Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Shut up,” Morrison said, walking forward, his face glowing. Lerner put a restraining hand on his shoulder. Striking an observer was a good way to lose your ticket.

  Dengue finished his drink and intoned sonorously, “Stand aside, Mother Nature!

  Tremble, ye deep-rooted rocks and hills, murmur with fear, ye immemorial ocean sea, down to your blackest depths where monsters unholy glide in eternal silence! For Great Morrison has come to drain the sea and make of it a placid pond, to level the hills and build upon them twelve-lane super highways, complete with restrooms for trees, picnic tables for shrubs, diners for rocks, gas stations for caves, billboards for mountain streams, and other fanciful substitutions of the demigod Man.”

  Morrison arose abruptly and walked out, followed by Lerner. He felt that it would almost be worthwhile to beat Dengue’s face in and give up the whole crummy job. But he wouldn’t do it because that was what Dengue wanted, what he was hired to accomplish.

  And, Morrison asked himself, would he be so upset if there weren’t a germ of truth in what Dengue said?

  “Those natives are waiting,” Lerner said, catching up with him.

  “I don’t want to see them now,” Morrison said. But distantly, from a far rise of hills, he could hear their drums and whistles. Another irritation for his poor men. “All right,” he said.

  Three natives were standing at the North Gate beside the camp interpreter. They were of human-related stock, scrawny, naked stone-age savages.

  “What do they want?” Morrison asked.

  The interpreter said, “Well, Mr. Morrison, boiling it down, they’ve changed their minds. They want their planet back, and they’re willing to return all our presents.”

  Morrison sighed. He couldn’t very well explain to them that Work Order 35 wasn’t “their” planet, or anyone’s planet Land couldn’t be possessed—merely occupied. Necessity was the judge. This planet belonged more truly to the several million Earth settlers who would utilize it, than to the few hundred thousand savages who scurried over its surface. That, at least, was the prevailing philosophy upon Earth.

  “Tell them again,” Morrison said, “all about the splendid reservation we’ve set aside for them. We’re going to feed them, clothe them, educate them—” Dengue came up quietly. “We’re going to astonish them with kindness,” he said.

  “To every man, a wrist watch, a pair of shoes, and a government seed catalogue. To every woman, a lipstick, a bar of soap, and a set of genuine cotton curtains. For every village, a railroad depot, a company store, and—”

  “Now you’re interfering with work,” Morrison said. “And in front of witnesses.”

  Dengue knew the rules. “Sorry, old man,” he said, and moved back.

  “They say they’ve changed their minds,” the interpreter said. “To render it idiomatically, they say we are to return to our demonland in the sky or they will destroy us with strong magic. The sacred drums are weaving the curse now, and the spirits are gathering.”

  Morrison looked at the savages with pity. Something like this happened on every planet with a native population. The same meaningless threats were always made by pre-civilized peoples with an inflated opinion of themselves and no concept at all of the power of technology. He knew primitive humans too well. Great boasters, great killers of the local variety of rabbits and mice. Occasionally fifty of them would gang up on a tired buffalo, tormenting it into exhaustion before they dared approach close enough to torture out its life with pin pricks from their dull spears. And then what a celebration they had! What heroes they thought themselves!

  “Tell them to get the hell out of here,” Morrison said. “Tell them if they come near this camp they’ll find some magic that really works.” The interpreter called after him, “They’re promising big bad trouble in five supernatural categories.”

  “Save it for your doctorate,” Morrison said, and the interpreter grinned cheerfully.

  By late afternoon it was time for the destruction of the mountain without a name. Lerner went on a last inspection. Dengue, for once acting like an observer, went down the line jotting down diagrams of the charge pattern. Then everyone retreated. The explosions men crouched in their shelters. Morrison went to Control Point Able.

  One by one the section chiefs reported their men in. Weather took its last readings and found conditions satisfactory. The photographer snapped his last “before” pictures.

