The Worlds of George O

by George O. Smith

  Put another way,

  traffic is a moving mass; but a

  vehicle is a means of

  transportation.

  "Beau," said Terry. "Why must we walk?"

  "I don't see any visible means of riding," said the dog. "Why, there aren't any cars parked along here. And if we did try to swipe one, could you drive it?"

  "Not really, and this is hardly the time to start learning, even though the principle must be about the same as any vehicle. You know, a dingus to start it, a doodad to make it go fast or slow, wheel or lever to steer, and some sort of brakes. Finding out which is which can be hazardous if done empirically. No. Beauregarde, I was wondering whether we might convince some driver that it would be the friendly thing to drive us."

  "I see," said the dog. "You mean, 'To the spaceport, James, or kiss your arm good-bye.'?"

  "Something like that."

  "Might be interesting, at that," said Beauregarde, looking up and down the street carefully. "And now that you mention it, traffic is sure thin. Terry, I'll bet you a nice juicy steakbone that any driver we stop will be Peacekeeper in mufti. This is the kind of caper they plan."

  "Well, you've taken on a Peacekeeper or two, haven't you?"

  "Sure thing. Peter and I have taken on quite a number. But never more than one or two at a time."

  "Then one more won't bother you."

  "Not really--but this time we'll be taking on the entire force, Terry."

  "The entire force is what they've got surrounding us," said Terry thoughtfully. "And we're going to be collected at their option--unless we bust out shouting."

  "I hear you," said Beauregarde. "But what do you propose to do about it?"

  "We wait until we and a vehicle approach a traffic signal simultaneously; specifically, a vehicle with a single occupant, the driver. And one with doors easy to open."

  * * * *

  They continued toward the next intersection, paying little apparent attention to their surroundings, but watching carefully in any windows to see if there was a vehicle approaching. Far behind, one turned in to the street and began to approach them.

  Terry chuckled. "Now I know why the old folks kept saying that they simply can't explain Understanding to someone who doesn't have it and didn't have to to someone who has. It's sort of like playing chess with every move and motive explained."

  Beauregarde said, "Peter always claims that Understanding is a sort of refined premonition or intuition; that women and dogs always had it even before it was discovered."

  "Beau, when was Understanding discovered?"

  "All interstellar-traveling cultures have it," said Beauregarde. "It seems to enter any culture that is on the verge of real space travel. I guess, about that time, most people in the culture are well warned and prepared to believe that Out There they will meet creatures of extreme ugliness whose ancestors were out spacing while the home race was still settling their differences with a stone hatchet."

  "I mean in the individual."

  "Same difference but less vast. It comes rapidly once the individual really matures enough to take on true responsibility, face the consequences of his own acts and above all, to take care of those who depend upon him. Now, of course, there always have been individuals like that, many of them. But Understanding has to wait until the culture is ready for it. Until then, it lies a dormant faculty that all possess to some degree, but--er, let's put it this way, Terry: until the culture and its people are advanced enough to grasp Understanding, it itself can only be latent. And--er, here comes our transportation, right on time and to your specifications. Ready?"

  "Sure thing."

  "Let's go and find out who can maneuver the faster."

  * * * *

  IX

  The car stopped and paused overlong. Terry opened a rear door, and Beauregarde leaped in, over the back of the front seat, and showed the driver his fangs. Terry got in behind and closed the door.

  "Peacekeeper," said Beauregarde, "this may be an act to you, but we're deadly serious. Got it?"

  The driver hit the go pedal, and the car leaped forward; within five seconds it was going fifty miles per hour. "Bite me at this speed," said the driver, "and none of us will walk home."

  "You haven't won yet," snarled Beauregarde. "You'll have to slow down sooner or later, and then you lose--unless you're driving us toward the spaceport."

  "Watch me," said the driver. He goosed the pedal until the car was making better than sixty-five. Then he relaxed behind the wheel.

  Neither Terry nor Beauregarde had ever envisioned a situation like this, but both of them understood what was going on. Obviously, the driver was following a carefully outlined route, from which all traffic had been cleared so that such breakneck speed was quite safe.

