Warped Creatures
Perverted Science
Machines That Think
.…And Hate…
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RARE
SCIENCE
FICTION
Edited by
IVAN HOWARD
BELMONT BOOKS • NEW YORK CITY
RARE SCIENCE FICTION contains eight prize winning stories which have never been published in book form before
BELMONT BOOKS
First Printing January 1963
BELMONT BOOKS I published by
Belmont Productions, Inc.
66 Leonard Street, New York 13, N. 7.
© 1954, 1955,1957, 1959, Columbia Publications, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Contents :-
LETS HAVE FUN - by L Sprague de Camp
DO IT YOURSELF - by Milton Lesser
IN HUMAN HANDS - by Algis Budrys
PROTECTIVE CAMOUFLAGE - by Charles V. De Vet
ASYLUM - by Alice Bulloch
QUICK FREEZE - by Robert Silverberg
LUCK, INC. - by Jim Harmon
RIPENESS - by M. C. Pease
LETS HAVE FUN
by L Sprague de Camp
Doc Lofting was on another drunk in the recreation room of the Embassy. This was different, being a crying drunk. The Fourth Secretary, Kemal Okmen, asked: “What’s the matter, Doc?”
“Uzhegh dead,” mumbled Lofting, a plump little man with a white goatee.
“The Provincial?”
“Yes.”
“A friend of yours? I know you like these lizards—”
“Hadn’t seen him in years.”
“Then why the grief?”
“Reminds me…”
“Of what?”
Cecil Mpanza, the Communications Engineer, dropped into the third chair. “It’s his big secret.”
“What secret?” asked Okmen.
“Whatever brought him to Ahlia, twelve years ago; whatever made him stick despite heat, fog, and gravity. Whatever makes him do favors for the Ahlians.”
“Isn’t it time you told?” said Okmen.
Doc stared at his glass. “Well, now Uzhegh’s dead…”
“Well?”
“Buy me ’nother and I’ll tell.”
“I take refuge in Allah!” said Okmen. “Charlie! Give Doc another. Now talk, old boy.”
Doc wiped away the tears. “How to begin…Won’t matter now. Too far in…”
“In what?” said Okmen.
“Confederated Planets. This thing—this—well, what brought me here—was back in twenty-seven, when the first Interplanetary Conference was held.*’
“The one in the U.S.—the one that set up the C.P.?” asked Mpanza.
“Yes. I was jush—just a general practitioner in the suburb of Far Hills, near the Conference.” As Lofting proceeded, he seemed to get the knots out of his tongue. “You’ve read about it. The old problem: local independence versus unity. The Ansonians refused to attend, and are still outside the Confederation; the Ghazaqs sent an unofficial observer, and joined later; the Ahlians sent a delegation, but all tied up with restrictions.”
Mpanza asked: “Is that why the Confederation’s constitution is so weak?”
“Partly. Lot of other delegations, including our own, were under similar restrictions. Most intelligent organisms like to order outsiders around, but are horrified by the idea of being ordered in their turn.
“Now, the Ahlians were a special case. They were barely willing to consider any agreement; if they were pushed, they’d pull out. Those who wanted a strong union wanted Ahlia in. It’s a rich and powerful planet, and the Ahlians have a lot of what we unscientifically call character.”
“All the stuffy virtues,” said Okmen. “Thrift, punctuality…”
Back in twenty-seven, five youths stood in front of the post office in Far Hills’ small shopping center. In age, they ranged from fifteen to nineteen. All were decently dressed in shorts and T-shirts; all looked well-fed and well cared-for. But they scowled. They scowled because Mr. Patchik had ordered them out for making a disturbance. So they had left the delightful coolth of Patchik’s Drug Store to stand in the dank ninety-degree heat.
Their speech must be abridged because it consisted largely of Anglo-Saxon monosyllables, used with wearisome repetition. Bowdlerized, it ran as follows. Meehan, the oldest, said: “Let’s have fun.”
“Such as?” asked Fisher.
“I know a place we can drive two hundred miles an hour.”
“Nah, they got a cop watching it. That’s how Buddy Garstein got spattered last month.”
“I seen it,” said Carmichael. “Funniest thing you ever saw, poor Buddy spattered all over the county, from trying to get away from that cop.”
Snow said: “Some day I’m gonna get that buggy cop. If you tie a herculite wire across the road on a level with his neck—”
“Nah,” said Meehan. “They’re conch to that one; that’s why they got that cutter-bar in front of their windshields. What else you spuds got in mind?”
“I know a couple of girls we could get to come out in Smathers Park,” said Carmichael. “There’s a place low down with shrubbery around. If they yelled, nobody’d hear.”
“Nah, I like mine willing,” said Meehan. “How about a bam? Couple bams haven’t been burned yet.”
“Good idea,” said Fisher. “I saw the Morrison barn get burned. Funniest thing you ever heard, way those horses screamed while they was roasted.” Fisher giggled.
