton let go of the disk and fell, landing on Stellman’s stomach.

  The disk of earth, with its cargo of roast beef, whiskey and diamonds, continued to rise until it was out of sight.

  The sun had set. Without speaking, the three men entered their cave, blasters drawn. They built a roaring fire at the mouth and moved back into the cave’s interior.

  “We’ll guard in shifts tonight,” Herrera said.

  Paxton and Stellman nodded.

  Herrera said, “I think you’re right, Paxton. We’ve stayed here long enough.”

  “Too long,” Paxton said.

  Herrera shrugged his shoulders. “As soon as it’s light, we return to the ship and get out of here.”

  “If,” Stellman said, “we are able to reach the ship.”

  DROG was quite discouraged. With a sinking heart he had watched the premature springing of his trap, the struggle, and the escape of the Mirash. It had been such a splendid Mirash, too. The biggest of the three!

  He knew now what he had done wrong. In his eagerness, he had overbaited his trap. Just the minerals would have been sufficient, for Mirash were notoriously mineral-tropic. But no, he had to improve on pioneer methods, he had to use food stimuli as well. No wonder they had reacted suspiciously, with their senses so overburdened.

  Now they were enraged, alert, and decidedly dangerous.

  And a thoroughly aroused Mirash was one of the most fearsome sights in the Galaxy.

  Drog felt very much alone as Elbonai’s twin moons rose in the western sky. He could see the Mirash campfire blazing in the mouth of their cave. And by direct perception he could see the Mirash crouched within, every sense alert, weapons ready.

  Was a Mirash hide really worth all this trouble?

  Drog decided that he would much rather be floating at the five-thousand-foot level, sculpturing cloud formations and dreaming. He wanted to sop up radiation instead of eating nasty old solid food. And what use was all this hunting and trapping, anyhow? Worthless skills that his people had outgrown.

  For a moment he almost had himself convinced. And then, in a flash of pure perception, he understood what it was all about.

  True, the Elbonaians had outgrown their competition, developed past all danger of competition. But the Universe was wide, and capable of many surprises. Who could foresee what would come, what new dangers the race might have to face? And how could they meet them if the hunting instinct was lost?

  No, the old ways had to be preserved, to serve as patterns; as reminders that peaceable, intelligent life was an unstable entity in an unfriendly Universe.

  He was going to get that Mirash hide, or die trying!

  The most important thing was to get them out of that cave. Now his hunting knowledge had returned to him.

  Quickly, skillfully, he shaped a Mirash horn.

  “DID YOU hear that?” Paxton asked.

  “I thought I heard something,” Stellman said, and they all listened intently.

  The sound came again. It was a voice crying, “Oh, help, help me!”

  “It’s a girl!” Paxton jumped to his feet.

  “It sounds like a girl,” Stellman said.

  “Please, help me,” the girl’s voice wailed. “I can’t hold out much longer. Is there anyone who can help me?”

  Blood rushed to Paxton’s face. In a flash he saw her, small, exquisite, standing beside her wrecked sports-spacer (what a foolhardy trip it had been!) with monsters, green and slimy, closing in on her. And then he arrived, a foul alien beast.

  Paxton picked up a spare blaster. “I’m going out there,” he said coolly.

  “Sit down, you moron!” Herrera ordered.

  “But you heard her, didn’t you?”

  “That can’t be a girl,” Herrera said. “What would a girl be doing on this planet?”

  “I’m going to find out,” Paxton said, brandishing two blasters. “Maybe a spaceliner crashed, or she could have been out joyriding, and—”

  “Siddown!” Herrera yelled.

  “He’s right,” Stellman tried to reason with Paxton. “Even if a girl is out there, which I doubt, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Oh, help, help, it’s coming after me!” the girl’s voice screamed.

  “Get out of my way,” Paxton said, his voice low and dangerous.

  “You’re really going?” Herrera asked incredulously.

  “Yes! Are you going to stop me?”

  “Go ahead.” Herrera gestured at the entrance of the cave.

  “We can’t let him!” Stellman gasped.

  “Why not? His funeral,” Herrera said lazily.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Paxton said. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes—with her!” He turned on his heel and started toward the entrance. Herrera leaned forward and, with considerable precision, clubbed Paxton behind the ear with a stick of firewood. Stellman caught him as he fell.

  They stretched Paxton out in the rear of the cave and returned to their vigil. The lady in distress moaned and pleaded for the next five hours. Much too long, as Paxton had to agree, even for a movie serial.

  A GLOOMY, rain-splattered daybreak found Drog still camped a hundred yards from the cave. He saw the Mirash emerge in a tight group, weapons ready, eyes watching warily for any movement.

  Why had the Mirash horn failed? The Scouter Manual said it was an infallible means of attracting the bull Mirash. But perhaps this wasn’t mating season.

  They were moving in the direction of a metallic ovoid which Drog recognized as a primitive spatial conveyance. It was crude, but once inside it the Mirash were safe from him.

  He could simply trevest them, and that would end it. But it wouldn’t be very humane. Above all, the ancient Elbonaians had been gentle and merciful, and a Young Scouter tried to be like them. Besides, trevestment wasn’t a true pioneering method.

