“Of course not!”
“All right,” George said. “I know that this work can get emotionally distasteful. But you have to take a realistic view. The Census Board gave them plenty of chances. It gave them the hydrogen bomb.”
“Yes.”
“But they didn’t use it on each other. And the Board gave them all the means for a really big bacteriological war, but they didn’t use that, either. And the Board also gave them all the information they needed to curb population growth voluntarily. But they couldn’t bring themselves to use any of it. They just continued their indiscriminate breeding, crowding out the other species and each other, poisoning and depleting the Earth—just as they always do.”
I knew all of this, but it helped me to hear it again.
“Nothing can grow indefinitely,” George went on. “All living things must be subject to control. For most species, check and balance do the job mechanically. But human beings have gone beyond natural restraints. They have to do the job for themselves. If they can’t or won’t, then somebody has to do it for them.”
Suddenly George looked tired and troubled. “But humans never see the necessity of thinning themselves out,” he said. “They never learn. That’s why our plagues are necessary.”
“All right,” I said, “let’s get on with it.”
“About twenty percent of them will survive this one,” George said. I think he was trying to reassure himself.
He took a flat silver flask out of his pocket. He unstopped it. He walked over and poured its contents into a sewer.
“That’s that. You can start selling your pills within a week. After that, our schedule calls for stops in London, Paris, Rome, Istanbul, Bombay, and so on.”
I nodded. It had to be done. But sometimes it’s tough to be a gardener of people.
TAILPIPE TO DISASTER
When he heard the news, Chief Pilot Johnny Draxton’s reaction was instantaneous. “What?” he bellowed. “Me fly with some green kid just out of the Space Academy as my co-pilot?”
Big, tough, grizzled Sergeant Rack nodded in wry sympathy. “Maybe it won’t be so bad, sir. These young kids have been raised on the interstellar ships. They ain’t like us old interplanetary men.”
“Yeah?” Draxton sneered, clamping his strong jaws on half an inch of well-chewed cigar. “You think a green kid can co-pilot a double warp-powered GP-1077F2 interstellar attack bomber armed with a full rack of XX fusion bombs in spatial area 12BAA where a single mistake can mean instant death? Who is this kid?”
“General Deverell’s son, sir,” the tough, grizzled old sergeant said.
Johnny Draxton smiled grimly and spat out the well-chewed end of his cigar. “So the general thinks he can shove his kid into a GP-1077F2, huh? Well, Sarge, we’ll just see about that.”
Draxton’s smile was ominous. He crushed his ancient flight cap over his eyes and swung out of Operations ProComSub Shack, a lithe, pantherlike figure.
Sergeant Rack shook his head wryly. He had been afraid of something like this. Men like Johnny Draxton had a natural prejudice against general’s sons. Johnny had come up the hard way. In the war-torn skies over Mierdolan V, Johnny Draxton’s single-seater tractor-power Invictus Mk.-2 had helped rid the galaxy of Kalnakak ships; and Johnny had helped, too. Between wars, Johnny had stayed in practice by shooting down commercial spacecraft on the Lima-Mars run. “Preparedness,” he often told his friends, “is worth any price.” Johnny was a real tiger of space, aggressive, fierce, scornful, cigar-smoking.
And the general’s son? Well, maybe it would be all right, thought the tough, wry, but ever-hopeful Sergeant Rack. But trouble came sooner than even he, always prepared for trouble, had expected.
It happened on the first flight. The general’s son, whose name was Hubert Deverell, had been introduced to the crew. He had shaken hands with taciturn Bombardier Bluefeather, a full-blooded Apache Indian; with Chief Gunner Ash, a wisecracking, intense boy from Brooklyn; and with Milton St. Augustus Lee, a soft-spoken engineer from Alabama. Deverell was a big lad with deceptively slow movements, his blond hair cropped close to his skull, his gray eyes intense, his lieutenant’s bars glistening. He had gone forward to the pilot’s compartment to pay his respects.
“I just wanted to say, sir,” the general’s son blurted, “That it’s a great pleasure to serve with you. I—I’ve always admired your record, sir.”