  “Stand by,” Morrison said over the radio, and removed the safety interlocks from the master detonation box. “Look at the sky,” Lerner murmured. Morrison glanced up. It was approaching sunset, and black clouds had sprung up from the west, covering an ocher sky. Silence descended on the camp, and even the drums from nearby hills were quiet.

  “Ten seconds . . . five, four, three, two, one—now!” Morrison called, and rammed the plunger home. At that moment, he felt the wind fan his cheek. Just before the mountain erupted, Morrison clawed at the plunger, instinctively trying to undo the inevitable moment.

  Because even before the men started screaming, he knew that the explosion pattern was wrong, terribly wrong.

  Afterward, in the solitude of his tent, after the injured men had been carried to the hospital and the dead had been buried, Morrison tried to reconstruct the event. It had been an accident, of course: A sudden shift in wind direction, the unexpected brittleness of rock just under the surface layer, the failure of the dampers, and the criminal stupidity of placing two booster charges where they would do the most harm.

  Another in a long series of statistical improbabilities, he told himself, then sat suddenly upright.

  For the first time it occurred to him that the accidents might have been helped.

  Absurd! But planetary construction was tricky work, with its juggling of massive forces. Accidents happened inevitably. If someone gave them a helping hand, they could become catastrophic.

  He stood up and began to pace the narrow length of his tent. Dengue was the obvious suspect. Rivalry between the companies ran high. If Transterran Steel could be shown inept, careless, accident-ridden, she might lose her charter, to the advantage of Dengue’s company, and Dengue himself. But Dengue seemed too obvious. Anyone could be responsible. Even little Lerner might have his motives. He really could trust no one. Perhaps he should even consider the natives and their magic—which might be unconscious psi manipulation, for all he knew.

  He walked to the doorway and looked out on the scores of tents housing his city of workmen. Who was to blame? How could he find out?

  From the hills he could hear the faint, clumsy drums of the planet’s former owners. And in front of him, the jagged, ruined, avalanche-swept summit of the mountain without a name was still standing.

  He didn’t sleep well that night.

  The next day, work went on as usual. The big conveyor trucks lined up, filled with chemicals for the fixation of the nearby swamps. Dengue arrived, trim in khaki slacks and pink officer’s shirt.

  “Say chief,” he said, “I think I’ll go along, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Morrison said, checking out the trip slips.

  “Thanks. I like this sort of operation,” Dengue said, swinging into the lead Trailbreaker beside the chartman. “This sort of operation makes me proud to be a human. We’re reclaiming all wasted swamp land, hundreds of square miles of it, and some day fields of wheat will grow where only bulrushes flourished.”

  “You’ve got the chart?” Morrison asked Rivera, the assistant foreman.

  “Here it is,” Lerner said, giving it to Rivera.

  “Yes,” Dengue mused out loud, “Swamp into wheat fields. A miracle of science. And what a surprise it will be for the denizens of the swamp! Imagine the consternation of several hundred species of fish, the amphibians, water fowl, and beasts of the swamp when they find that their watery paradise has suddenly solidified on them! Literally solidified on them; a hard break. But, of course, excellent fertilizer for the wheat.”

  “All right,
move out,” Morrison called. Dengue waved gaily as the convoy started. Rivera climbed into a truck. Flynn, the fix foreman, came by in his jeep.

  “Wait a minute,” Morrison said. He walked up to the jeep. “I want you to keep an eye on Dengue.”

  Flynn looked blank. “Keep an eye on him?”

  “That’s right.” Morrison rubbed his hands together uncomfortably. “I’m not making any accusations, understand. But there’s too many accidents on this job. If someone wanted us to look bad—”

  Flynn smiled wolfishly. “I’ll watch him, boss. Don’t worry about this operation. Maybe he’ll join his fishes in the wheat fields.”

  “No rough stuff,” Morrison warned.

  “Of course not. I understand you perfectly, boss.” The fix foreman swung into his jeep and roared to the front of the convoy. The procession of trucks churned dust for half an hour, and then the last of them was gone. Morrison returned to his tent to fill out progress reports.