  That left ilitrocy. It was the oldest trick in the book, and he’d have to get close to work it. But he had nothing to lose.

  And luckily, climatic conditions were perfect for it.

  IT STARTED as a thin ground-mist. But, as the watery sun climbed the gray sky, fog began forming.

  Herrera cursed angrily as it grew more dense. “Keep close together now. Of all the luck!”

  Soon they were walking with their hands on each others’ shoulders, blasters ready, peering into the impenetrable fog.

  “Herrera?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?”

  “Sure. I took a compass course before the fog closed in.”

  “Suppose your compass is off?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  They walked on, picking their way carefully over the rock-strewn ground.

  “I think I see the ship,” Paxton said.

  “No, not yet,” Herrera said.

  Stellman stumbled over a rock, dropped his blaster, picked it up again and fumbled around for Herrera’s shoulder. He found it and walked on.

  “I think we’re almost there,” Herrera said.

  “I sure hope so,” Paxton said. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Think your girl friend’s waiting for you at the ship?”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “Okay,” Herrera said. “Hey, Stellman, you better grab hold of my shoulder again. No sense getting separated.”

  “I am holding your shoulder,” Stellman said.

  “You’re not.”

  “I am, I tell you!”

  “Look I guess I know if someone’s holding my shoulder or not.”

  “Am I holding your shoulder, Paxton?”

  “No,” Paxton said.

  “That’s bad,” Stellman
said, very slowly. “That’s bad, indeed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m definitely holding someone’s shoulder.”

  Herrera yelled, “Get down, get down quick, give me room to shoot!” But it was too late. A sweet-sour odor was in the air. Stellman and Paxton smelled it and collapsed. Herrera ran forward blindly, trying to hold his breath. He stumbled and fell over a rock, tried to get back on his feet—

  And everything went black.

  The fog lifted suddenly and Drog was standing alone, smiling triumphantly. He pulled out a long-bladed skinning knife and bent over the nearest Mirash.

  THE spaceship hurtled toward Terra at a velocity which threatened momentarily to burn out the overdrive. Herrera, hunched over the controls, finally regained his self-control and cut the speed down to normal. His usual tan face was still ashen, and his hands shook on the instruments.

  Stellman came in from the bunkroom and flopped wearily in the co-pilot’s seat.

  “How’s Paxton?” Herrera asked.

  “I dosed him with Drona-3,” Stellman said. “He’s going to be all right.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Herrera said.

  “It’s just shock, for the most part,” Stellman said. “When he comes to, I’m going to put him to work counting diamonds. Counting diamonds is the best of therapies, I understand.”

  Herrera grinned, and his face began to regain its normal color. “I feel like doing a little diamond-cutting myself, now that it’s all turned out okay.” Then his long face became serious. “But I ask you, Stellman, who could figure it? I still don’t understand!”

  THE Scouter Jamboree was a glorious spectacle. The Soaring Falcon Patrol, number 22, gave a short pantomime showing the clearing of the land on Elbonai. The Brave Bisons, number 31, were in full pioneer dress.

  And at the head of patrol 19, the Charging Mirash Patrol, was Drog, a first-class Scouter now, wearing a glittering achievement badge. He was carrying the Patrol flag—the position of honor—and everyone cheered to see it.

  Because waving proudly from the flagpole was the firm, fine-textured, characteristic skin of an adult Mirash, its zippers, tubes, gauges, buttons and holsters flashing merrily in the sunshine.

  SPY STORY

  BILL DIDN’T MIND BEING SHADOWED—BUT INCOMPETENT SHADOWS WERE REALLY THE LAST STRAW.

  I’M REALLY IN TROUble now, more trouble than I ever thought possible. It’s a little difficult to explain how I got into this mess, so maybe I’d better start at the beginning.

  Ever since I graduated from trade school in 1991 I’d had a good job as sphinx valve assembler on the Starling Spaceship production line. I really loved those big ships, roaring to Cygnus and Alpha Centaurus and all the other places in the news. I was a young man with a future, I had friends, I even knew some girls.

  But it was no good.

  The job was fine, but I couldn’t do my best work with those hidden cameras focused on my hands. Not that I minded the cameras themselves; it was the whirring noise they made. I couldn’t concentrate.

  I complained to Internal Security. I told them, look, why can’t I have new, quiet cameras, like everybody else? But they were too busy to do anything about it.

  Then lots of little things started to bother me. Like the tape recorder in my TV set. The F.B.I, never adjusted it right, and it hummed all night long. I complained a hundred times. I told them, look, nobody else’s recorder hums that way. Why mine? But they always gave me that speech about winning the cold war, and how they couldn’t please everybody.

  Things like that make a person feel inferior. I suspected my government wasn’t interested in me.

  Take my Spy, for example. I was an 18-D Suspect—the same classification as the Vice-President—and this entitled me to part-time surveillance. But my particular Spy must have thought he was a movie actor, because he always wore a stained trench coat and a slouch hat jammed over his eyes. He was a thin, nervous type, and he followed practically on my heels for fear of losing me.