Johnny’s eyes, the color of raw Irish whiskey before distilling, gave no hint of his feelings. “Glad to have you on board, Deverell,” he said, and Sergeant Hack began to feel that the conflict, and thus the rest of this story, could be averted.
But such was not the case. The young lieutenant blurted, “You see, sir, I’ve always wanted to be a part of an interstellar attack bomber ship crew. My father says they—they’re important!”
“I’m glad to hear General Deverell’s opinion,” Johnny said coolly. “It may interest you to know, Lieutenant, that you are leaning against the tail assembly release toggle.”
“Gosh!” the kid said, and moved away from the panel with deceptive awkwardness.
“It wasn’t armed, of course,” Johnny said. “But a few little mistakes like that when we’re out in enemy space—”
“I’ll be careful, sir!” Lieutenant Deverell said. “Yes, sir,” he added with pathetic willingness to please, “I’ll surely be careful, sir.”
Johnny Draxton only smiled grimly. Sergeant Rack put out a kindly hand the size and color of a Kashmiri saddle, and took the young lieutenant by the shoulder.
“Come with me, sir,” he said. “I’ll show you around.”
In front of them, the huge hemispheric control board glittered and danced like a drunken IBM machine. And Johnny Draxton, his strong jaws clamped on a fresh but rapidly wilting cigar, looked amused.
Eighty-seven hours later, the huge attack-bomber was hurtling through sector 12BAA on a routine patrol mission. Below them, the disputed planet Mnos II glowed an ominous red-brown, its major continent sprawled like an upside-down dragon with its teeth pulled. Draxton cracked the pulsors and the big ship wailed; he hit the boosters and the big ship screamed; he slammed in the forward tractors and the big ship moaned.
“OK, kid,” Johnny said to the fresh-faced big-handed lieutenant, “you take her now.”
The general’s son climbed clumsily into the co-pilot’s seat and nervously strapped the duo-webbing around his big chest. He reached forward and took a grip on the slide-panel retractor control nozzle with one hand, the other resting on the ring pin retaining gear assembly.
“Take her through an XBX maneuver,” Johnny said. “And watch yourself. We’re carrying live eggs this trip.”
The kid gulped, nodded, and swallowed. Under his thick, deft fingers the dials spun and danced, and the huge interstellar ship nosed upward. Deverell cracked the throttles, and the patrol-bomber whimpered. The kid grinned and punched the level-out.
“Deverell!” Draxton shouted.
“Sir?”
“That was the bomb release you punched. Congratulations. You have just dropped a stick of XX fusion busters onto a nominally neutral planet.”
The kid turned sickly white under his tan. Johnny added, “Anyhow, you would have dropped them if the bomb-release hadn’t been interlocked. What in hell is the matter with you?”
“I guess it’s taking me a little while getting used to things,” the kid said, nervousness but no fear showing in his clumsy voice.
“Yeah?” Johnny said, and chewed his cigar down to half an inch. “Nervous, huh? Well, let’s see you take her through a series JB2 multiple diminishing radius turn.”
“Captain!” Sergeant Rack cried, concern showing on his wry, leathery face. “That could peel the hide right off her!”
“We might have to do it in combat sometime,” Draxton said. “Go ahead, Deverell.”
The kid gulped, swallowed, and gripped the controls in a shaking hand. The big interstellar attack-bomber began to nose inexorably up and over
. . .
Back in the crew’s section, Bombardier Bluefeather was writing a letter to his mother, a full-blooded Apache. Repeatedly he wet the end of the pencil with his narrow tongue, and wrote, “I hope the corn is coming up green on the reservation this year.”
Gunner Ash was thinking about Flatbush Extension. Although he was an intense, wisecracking type, he found that he missed the old street. And he missed Kitty Callahan, his wife of only three hours.
Milton St. Augustus Lee, the soft-spoken and deceptively quiet Southerner, was thinking of his wife Amelia, who, right now, was probably drinking coffee with Lieutenant Deverell s bright, soft-eyed fiancée, Faye. They were swell kids, all of them. For a moment St. Augustus Lee could forget his bitter anger about the War between the States. Hell . . . Some Yankees weren’t so bad . . .
As the big attack-bomber came out of its first roll, a shudder passed through ship, throwing Ash and Lee out of their bunks. Bluefeather, with a taciturn ease born of centuries on horseback, grabbed a stanchion retainer rod.