  But he found he was staring at the radio, waiting for Flynn to report. If only Dengue would do something! Nothing big, just enough to prove he was the man. Then Morrison would have every right to take him apart limb by limb. It was two hours before the radio buzzed, and Morrison banged his knee answering it.

  “This is Rivera. We’ve had some trouble, Mr. Morrison.”

  “Go on.”

  “The lead Trailbreaker must have got off course. Don’t ask me how. I thought the chartman knew where he was going. He’s paid enough.”

  “Come on, what happened?” Morrison shouted.

  “Must have been going over a thin crust. Once the convoy was on it, the surface cracked. Mud underneath, super-saturated with water. Lost all but six trucks.”

  “Flynn?”

  “We pontooned a lot of the men out, but Flynn didn’t make it.”

  “All right,” Morrison said heavily. “All right. Sit there. I’m sending the amphibians out for you. And listen. Keep hold of Dengue.”

  “That’ll be sort of difficult,” Rivera said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, you know, he was in that lead Trailbreaker. He never had a chance.” The men in the work camp were in a sullen, angry mood after their new losses, and badly in need of something tangible to strike at. They beat up a baker because his bread tasted funny, and almost lynched a water-control man because he was found near the big rigs, where he had no legitimate business. But this didn’t satisfy them, and they began to glance toward the native village. The stone-age savages had built a new settlement near the work camp, a cliff village of seers and warlocks assembled to curse the skyland demons. Their drums pounded day and night, and the men talked of blasting them out, just to shut them up.

  Morrison pushed them on. Roads were constructed, and within a week they crumpled. Food seemed to spoil at an alarming rate, and no one would eat the planet’s natural products. During a storm, lightning struck the generator plant, ignoring the lightning rods which Lerner had personally installed. The resulting fire swept half the camp, and when the fire-control team went for water, they found the nearest streams had been mysteriously diverted.

  A second attempt was made to blow up the mountain without a name, but this one succeeded only in jarring loose a few freak landslides. Five men had been holding an unauthorized beer party on a nearby slope, and they were caught beneath falling rock. After that, the explosions men refused to plant charges on the mountain. And the Earth office called again.

  “But just exactly what is wrong, Morrison?” Mr. Shotwell asked.

  “I tell you I don’t know,” Morrison said. After a moment, Shotwell asked softly, “Is there any possibility of sabotage?”

  “I guess so,” Morrison said. “All this couldn’t be entirely natural. If someone wanted to, they could do a lot of damage—like misguiding a convoy, tampering with charges, lousing up the lightning rods—”

  “Do you suspect anyone?”

  “I have over five thousand men here,” Morrison said slowly. “I know that. Now listen carefully. The board of directors has agreed to grant you extraordinary powers in this emergency. You can do anything you like to get the job done. Lock up half the camp, if you wish. Blow the natives out of the hills, if you think that might help. Take any and all measures. No legal responsibility will devolve upon you. We’re even prepared to pay a sizable bonus. But the job must be completed.”

  “I know,” Morrison said.

  “Yes, but you don’t know how important Work Order 35 is. In strictest confidence, the company has received a number of setbacks elsewhere. There have been loss and damage suits, Acts of God uncovered by our insurance. We’ve sunk too much in this planet to abandon it. You simply must carry it off.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Morrison said, and signed off. That afternoon there was an explosion in the fuel dump.

  Ten thousand gallons of D-12 were destroyed, and the fuel-dump guard was killed.

  “You were pretty lucky,” Morrison said, staring somberly at Lerner.

  “I’ll say,” Lerner said, his face still gray and sweat-stained. Quickly he poured himself a drink. “If I had walked through there ten minutes later, I would have been in the soup. That’s too close for comfort.”

  “Pretty lucky,” Morrison said thoughtfully.

  “Do you know,” Lerner said, “I think the ground was hot when I walked past the dump? It didn’t strike me until now. Could there be some sort of volcanic activity under the surface?”

  “No,” Morrison said. “Our geologists have charted every inch of this area. We’re perched on solid granite.”

