Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Sal maneuvered for a moment, avoiding the sudden static force lines from a nearby gray hole, and then brought the Endymion back into normal Space. He came out exactly where he had planned, behind and above the alien StarSwarm, which was still splayed out

  in the now vulnerable basket maneuver.

  “Now go get them, boys!” Sal cried, and turned control over to the individual ships of his own StarSwarm.

  The men of the battle group didn’t have to hear that twice. The squadron leaders were already aboard their ships, waiting for the Commander’s signal. “Tallyho!” they cried, and their ships screamed away from the mother ship and bored into the Balderdash formation.

  Plasma cannons flung red death. Gigantic tractor beams tore ships from the sky and battered them against a barren little comet that had wandered into the vicinity. Sparks flew in glittering arrays. Electrical potentials looped from ship to ship across the darkness of Space, now lit by the fire from exploding Balderdash ships. It was all over in a minute. The Balderdash beat a hasty retreat. Below the Endymion was the blue-green-white mass of the planet Melchior.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  There was a large Balderdash military installation still in place on Melchior. They were situated in a fortress set into the largest land mass. Sal radioed to this fortress at once.

  “I want to land on the planet,” Sal said.

  “No, you can’t,” the Balderdash commander radioed back. “This is our planet.”

  “This planet is not yours,” Sal said. “Please clear out at once and there will be no further trouble.”

  “Not a chance,” the Balderdash commander replied. “We found this planet and we intend to keep it. Go away and we will not have to destroy you and your Battle Group.”

  “That I have to see,” Sal said. “Your armada tried to destroy Endymion and failed. I think it is you who should go away.”

  “We? Never!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Endymion was set on Hover Mode five kilometers above the planet’s surface. The landing parties were told to get ready. The men of the boarding parties were armed with spun-fire rifles and quick edge bayonets. They had grenades of great power and efficiency. And they were fighting mad.

  Sal had the foresight to pass out quantities of Fury 12, the drug that makes fighters out of everyone. With fury beating in their brains, with rushes coursing up and down their venous systems, the men of the StarSwarm landed on the ground and fanned out into open position.

  There wasn’t much ground to cover on Melchior. But the Balderdash had access to the resources of the planet. They’d had the foresight to set up hastily fabricated underwater cities, and they retreated to these. From them, they set up a spirited resistance. Sal landed his men on one of the island land masses and set out to destroy the underwater city. This seemed straightforward enough. Underwater moles advanced, air bubbles bubbling from their discharge pipes. The men, now in underwater gear, prepared for a final assault on the city.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Space battles were the main event, but there was often a need for land battles, too. For this, special soldiers were imported from various planets with surplus populations. These soldiers were given a brief training course, it being essential for them to look good in front of the Universal Judges who oversaw land-based planetary contests.

  These special soldiers were kept in storage until they were needed. The bunks were stacked one on top of the other, from wall to wall, and from floor to ceiling. There were narrow aisles in between, just wide enough for the clean-up crew. Every bunk was equipped with life-support and resuscitation equipment.

  The soldiers lay comatose in their bunks, needles in their arms, oxygen masks on their faces, soft music playing, awaiting the call that bade them wake and rise.

  §

  The resuscitation alarm went off down the corridors of the hold. Glaring overhead lights came on and began to flash. Sirens and shrill whistles sounded. The life-support equipment increased its pace. Adrenalin fractions were poured into intravenous needles and plunged into supine arms.

  The soldiers stirred, tossed and moaned, emitted loud grunts, scratched themselves, rubbed their eyes, shook their heads, saying, “Wha—? What’s that?” They climbed, out of their bunks. Folded under the mattresses were their uniforms, all neatly pressed. They slipped them on. They fell in, to the bellows of the newly-awakened drill sergeant.

  Sal entered then. He called for silence, and then addressed his troops.

  “Men, we are here today to say a few words for our comrades who will fall in the battle to come. There won’t be many of them. Some of you lads are new, just arrived from the Soldier Factory. Those of you fresh from Lekk, pay special attention.”

  The men stood to attention when Salvatore rode onto the scene. His stirrups jiggled. His spurs flashed in the sunlight. He viewed his men with splendid disdain, but also with fatigue. He was tired. There had been many preparations to oversee.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Sir,” Toma said, “there’s a phone call for you.”

  “Can’t you see I’m about to lead the men into a desperate action? Tell whoever it is I’ll call back, if I survive.”

  “I think you’d better take this one,” Toma said. “Who do you have on the line?” asked Sal. “Sounds like it’s God or something.”

  “More important, from your immediate point of view. It’s Count Sforza.”

  “Rats!” Sal said.

  §

  “Sal? Is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Count. Can you hear me?”

  “Speak up, would you? I think we’ve got a bad connection.”

  “Let me turn up the Pattern Suppression Program. There, is that better?”

  “Much better. Sal, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m about to lead my men into battle,” Sal said. “In fact, this is not the greatest moment for me to be chatting with you.”

  “Now you listen to me, young man. You’re about to engage in a battle with the Balderdash, is that correct? What did you say? What was that word?”