The spaceship whipped over onto its back and began to fall like a rock.
“What the hell?” Ash asked. No one answered the wisecracking Brooklyn boy.
Up forward in the pilot’s compartment, young Lieutenant Deverell had missed the triple-thrust breakout button and hit instead the fallaway accelerometer, which was not interlocked. It was an easy enough error to correct; but Deverell’s hands were locked to the controls in the unmistakable signs of panic. Sergeant Rack, that ancient and indestructible judger of young pilots, had seen it happen often enough. Without anger he clubbed the young lieutenant across the jaw with a fist the size and color of a Kashmiri saddle. Deverell slumped back in his seat, and Johnny Draxton pulled the ship out of the deadly spin.
“Well now,” Draxton said coolly, “I reckon that takes care of the kid’s career as a pilot.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, sir,” Rack said, as the boy shook his head groggily. “It happens to the best of them. Seems to me I remember your first mission, sir, when you—”
“Shaddap!” Draxton roared, his tiger’s face going livid with anger. “You heard me, Sergeant. This kid’s washed up.”
They had all heard him, since the young lieutenant, in falling back against the control panel, had inadvertently turned on the intership intercom interrelay system. The Indian, breaking his habitual silence, exhaled air through his nostrils. St. Augustus Lee said, “That’s rather a tough break for the boy. I wonder if . . .” He didn’t finish. Gunner Ash said, “What the hell?” But no one laughed. It was too serious for wisecracks.
Up front, young Lieutenant Deverell thought of his father, tall and ramrod-straight, gray-haired, thin-lipped, long-fingered, with the look of cold-rolled magnesium steel in his bleak gray general’s eyes. He thought of his fiancée, bright, soft-eyed Faye with her coffee and her high hopes. He thought of the Space Academy, the flag, the anthem; he thought of San Francisco, a place he had always wanted to see. And he knew that somehow he must atone.
Johnny Draxton sat full square in front of the glittering switchboard, his cigar chewed down to a quarter of an inch, his tiger’s smile upon his face.
And for the first time in his life, young Lieutenant Dewrell knew anger.
Suddenly the huge attack-bomber shook as though in pain. Simultaneously Ash announced, with no wisecracking in his voice, “Bandit, three o’clock!” And no sooner were the words out than Sergeant Rack shouted, “Main drive temperatures going up!”
Events were moving with the lightning-quick pace of modern electronic warfare. Johnny Draxton automatically put the big spacecraft into a diving turn, reaching with his free hand for the tailpipe cooler nozzle control. He cut the starboard engines and laid on full thrust to the port mills, at the same time kicking the near impulse retainer gear control with his foot. For a moment it looked as though this unorthodox and daring maneuver would succeed; but then a tight pattern of laser impulses ripped through the pilot’s compartment. The ship’s skin sealed over at once. But Johnny cursed, grinned tightly, and slumped forward. A trickle of blood seeped from under his crushed flight cap.
The big ship nosed over more steeply, screaming down toward the grinning dragon on Mnos II.
Young Deverell’s gray eyes met the sergeant’s blue ones and clung for a moment. The young pilot could see that the old sergeant’s face, usually the color of a well-ridden Baluchistani saddle, had bleached to a shade approximating kidskin.
Deverell considered this as the ship plummeted downward. He thought of his gray-haired soldier-father, his fiancée, the Space Academy, the flag, the anthem, and San Francisco, which he had never seen. Then, with icy steadiness, he reached out and gripped the twin throttles, the rudder, the stick, and the side-thrust retaining gear control, and eased them all back with a single powerful pull from his shoulders.
In the rear of the ship, an announcement came over the intercom: “Crew, man your battle stations.” For a moment no one recognized the icy, purposeful voice. Then Ash said, “Gawd, it’s the lieutenant!”