“Dunno,” said Carmichael. “After these last fires, a lot of people are sitting out in their bams with shotguns. I got a better idea. You know old man Slye? He’s got a marble statue in his garden—some kind of nymph or Venus or something. Old man Slye sure loves that statue. Well, let’s bust it up; I can get a sledgehammer.”
“Hey,” said Meehan. “Here comes Longpants Riegel with his tame lizard. One of those whatjacallems.” “Ahlians,” said Kraus, the youngest.
The others gave Kraus a frosty stare; he had been guilty of knowledge.
“Like to get one of those buggy lizards,” said Meehan. “Hang his head on my wall.”
“You’d have a time,” said Carmichael.
“Nah, with a good rifle? They wouldn’t do nothing to me.”
“How come they wouldn’t?”
“They’re not human, that’s how come. The lizards.”
“Maybe they got a closed season on ’em,” said Kraus. “So what? My old man would pay my fine. I’d just scream I was being frustrated. Some day we gotta give Longpants a visit”
“Yeah,” said Snow. “Look at his buggy pants. And walking, in this weather; he’s buggy, all right.”
“Guess he’s got to walk,” said Kraus. “He couldn’t get the lizard in his car. That lizard must be eight feet high.”
“Playing around with off-earthers proves he’s buggy.” said Fisher.
Assistant Professor of Astromagnetics Norman Rie-gel was now within earshot, accompanied by Uzhegh of Kich. Uzhegh was the delegate to the Inte
rplanetary Conference from the planet named by Terrans, after its human discoverer, Captain Hjalmar Ahl. The Ahlians called their own world Hwrajar—Pchum, but for obvious reasons earthmen preferred “Ahlia.”
Riegel, dwarfed by his reptilian friend, had a few mildly-eccentric habits. For instance, he wore long trousers through the summer, instead of shorts, because he was conscious of his scrawny legs and varicose veins. He shaved the sides of his face in a decade when burnsides were universal.
As he neared, the five began muttering like ventriloquists without moving their lips:
“Look at the mad scientist!”
“Watch out, he’ll bite.”
“Look at his buggy pants.”
“Lizard-lover!”
“Oh, Professor! Whee-Whee-eew!” he whistled.
Riegel marched ahead, his face set. He had to shoulder his way between Meehan and Carmichael to enter the post office.
“Look how mad he looks.”
“Bet he’d like to kill us.”
“Aw, he won’t do nothing.”
“He’s too buggy to do anything.”
Uzhegh remained outside, because the door was small for him. As Riegel came out with a handful of mail, the muttering rose again. Uzhegh leaned over and yawned suddenly in Fisher’s face, showing his teeth and flicking out his long yellow tongue.
Fisher gave a little shriek, tried to leap back, tripped, and sat down. The other four youths laughed. While their attention was on Fisher, Riegel went into Patchik’s Drug Store. Here he picked up an afternoon paper and bought a gallon of ice-cream. Then he and Uzhegh set off towards the Scarron mansion, where Riegel and his wife lived while they ran the estate as a kind of camp or boarding-school for the young of the delegates to the Conference.
“Will thith not melt on ze way home?” asked Uzhegh, carrying the container.
“No; that’s a new super-insulating plastic,” said Riegel. “It’ll keep for a week, even in this heat.”
“Zat—that will be long enough for this party. Tell me, why did zose young Terrans treating you so disrespectful? Are they members of some hostile clan?”
Riegel shrugged. “No. They just don’t like me.”
“Why?”
“I suppose I know too much.”
“That is a peculiar reason.”
“Well, there’s always been some hostility between the thinking fraction of my species and the unthinking majority. It becomes aggravated as science advances, and becomes less comprehensible to the layman.”
“Why do you thub mit?”
“What could I do? I’m not allowed to shoot them. If I punched one, the rest would spatter me. At least two are bigger than I, and I’m three times their age. And if I beat up one, I’d go to jail.”
“It is not the way we do sings,” said Uzhegh. “Now, tell me, this is a working day, and zey look old enough to work. Why are they doing nothing?”
“Don’t you know about our educational and child-labor laws? They’re not allowed to work until they’re twenty-five.”
“Why? They looking adult.”
The unions want ’em out of the labor-market. There’s not enough work to go around even with our eighteen-hour work-week. So the state makes all the young stay in school till they’re twenty-five. It’s summer vacation now, but thank God that’ll soon be over.”
“I should sink’ all that education would make them more courteous and cultured-acting.”
“Oh, most of them passed the academic saturation-point years ago—at thirteen or fourteen.”
“The academic what?”
“I mean, they’re incapable of absorbing any more book-learning. They can’t be taught trades, because their parents all want them to belong to the business and professional classes, and are outraged if they’re made to use their hands. So they’re given courses in things like basketry and square-dancing; between times they hang around, bored and spoiled, and think up deviltry.”
“I am not sinking we should find this custom thuitable.”
“You stick to your own customs. If any missionaries for Terran ideas come to Ahlia, I hope you kill them.” Uzhegh shook his crested head. “Yet you have an elaborate apparatus for enforcement of law. Why is it not operating?”