  “I said yes,” said Sal sullenly.

  “But has it not been explained to you that they are our allies?”

  “So I’ve been told. But there’s something ominous about these Balderdash. I really mean that, sir, I think we’d better go with the Princess.”

  “You think? Who told you that you could think?”

  “I’m supposed to think,” Sal said, “when I’m Senior Commander on station.”

  “Thinking is one thing,” Sforza said. “Starting a war against an ally is another thing. Sal, break off this action at once.”

  “Damn!” Sal said.

  “What is it?”

  “The attack just began.”

  “But how could it begin? You didn’t give the signal, did you? A battle can’t start until the commander makes the signal.”

  “When you told me to break off the action,” Sal said, “I got so upset, I pounded my right fist into the palm of my left hand.”

  “So?”

  “That was also the gesture I’d selected for beginning the battle.”

  “Sal,” Sforza said, with deadly quietness, “I want you to end this fighting immediately, apologize to the Balderdash, and come to see me. I think it’s time we had a little talk.”

  “Yes, Sir, right away, Sir,” Sal said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Salvatore was in a state of dejection. Here he was, so near to victory, and his warlord, Count Carmine Sforza, had ordered him to cease and desist, to hand over his hard-fought victory to the Balderdash and come home forthwith, if not sooner.

  Despite orders, he had jet-chuted with his troops to the surface of Melchior. They had landed unopposed, and had formed a command post.

  The princess, too, was dejected. She had come down to Sal’s command post on Melchior by launch from the hovering battleship Endymion in order to be at hand for the victory celebration. She had worn her new c
oronation gown, which was emerald-green with diamonds. They were actually zircons, but she planned, after she had access to the treasury of Melchior, to replace them with real ones.

  “One owes it to the people,” she explained, “to show proper pomp and circumstance.”

  “You might as well forget about coronation gowns,” Sal said. “We’re in serious trouble here.”

  “But you can do something about it, can’t you?” Hatari asked, in melting tones which were lost on the scowling sixteen-year-old.

  “I don’t know what I can or can’t do,” Sal said. “Let me think for a moment . . .”

  He stood up and began pacing up and down the rough-hewn floor of his command post. The men moved to get out of his way. Sal was a good commander and well liked by his men, but he was known to have a temper. He scowled, twisting his mouth this way and that and squinting his eyes. He scuffed his feet as he walked. At last he walked up to a comer of the room, put his face close to the wall, and screamed in a high-pinched ululation that startled the princess exceedingly, but did not fluster the men, who were well accustomed to their commander’s way of letting off steam.

  Sal composed himself. “All right,” he said, “where is the Land Communications Officer?”

  “That’s part of my job,” Dick Fogarty said.

  “This place has a native population.”

  “Yes, sir. The Simis, they’re called.”

  “How far away is the nearest Simi town?”

  “There’s one just beyond the ridge there,” Fogarty said.

  Sal checked this out on the telescopic periscope. This instrument, with proper adjustment, brought the landscape into high focus. Sal looked out on a green and orange landscape, with brown earth tones here and there as accents. There were trees, though they didn’t look like any that Sal had ever seen. They were like gigantic mushrooms, colored orange, and with feathery leaves of peacock green. There were ridges and fault lines in the land. Beyond the meadow that lay ahead of him, Sal could see what looked like a fair-sized town or small city.

  Sal turned to Fogarty, “Do you think you could take a squad of men and bring me back an adult Simi?”

  “Sure, Boss,” Fogarty said. “If you’re planning on torturing him, I’d better get a strong one.”

  “This is for questioning, not torturing,” Sal said.

  “Okay, Commander.” Fogarty turned to select a few men. But suddenly a cry from the man on the furthest outpost guard was heard. “Sir! A sentient being is coming here!”

  Sal looked through the periscope again. He saw a creature that looked like a kangaroo, except that it had bright green fur with scanty feathers. Vestigial wings flapped as it hopped along. Its skull was larger than that of a kangaroo, with the telltale bulge at the occipital lobes generally associated with intelligence.

  “Saves us the trouble of going out and rounding him up,” Sal said. “Check him for weapons and send him to me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On a signal from Sal, the guard opened the door of the command Post and allowed the Simi to enter. Up close, Sal could see that the creature’s eyes were bright green, with a few dots of yellow. He didn’t know if it meant anything or not.

  “Do you speak Intergab?” Sal asked.

  “Yes, among others,” the Simi said, speaking in a clear, unaccented Intergab. “I am a translator, so I speak a number of off-world languages as well as our native tone, Ou’Simi.”

  “Welcome to my ship,” Sal said. “I am a bubaldar in the Condottieri of Count Carmine Sforza. I have come here to set you free of the heavy hand of the Balderdash.”

  “You’re going entirely too fast for me,” the Simi said, blinking and squinting. “You’re rather indistinct, too.”

  “Maybe you need glasses,” Fogarty suggested, and began to guffaw until he was silenced by a glare from Salvatore.

