“Good will can be regained,” Professor Sliggert said sententiously. “But a billion dollars’ worth of equipment—”
“—can be salvaged by the next expedition. Look, Professor, give me a break. Isn’t there some way I can control this thing manually?”
“No way at all,” Sliggert replied. “That would defeat the entire purpose of the machine. You might just as well not be wearing it if you’re allowed to rely on your own reflexes rather than electronic impulses.”
“Then tell me how to take it off.”
“The same argument holds true—you wouldn’t be protected at all times.”
“Look,” Bentley protested, “you chose me as a competent explorer. I’m the guy on the spot. I know what the conditions are here. Tell me how to get it off.”
“No! The Protec must have a full field test. And we want you to come back alive.”
“That’s another thing,” Bentley said. “These people seem kind of sure they can kill me.”
“Primitive peoples always overestimate the potency of their strength, weapons and magic.”
“I know, I know. But you’re certain there’s no way they can get through the field? Poison, maybe?”
“Nothing can get through the field,” Sliggert said patiently. “Not even light rays can penetrate. Not even gamma radiation. You are wearing an impregnable fortress, Mr. Bentley. Why can’t you manage to have a little faith in it?”
“Early models of inventions sometimes need a lot of ironing out,” Bentley grumbled. “But have it your way. Won’t you tell me how to take it off, though, just in case something goes wrong?”
“I wish you would stop asking me that, Mr. Bentley. You were chosen to give the Protec a full field test. That’s just what you are going to do.”
WHEN Bentley signed off, it was deep twilight outside and the villagers had returned to their huts. Campfires burned low and he could hear the call of night creatures.
At that moment, Bentley felt very alien and exceedingly homesick.
He was tired almost to the point of unconsciousness, but he forced himself to eat some concentrated food and drink a little water. Then he unstrapped the tool kit, the radio and the canteen, tugged defeatedly at the Protec, and lay down to sleep.
Just as he dozed off, the Protec went violently into action, nearly snapping his neck out of joint.
Wearily he fumbled for the controls, located them near his stomach, and turned off the field.
The hut looked exactly the same. He could find no source of attack.
Was the Protec losing its grip on reality, he wondered, or had a Telian tried to spear him through the window?
Then Bentley saw a tiny mog puppy scuttling away frantically, its legs churning up clouds of dust.
The little beast probably just wanted to get warm, Bentley thought. But of course it was alien. Its potential for danger could not be overlooked by the ever-wary Protec.
He fell asleep again and immediately began to dream that he was locked in a prison of bright red sponge rubber. He could push the walls out and out and out, but they never yielded, and at last he would have to let go and be gently shoved back to the center of the prison. Over and over, this happened, until suddenly he felt his back wrenched and awoke within the Protec’s lightless field.
This time he had real difficulty finding the controls. He hunted desperately by feel until the bad air made him gasp in panic. He located the controls at last under his chin, released the field, and began to search groggily for the source of the new attack.
He found it. A twig had fallen from the thatch roof and had tried to land on him.
“Aw, come on now,” Bentley of course, had not allowed it. groaned aloud. “Let’s use a little judgment!”
But he was really too tired to care. Fortunately, there were no more assaults that night.
HUASCL came to Bentley’s hut in the morning, looking very solemn and considerably disturbed.
“There were great sounds from your hut during the night,” the ghost doctor said. “Sounds of torment, as though you were wrestling with a devil.”
“I’m just a restless sleeper,” Bentley explained.
Huascl smiled to show that he appreciated the joke. “My friend, did you pray for purification last night and for release from evil?”
“I certainly did.”
“And was your prayer granted?”
“It was,” Bentley said hopefully. “There’s no evil around me. Not a bit.”
Huascl looked dubious. “But can you be sure? Perhaps you should depart from us in peace. If you cannot be initiated, we shall have to destroy you—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bentley told him. “Let’s get started.”
“Very well,” Huascl said, and together they left the hut.
The initiation was to be held in front of the great bonfire in the village square. Messengers had been sent out during the night and ghost doctors from many villages were there. Some had come as far as twenty miles to take part in the rites and to see the alien with their own eyes. The ceremonial drum had been taken from its secret hiding place and was now booming solemnly. The villagers watched, chattered together, laughed. But Bentley could detect an undercurrent of nervousness and strain.
There was a long series of dances. Bentley twitched worriedly when the last figure started, for the leading dancer was swinging a glass-studded club around his head. Nearer and nearer the dancer whirled, now only a few feet away from him, his club a dazzling streak.
The villagers watched, fascinated. Bentley shut his eyes, expecting to be plunged momentarily into the darkness of the force field.
But the dancer moved away at last and the dance ended with a roar of approval from the villagers.
Huascl began to speak. Bentley realized with a thrill of relief that this was the end of the ceremony.
“O brothers,” Huascl said, “this alien has come across the great emptiness to be our brother. Many of his ways are strange and around him there seems to hang a strange hint of evil. And yet who can doubt that he means well? Who can doubt that he is, in essence, a good and honorable person? With this initiation, we purge him of evil and make him one of us.”