  Well, he was trying his best. Spying is a competitive business, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry, he was so bad at it. But it was embarrassing, just to be associated with him. My friends laughed themselves sick whenever I showed up with him breathing down the back of my neck. “Bill,” they said, “is that the best you can do?” And my girl friends thought he was creepy. Naturally, I went to the Senate Investigations Committee, and said, look, why can’t you give me a trained Spy, like my friends have?

  They said they’d see, but I knew I wasn’t important enough to swing it. All these little things put me on edge, and any psychologist will tell you it doesn’t take something big to drive you bats. I was sick of being ignored, sick of being neglected.

  That’s when I started to think about Deep Space. There were billions of square miles of nothingness out there, dotted with too many stars to count. There were enough Earth-type planets for every man, woman and child. There had to be a spot for me.

  I bought a Universe Light List, and a tattered Galactic Pilot. I read through the Gravity Tide Book, and the Interstellar Pilot Charts. Finally I figured I knew as much as I’d ever know.

  All my savings went into an old Chrysler Star Clipper. This antique leaked oxygen along its seams. It had a touchy atomic pile, and spacewarp drives that might throw you practically anywhere. It was dangerous, but the only life I was risking was my own. At least, that’s what I thought.

  So I got my passport, blue clearance, red clearance, numbers certificate, space-sickness shots and deratification papers. At the job I collected my last day’s pay and waved to the cameras. In the apartment, I packed my clothes and said good-bye to the recorders. On the street, I shook hands with my poor Spy and wished him luck.

  I had burned my bridges behind me. All that was left was final clearance, so I hurried down to the Final Clearance Office. A clerk with white hands and a sun lamp tan looked at me dubiously.

  “Where did you wish to go?” he asked me. “Space,” I said.

  “Of course. But where in space?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “Just space. Deep Space. Free Space.” The clerk sighed wearily. “You’ll have to be more explicit than that, if you want a clearance. Are you going to settle on a planet in American Space? Or did you wish to emigrate to British Space? Or Dutch Space? Or French Space?”

  “I didn’t know space could be owned,” I said. “Then you don’t keep up with the times,” he told me, with a superior smirk. “The United States has claimed all space between coordinates 2XA and D2B, except for a small and relatively unimportant segment which is claimed by Mexico. The Soviet Union has coordinates 3DB to LO2—a very bleak region, I can assure you. And then there is the Belgian Grant, the Chinese Grant, the Ceylonese Grant, the Nigerian Grant—”

  I stopped him. “Where is Free Space?” I asked. “There is none.”

  “None at all? How far do the boundary lines extend?”

  “To infinity,” he told me proudly.

  For a moment it fetched me up short. Somehow I had never-considered the possibility of every bit of infinite space being owned. But it was natural enough. After all, somebody had to own it.

  “I want to go into American Space,” I said. It didn’t seem to matter at the time, although it turned out otherwise.

  The clerk nodded sullenly. He checked my records back to the age of five—there was no sense in going back any further—and gave me the Final Clearance. The spaceport had my ship all serviced, and I managed to get away without blowing a tube. It wasn’t until Earth dwindled to a pinpoint and disappeared behind me that I realized that I was alone.

  • • •

  Fifty hours out I was making a routine inspection of my stores, when I observed that one of my vegetable sacks had a shape unlike the other sacks. Upon opening it I found a girl, where a hundred pounds of potatoes should have been.

  A stowaway. I stared at her, open-mouthed.

  “Well,” she said, “are you going to help me out? O
r would you prefer to close the sack and forget the whole thing?”

  I helped her out. She said, “Your potatoes are lumpy.” I could have said the same of her, with considerable approval. She was a slender girl, for the most part, with hair the reddish blond color of a flaring jet, a pert, dirt-smudged face and brooding blue eyes. On Earth, I would gladly have walked, ten miles to meet her. In space, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Could you give me something to eat?” she asked. “All I’ve had since we left is raw carrots.”

  I fixed her a sandwich. While she ate, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, between mouthfuls.

  “Sure I would.”

  She walked to a porthole and looked out at the spectacle of stars—American stars, most of them—burning in the void of American space.

  “I wanted to be free,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  She sank wearily on my cot. “I suppose you’d call me a romantic,” she said quietly. “I’m the sort of fool who recites poetry to herself in the black night, and cries in front of some absurd little statuette. Yellow autumn leaves make me tremble, and dew on a green lawn seems like the tears of all Earth. My psychiatrist tells me I’m a misfit.”

  She closed her eyes with a weariness I could appreciate. Standing in a potato sack for fifty hours can be pretty exhausting.

  “Earth was getting me down,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it—the regimentation, the discipline, the privation, the cold war, the hot war, everything. I wanted to laugh in free air, run through green fields, walk unmolested through gloomy forests, sing—”

  “But why did you pick on me?”

  “You were bound for freedom,” she said. “Ill leave, if you insist.” That was a pretty silly idea, out in the depths of space. And I couldn’t afford the fuel to turn back.

  “You can stay,” I said.