“Because of our theories of juvenile psychology. These hold that all misbehavior is the result of frustration or insecurity, and therefore the parents’ fault.”
“I am glad all Terrans are not like zose. It is partly knowing some like you and Doctor Lofting that made me recommend that our delegation be empowered to sign the constitution. You have done marvelous to keeping ze young of all those different thpecies playing together.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” said Riegel. “Some are worse than human children. The young Akhran is careless about its respirator, and twice we’ve found it after it had taken it off and passed out. The Moorians, being arboreal, are almost impossible to housebreak. And I had to refuse admission to the young Ghazaq for fear it would eat some of our smaller off-earthers.”
“Considering their ancestry, it is natural. How is my Tsitsav?”
“Fine.”
“Has he behaving?”
“Very well; he’s a responsible youngster.”
“We of Hwrajar—Pchum all are, by comparison.”
“Tsitsav has taken the Gordonian, Kranakiloa, under his wing.”
“Wing?”
“Protection. Gordonians are jolly enough but cany playfulness to the point of damn foolishness.”
“I know; they clown even in ze most solemn moments at the Conference.”
They walked in silence. Riegel glanced with affection towards the tall solemn Ahlian. He had found Ahlians the most attractive of the delegates, though most Terrans considered them stuffed-shirty. Their rigid morality struck most Earthmen as either hypocritical or impractical. At the same time it made the more flexible Terrans uncomfortable in their presence. Perhaps Norman Riegel liked them because he was a little like an Ahlian himself.
Uzhegh spoke: “Here we are. Where do I putting zis container?”
They were walking up the driveway of the Scarron estate. The estate had been for sale since Mrs. Scarron died at the ripe, but not exceptional age of 143. None of the heirs wanted the place to live in, as the mansion was considered a white elephant. When the Conference had begun, the Terran bureau that coped with otherworldly visitors sought a means of caring for their young. The bureau had therefore approached Riegel, as the local head of the Society for Interplanetary Union. He, in turn, persuaded the Scarron heirs to lend the mansion rent-free for the summer, and got a furniture-dealer to lend some second-hand furniture. Riegel and his wife, childless themselves, moved into the mansion and ran it as a school-camp for young off-earthers.
Now the Constitution was about to be signed, and the extraterrestrial young given back to their parents, the Riegels intended to give the young ones a last farewell party.
Somebody saw Riegel and Uzhegh. The twenty-three off-earthers poured out, walking, running, hopping, and slithering. The one that looked a little like an aard-vaark, for instance, was Gnish Axal, the Vza from Altair V. They talked in various approximations of English, except the Wanian, whose vocal organs did not work in the human aural range; the Thomasonian, who communicated by sign-language; and the two Borisovians, who talked by flashing built-in colored lights.
The Gordonian, Kranakiloa by name, flowed out with the rest. It looked something like an oversized otter with six limbs. The Gordonians presented a problem to the Conference. The had the lowest intelligence of any species represented, though they talked and used tools. There had been discussion of putting them under a trusteeship, but the delegates could not agree on any plan.
Kranakiloa danced around Riegel and Uzhegh, squeaking: “Gimme! Gimme!” and snatching at the container of ice-cream. Then Tsitsav, the young Ahlian, caught the Gordonian, shook it, and said: “Run off and play or I will thpank you.”
Tsitsav was about as tall as Riegel, though of even li
ghter build. He spoke in his own language to Uzhegh, who responded. Their long forked tongues flicked out, touched, and vanished. Riegel had an impression that the older Ahlian was devoted to his offspring, but it was hard to telL To an outsider, Ahlians’ faces seemed expressionless.
The Ahlians walked off claw in claw. Alice Riegel came out and shooed the off-earthers back to their playground. She gave Riegel a sharp look and said: “What’s the matter, darling?”
“Nothing. Just the young thugs at the post office.”
Riegel gave details.
“Shouldn’t you tell the police?”
“That wouldn’t do any good. I’ve told you before. They haven’t done anything to be arrested for.”
“Couldn’t disorderly conduct be stretched to cover it?”
“It could be, perhaps but it won’t. You know how people are. ‘Nothing’s too good for our kids’—and they won’t believe what ’our kids’ are up to.” A wild look came into Riegel’s eye and a shrill hoarse tone into his voice. The effect was startling, as his manner was normally urbane and self-possessed. “Some day I’ll get a gun and mow the little bustards down! King Herod had the right idea.”
“Now, dear,” said Alice Riegel. “You need a good strong cup of tea.”
“What I need,” said Riegel, “is a set of crosses, some spikes, and a hammer.”
“The party’s coming fine,” said Alice brightly. “They’ve been as good as gold, except that Gnish started to dig up the front lawn for grubs; and I caught Kranakiloa dancing on the high-diving springboard. When 1 ordered him down, he just laughed.”
“What did you do?”
“Oh, Tsitsav hauled him down and spanked him, though it’s a little like spanking a piece of steel cable.”
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