THERE was dead silence as Huascl walked up to Bentley.
“Now,” Huascl said, “you are a ghost doctor and indeed one of us.” He held out his hand.
Bentley felt his heart leap within him. He had won! He had been accepted! He reached out and clasped Huascl’s hand.
Or tried to. He didn’t quite make it, for the Protec, ever alert, saved him from the possibly dangerous contact.
“You damned idiotic gadget!” Bentley bellowed, quickly finding the control and releasing the field.
He saw at once that the fat was in the fire.
“Evil!” shrieked the Telians, frenziedly waving their weapons.
“Evil!” screamed the ghost doctors.
Bentley turned despairingly to Huascl.
“Yes,” the young ghost doctor said sadly, “it is true. We had hoped to cure the evil by our ancient ceremonial. But it could not be. This evil must be destroyed! Kill the devil!”
A shower of spears came at Bentley. The Protec responded instantly.
Soon it was apparent that an impasse had been reached. Bentley would remain for a few minutes in the field, then override the controls. The Telians, seeing him still unharmed, would renew their barrage and the Protec would instantly go back into action.
Bentley tried to walk back to his ship. But the Protec went on again each time he shut it off. It would take him a month or two to cover a mile, at that rate, so he stopped trying. He would simply wait the attackers out. After a while, they would find out they couldn’t hurt him and the two races would finally get down to business.
He tried to relax within the field, but found it impossible. He was hungry and extremely thirsty. And his air was starting to grow stale.
Then Bentley remembered, with a sense of shock, that air had not gone through the surroundi
ng field the night before. Naturally—nothing could get through. If he wasn’t careful, he could be asphyxiated.
Even an impregnable fortress could fall, he knew, if the defenders were starved or suffocated out.
He began to think furiously. How long could the Telians keep up the attack? They would have to grow tired sooner or later, wouldn’t they?
Or would they?
He waited as long as he could, until the air was all but unbreathable, then overrode the controls. The Telians were sitting on the ground around him. Fires had been lighted and food was cooking. Rinek lazily threw a spear at him and the field went on.
So, Bentley thought, they had learned. They were going to starve him out.
HE TRIED to think, but the walls of his dark closet seemed to be pressing against him. He was growing claustrophobic and already his air was stale again.
He thought for a moment, then overrode the controls. The Telians looked at him coolly. One of them reached for a spear.
“Wait!” Bentley shouted. At the same moment, he turned on his radio.
“What do you want?” Rinek asked.
“Listen to me! It isn’t fair to trap me in the Protec like this!”
“Eh? What’s going on?” Professor Sliggert asked, through the ear receiver.
“You Telians know—” Bentley said hoarsely—“you know that you can destroy me by continually activating the Protec. I can’t turn it off! I can’t get out of it!”
“Ah!” said Professor Sliggert. “I see the difficulty. Yes.”
“We are sorry,” Huascl apologized. “But evil must be destroyed.”
“Of course it must,” Bentley said desperately. “But not me.
Give me a chance. Professor!”
“This is indeed a flaw,” Professor Sliggert mused, “and a serious one. Strange, but things like this, of course, can’t show up in the lab, only in a full-scale field test. The fault will be rectified in the new models.”
“Great! But I’m here now! How do I get this thing off?”
“I am sorry,” Sliggert said. “I honestly never thought the need would arise. To tell the truth, I designed the harness so that you could not get out of it under any circumstances.”
“Why, you lousy—”
“Please!” Sliggert said sternly. “Let’s keep our heads. If you can hold out for a few months, we might be able—”
“I can’t! The air! Water!”
“Fire!” cried Rinek, his face contorted. “By fire, we will chain the demon!”
And the Protec snapped on. Bentley tried to think things out carefully in the darkness. He would have to get out of the Protec. But how? There was a knife in his tool kit. Could he cut through the tough plastic straps? He would have to!
But what then? Even if he emerged from his fortress, the ship was a mile away. Without the Protec, they could kill him with a single spear thrust. And they were pledged to, for he had been declared irrevocably evil.
But if he ran, he at least had a chance. And it was better to die of a spear thrust than to strangle slowly in absolute darkness.
BENTLEY turned off the field.
The Telians were surrounding him with campfires, closing off his retreat with a wall of flame.
He hacked frantically at the plastic web. The knife slithered and slipped along the strap. And he was back in Protec.
When he came out again, the circle of fire was complete. The Telians were cautiously pushing the fires toward him, lessening the circumference of his circle.
Bentley felt his heart sink. Once the fires were close enough, the Protec would go on and stay on. He would not be able to override a continuous danger signal. He would be trapped within the field for as long as they fed the flames.
And considering how primitive people felt about devils, it was just possible that they would keep the fire going for a century or two.
He dropped the knife, used side-cutters on the plastic strap and succeeded in ripping it halfway through.
He was in Protec again.
Bentley was dizzy, half-fainting from fatigue, gasping great mouthfuls of foul air. With an effort, he pulled himself together. He couldn’t drop now. That would be the end.