No one laughed. St. Augustus Lee, his family and heritage forgotten, picked up a crescent wrench and moved to the blockback flasher assembly. Bombardier Blue-feather, his bronze face impassive, rolled back the twin interlocks on his bombsight and peered through the delicate instrument with eyes that for centuries had scanned the rolling hills of the Sioux Nation. Ash, no wisecrack on his lips, set his battery of computer-operated laser guns to automatic tracking. And Sergeant Rack, with no time now to think of coffee or generals, no time even to think of his wife Myra who was not allowed in the Service Canteen because she was Indonesian, moved quietly to his task of preparing the enormous spaceship for self-destruction in case the impossible should occur.
The Kalnakak bandit ship suddenly sheered off. They could see the yellowish glow of his warp-reactors as he streaked away into deep space. That was just like the Kalnakak—to bluff to the limit of Terran endurance, then back off and wait for a better opportunity! And still the big spaceship, her outer skin now glowing white-hot, screamed toward the surface of Mnos II.
“Shall I jettison, sir?” asked Sergeant Rack.
“Not a chance!” roared young Deverell. “We’re not going to lose one scrap of Terran equipment! I’m going to power her out of here!”
“But, sir!” the sergeant cried, “you’ll tear the engines right off her!”
“Then let them come off,” Deverell gritted, and his big, clumsy-looking but amazingly deft hands closed hard on the controls.
Johnny Draxton, just coming back to consciousness, looked up; but no expression crossed his face. Quietly he lighted a cigar.
And the instrument panel glittered like a Christmas tree gone berserk!
Mach forces rose with dizzying speed. There was a moment of utter horror when they heard the ominous sound of something breaking away; but it was only young Deverell, ripping away his jacket so he could breathe better.
Slowly, unwillingly, the ship took the cruel stress and pulled out of the dive. By the time they were fully out of it, the ship was half a light-year beyond Mnos II, streaking toward the Lesser Magallenic Cloud. But they were safe, and their multi-billion dollar spacecraft was still in one piece.
Back aft, St. Augustus Lee let out a deep breath of air. He found that he didn’t really care about the War between the States any longer. In fact, he could even think of it as the Civil War. After all, they were one country now. Bluefeather had the shadow of a grin on his taciturn face; he knew that the corn would be tall in the Cherokee country this year. And Gunner Ash, after shakily lighting a cigarette, said, “Man! How about that!”
This time they all laughed at the irrepressible Brooklyn boy’s quip.
A little blood still oozed from under Johnny Draxton’s crushed cap where the laser beam had creased him. He said, “Well, Lieutenant, you may be a general’s son, but I think you’ll do. Yessir, I think you’ll just maybe do.”
Lieutenant Deverell, looking very young
yet somehow very old, said, “Captain, you are leaning against the nose-assembly release toggle. Good thing it’s interlocked.”
Captain Johnny Draxton, veteran of more than three hundred combat missions, tiger extraordinary, looked startled, then angry, then abashed. At last he grinned.
After a long moment, Deverell grinned, too.
The two men shook hands as the huge GP-1077F2 screamed silently through the near-vacuum of space.
TRIPOUT
1.
Papazian appeared, disguised as a human being. He checked quickly to make sure that his head was on right. “Nose and toes the same way goes,” he reminded himself, and that was how it was.
All of his systems were go. His psyche was soldered firmly to his pineal gland, and he even had a small soul powered by flashlight batteries. He was on Earth, a weird place, in New York, crossroads of ten million private lives. He tried to gropple, but this body wouldn’t do it. So he smiled, an adequate substitute.
He left the telephone booth and went out into the street to play with the people.
2.
The first person he met was a fat man of about forty. The man stopped him and said, “Hey, bud, what’s the quickest way to 49th Street and Broadway?”
Papazian answered without hesitation, “Feel along that wall until you hit a soft spot. Then step through. It’s a spatial bypass which the Martians put in, back when there were Martians—It’ll take you out at 48th Street and Seventh Avenue, which I call pretty good service.”
“Snotty wise guy bastard,” the man said, and walked away without even touching the wall to see if there was a soft spot.
Much characterological rigidity, Papazian said to himself. I must include that in my report.
But was he supposed to make a report? He didn’t know. But, of course, he didn’t worry about it. Such things tended to manifest themselves.
3.
Lunchtime! Papazian went to a run-down sleazy diner on Broadway near 28th Street. He said to the counterman, “I’ll have one of your famous hot dogs, please.”
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