  “We can see perfectly well, but only when things are in their customary shape and colors.” He squinted hard for a moment at Sal. “You’re bipedal, aren’t you? Two legs? Yes, I thought I spotted that. Now, what did you say you wanted?”

  “I want to free you of the conquering Balderdash,” Sal said.

  “Who are they?” the Simi asked in a puzzled tone.

  “Big, tall, skinny fellows with folded mouths,” Sal said.

  “Oh, yes! The Benefactors! That’s what we call them.”

  “The Balderdash, benefactors? You must be thinking of some other race.”

  “No, the Balderdash are the only new arrivals here. They’ve come to help us, you know. We Simi are pitiable creatures, and much in need of help. The Balderdash have agreed to do all of the work that needs doing on this planet. That’s quite a lot, you know.”

  “But you elected to have a queen,” Sal said.

  “Yes, but then the Balderdash came to talk to us, and we changed our minds.”

  “Perhaps you should reconsider. A queen would be very good for you. I’ve brought her along. You’ll like her.”

  “We probably would like her,” the Simi said. “We like most peoples and races and things. But she wouldn’t do what the Balderdash are doing for us. They’re doing all the work, man! They’re even taking care of the egg factories in which we raise our young. That frees millions of us to do other things.”

  “But how can you just turn over your eggs to some alien race?” Sal asked.

  “It’s not so hard. I mean, they’re just eggs. They just lie there, you know what I mean? The only interesting thing about an egg is the moment it breaks. And then it isn’t an egg any longer. It’s another mouth to feed.”

  “You don’t like to take care of your own eggs? But all of you were eggs when you were young!”

  “Sure, but that was back before we knew better. The Balderdash take care of the eggs now, and we do other more important stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “We walk in the great forests and look for blue leaves.”

  “Are they hard to find?”

  “No, not particularly.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  The Simi looked at him, open-mouthed. “That doesn’t sound like a friendly question. We just do it, that’s all.”

  “How can you let aliens do all these things for you?”

  “Low self-esteem,” the Simi said. “We don’t think much of ourselves. That’s because we aren’t very bright, and we aren’t very warlike. But we do like to walk in the forest and collect blue leaves. It would be a better world if everyone did that.”

  “Do all of you feel this way?”

  “Oh yes, all,” the Simi said. “Every Simi feels the same as every other Simi feels. That way we avoid differing opinions.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “So now what?” Toma asked.

  Sal shrugged. He was in his Command Post, a prefabricated structure, a tent actually, with rugs on the floor and lamps hanging from the cross members. There was a constant coming and going of armed men wearing the distinctive silver and purple livery of the Sforzas, and the fancy little caps with eagle feathers in them. There was a communication center by means of which Sal could keep in touch both with his men, who were strung out in squads, and with the spaceship, hovering high overhead. There was a smell of sweaty efficiency about the place.

  The princess came in, looked at the sulky boy and the nervous spider robot. She sat down with a sigh and looked at Sal.”

  “You have tried, but they don’t want me,” she said. “Acknowledge your Count’s order. I will go away.”

  “No,” Sal said. “Not yet.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Look,” Sal said, “something is very wrong here. All our evidence shows the Balderdash are evil and cruel. Why would the Simi want them? What deception have they practiced on these unsophisticated folk?”

  “We’ll never know. There’s no time to find out.”

  “We have to find out. I have to find out what the Balderdash are doing in the Simi cities.”

  “But there
’s no way for you to get through the Balderdash lines, to the main population centers.”

  “I can think of one possibility? He turned to Toma. “Call Alfonso on the special frequency.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “This is a crazy scheme,” Alfonso said.

  He had just arrived by his own ship from the mine shafts fifty miles away in Moronmsia Prefecture, where he had been studying the mineral profile of the planet. There had been hasty greetings. Sal had explained his dilemma, and Alfonso had agreed to help his zygote brother. Now, under cover of darkness, Alfonso was leading Sal and Toma across the no man’s land toward the Simi city.

  “I need to know exactly what is going on in there,” Sal said.

  “It’s dangerous, going in there.”

  “It’s the only way of resolving this,” Sal said.

  “We’d better get moving,” said Toma.

  They moved quickly through the darkness. Sal and Alfonso were wearing shapeless gray-brown sacks. This had been Alfonso’s idea. Knowing how limited Simi vision was, he hoped that wearing these outfits on such a dark night would enable them to pass as natives.

  The city gates were not locked. They went in, quickly, furtively. All was quiet inside except for the chatter of many TVs set up on poles. The Simi had a great fondness for TV and had bought many years’ worth of Fawlty Towers reruns. They claimed the show was funny even from an alien viewpoint.

  Sal, Alfonso and Toma proceeded down narrow deserted streets, the buildings bulging with dark quaintness on either side. They went through the main square, down a cobblestoned road into a clearing. And there across the street was a very large building made of red brick.

  “This is the egg factory,” Alfonso said.

  The gate was secured with a massive chain and padlock, but the hasp on the padlock had not been locked into place. They swung open the gate and went in. The place was empty. The guards and workers were away.