He found the controls, overrode them. The fires were very near him now. He could feel their warmth against his face. He snipped viciously at the strap and felt it give.
He slipped out of the Protec just as the field activated again. The force of it threw him into the fire. But he fell feet-first and jumped out of the flames without getting burned.
The villagers roared. Bentley sprinted away; as he ran, he dumped the linguascene, the tool kit, the radio, the concentrated food and the canteen. He glanced back once and saw that the Telians were after him.
But he was holding his own. His tortured heart seemed to be pounding his chest apart and his lungs threatened to collapse at any moment. But now the spaceship was before him, looming great and friendly on the flat plain.
He was going to just make it. Another twenty yards . . .
Something green flashed in front of him. It was a small, green-furred mog puppy. The clumsy beast was trying to get out of his way.
He swerved to avoid crushing it and realized too late that he should never have broken stride. A rock turned under his foot and he sprawled forward.
He heard the pounding feet of the Telians coming toward him and managed to climb on one knee.
Then somebody threw a club and it landed neatly on his forehead.
“AR GWY dril?” a voice asked incomprehensibly from far off.
Bentley opened his eyes and saw Huascl bending over him. He was in a hut, back in the village. Several armed ghost doctors were at the doorway, watching.
“Ar dril?” Huascl asked again.
Bentley rolled over and saw, piled neatly beside him, his canteen, concentrated food, tools, radio and linguascene. He took a deep drink of water, then turned on the linguascene.
“I asked if you felt all right,” Huascl said.
“Sure, fine,” Bentley grunted, feeling his head. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Over with?”
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? Well, let’s not make a production out of it.”
“But we didn’t want to destroy you,” Huascl said. “We knew you for a good man. It was the devil we wanted!”
“Eh?” asked Bentley in a blank uncomprehending voice.
“Come, look.”
The ghost doctors helped Bentley to his feet and brought him outside. There, surrounded by lapping flames, was the glowing great black sphere of the Protec.
“You didn’t know, of course,” Huascl said, “but there was a devil riding upon your back.”
“Huh!” gasped Bentley.
“Yes, it is true. We tried to dispossess him by purification, but he was too strong. We had to force you, brother, to face that evil and throw it aside. We knew you would come through. And you did!”
“I see,” Bentley said. “A devil on my back. Yes, I guess so.”
That was exactly what the Protec would have to be, to them. A heavy, misshapen weight on his shoulders, hurling out a black sphere whenever they tried to purify it. What else could a religious people do but try to free him from its grasp?
He saw several women of the village bring up baskets of food and throw them into the fire in front of the sphere. He looked inquiringly at Huascl.
“We are propitiating it,” Huascl said, “for it is a very strong devil, undoubtedly a miracle-working one. Our village is proud to have such a devil in bondage.”
A ghost doctor from a neighboring village stepped up. “Are there more such devils in your homeland? Could you bring us one to worship?”
Several other ghost doctors pressed eagerly forward. Bentley nodded. “It can be arranged,” he said.
He knew that the Earth-Tels trade was now begun. And at last a suitable use had been found for Professor Sliggert’s Protec.
LOVE, INCORPORATED
said si
mple simon, let me taste your wares
ALFRED SIMON was born on Kazanga IV, a small agricultural planet near Arcturus, and there he drove a combine through the wheat fields, and in the long, hushed evenings listened to the recorded love songs of Earth.
Life was pleasant enough on Kazanga, and the girls were buxom, jolly, frank, and acquiescent, good companions for a hike through the hills or a swim in the brook, staunch mates for life. But romantic—never! There was good fun to be had on Kazanga, in a cheerful open manner. But there was no more than fun.
Simon felt that something was missing in this bland existence. One day, he discovered what it was.
A vendor came to Kazanga in a battered spaceship loaded with books. He was gaunt, white-haired, and a little mad. A celebration was held for him, for novelty was appreciated on the outer worlds.
The vendor told them all the latest gossip; of the price war between Detroit II and III, and how fishing fared on Alana, and what the president’s wife on Moracia wore, and how oddly the men of Doran V talked. And at last someone said, “Tell us of Earth.”
“Ah!” said the vendor, raising his eyebrows. “You want to hear of the mother planet? Well, friends, there’s no place like old Earth, no place at all. On Earth, friends, everything is possible, and nothing is denied.”
“Nothing?” Simon asked.
“They’ve got a law against denial,” the vendor explained, grinning. “No one has ever been known to break it. Earth is different, friends. You folks specialize in farming? Well, Earth specializes in impracticalities such as madness, beauty, war, intoxication, purity, horror, and the like, and people come from light-years away to sample these wares.”
“And love?” a woman asked.
“Why, girl,” the vendor said gently, “Earth is the only place in the galaxy that still has love! Detroit II and III tried it and found it too expensive, you know, and Alana decided it was unsettling, and there was no time to import it on Moracia or Doran V. But as I said, Earth specializes in the impractical, and makes it pay.”
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