  “Hmm,” Lerner said. “Morrie, I believe you should wipe out the natives.”

  “Why do that?”

  “They’re the only really uncontrolled factor. Everyone in the camp is watching everyone else. It must be the natives! Psi ability has been proved, you know, and it’s been shown more prevalent in primitives.”

  Morrison nodded. “Then you would say that the explosion was caused by poltergeist activity?”

  Lerner frowned, watching Morrison’s face. “Why not? It’s worth looking into.”

  “And if they can polter,” Morrison went on, “they can do anything else, can’t they? Direct an explosion, lead a convoy astray—”

  “I suppose they can, granting the hypothesis.”

  “Then what are they fooling around for?” Morrison asked. “If they can do all that, they could blow us off this planet without any trouble.”

  “They might have certain limitations,” Lerner said.

  “Nuts. Too complicated a theory. It’s much simpler to assume that someone here doesn’t want the job completed. Maybe he’s been offered a million dollars by a rival company. Maybe he’s a crank. But he’d have to be someone who gets around. Someone who checks blast patterns, charts courses, directs work parties—”

  “Now just a minute! If you’re implying—”

  “I’m not implying a thing,” Morrison said. “And if I’m doing you an injustice, I’m sorry.” He stepped outside the tent and called two workmen. “Lock him up somewhere, and make sure he stays locked up.”

  “You’re exceeding your authority,” Lerner said.

  “Sure.”

  “And you’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, Morrie.”

  “In that case, I’m sorry.” He motioned to the men, and they led Lerner out. Two days later the avalanches began. The geologists didn’t know why. They theorized that repeated demolition might have caused deep flaws in the bedrock, the flaws expanded, and—well, it was anybody’s guess. Morrison tried grimly to push the work ahead, but the men were beginning to get out of hand. Some of them were babbling about flying objects, fiery hands in the sky, talking animals and sentient machines. They drew a lot of listeners. It was unsafe to walk around the camp after dark. Self-appointed guards shot at anything that moved, and quite a number of things that didn’t. Morrison was not particularly surprised when, late one night, he found the work camp deserted. He had expected the men to make a mo
ve. He sat back in his tent and waited.

  After a while Rivera came in and sat down. “Gonna be some trouble,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Whose trouble?”

  “The natives. The boys are going up to that village.” Morrison nodded. “What started them?”

  Rivera leaned back and exhaled smoke. “You know this crazy Charlie? The guy who’s always praying? Well, he swore he saw one of those natives standing beside his tent. He said the native said, ‘You die, all of you Earthmen die.’ And then the native disappeared.”

  “In a cloud of smoke?” Morrison asked.

  “Yeah,” Rivera said, grinning. “I think there was a cloud of smoke in it.” Morrison remembered the man. A perfect hysteric type. A classic case, whose devil spoke conveniently in his own language, and from somewhere near enough to be destroyed.

  “Tell me,” Morrison asked, “are they going up there to destroy witches? Or psi supermen?”

  Rivera thought it over for a while, then said, “Well, Mr. Morrison, I’d say they don’t much care.”

  In the distance they heard a loud, reverberating boom.

  “Did they take explosives?” Morrison asked.

  “Don’t know. I suppose they did.”

  It was ridiculous, he thought. Pure mob behavior. Dengue would grin and say: When in doubt, always kill the shadows. Can’t tell what they’re up to. But Morrison found that he was glad his men had made the move. Latent psi powers . . . You could never tell.

  Half an hour later, the first men straggled in, walking slowly, not talking to each other.

  “Well?” Morrison asked. “Did you get them all?”

  “No sir,” a man said. “We didn’t even get near them.”

  “What happened?” Morrison asked, feeling a touch of panic. More of his men arrived. They stood silently, not looking at each other.

  “What happened?” Morrison shouted.

  “We didn’t even get near them,” a man said. “We got about halfway there. Then there was another landslide.”

  “Were any of you hurt?”

  “No sir. It didn’t come near us. But it buried their village.”