  It went quietly; there was no blare of the horn at intersections. And to point up the magnitude of the forces that Terry and Beauregarde were facing, traffic signals always turned to favor the hurtling vehicle, even though there was no side traffic visible at any intersection.

  "This always proves what Peter says," said Beauregarde. "If you want to ride at a break-law speed, ride with a keeper of the peace, who is sworn to defend and uphold the law. It's fun going this fast, isn't it?"

  "So far. But when he stops?"

  "We'll see. Surely," said Beauregarde to the driver, "you don't think that stopping before fifty thousand witnesses is going to stop me from making a mess of you."

  "Not really. It's one of the hazards of the profession," said the driver.

  With great skill, the driver hit a turn, tapped the brakes until the car drifted, waited through the drift until the car was aligned with the new street, and then kicked the drive again. The turn took no more than a second or two, and the force of the turn made them all hang tight--too tight to bother watching their surroundings.

  When stress and strain diminished it was too late; dead ahead and blocking their path was a huge van. To Terry it was a sure crash, and coming too suddenly to do more than realize that a sure crash was coming. To Beauregarde it was part of the caper but this time was far too short to do more than appreciate the fact. To the driver it was part of his instruction and training, for instead of hitting the brakes in a panic stop, he hit the go-pedal and clenched the wheel carefully.

  The back of the van dropped, making a ramp. The car hit the ramp and raced up with hardly a bounce on its special springs. Inside the van was a solid mass of feathery plastic which cushioned the possible crash; a carefully designed mass of plastic that applied braking force inversely proportional to the kinetic energy of the racing car.

  The car came to a stop with all three occupants pasted to the front by the force of deceleration, but unharmed beyond a few bruises and the inevitable blackout that comes with the high-G forces.

  * * * *

  When the smoke cleared away, Beauregarde was in a small cage, Terry was manacled lightly to a chair, and their driver was receiving the thanks of a man behind a small but ornate desk.

  Beauregarde said, "That was a fine operation--but then, it would be, wouldn't it, Commissioner Martell?"

  "You know him?" asked Terry.

  "Sure. Peter and I have met him a number of times, but under different circumstances. This is Commissioner Martell, Number Two Peacekeeper. The party sitting at the other desk is Homburg, Number Three, or among the several Number Threes that Martell has reporting to him."

  "Quite," said Martell to the dog. To Terry, he said, "You are Terence Lincoln, of Earth."

  "I am--and now that you recognize me, I demand that you place me on a spacecraft bound for Earth."

  "Stop acting childish," said Martell coldly. "You've gained Understanding. You are responsible for your acts. You are going to account for them."

  "I am a Terrestrial--"

  "You are a lawbreaker, and we are operating within the rules of universal law."

  "If so, why this big operation?"

  "Quite simple," said Martell calmly. "At first, we assumed
that your runaway was only a boyish lark, the universal urge to go it alone in a strange land for a time. We tolerated your boyish pranks. We smiled at your theft of food, for it is neither the policy of Xanabar nor the desire of her citizens that the stranger within her gates go hungry."

  "That was darned nice of you," said Terry.

  "Then you team up with this animal, and at that point you became no longer a youth with an adventuresome spirit, but the center of possible danger to the Peace of Xanabar. At this point, the Peacekeepers we assigned to see that you came to no harm in the badlands of City Coleban were then assigned to protect the Peace. And then you gained Understanding, Terence Lincoln, and became responsible for your acts."

  "So I did. But there's an--"

  "And, with Understanding, did you abandon your lawlessness? You did not. Instead, you assaulted a Peacekeeper--"

  "Old saffron-face had it coming."

  "--during the performance of his duty, instead of appealing to him for protection and safe delivery to the spaceport. Had you renounced your former acts by becoming a peace-loving man, you would not be here."

  "Nuts," replied Terry. "I know why I'm here and so does Beauregarde."

  "Of course," said Martell smoothly. "Understanding works that way. You are a lawbreaker, and you are here to account for your petty felonies."

  "Fine. And I suppose that I will be sentenced to a series of terms for vagrancy, theft, trespass, and using old saffron-face for a punching bag? Terms long enough to squeeze the secret of Scholar's Cluster out of me."

  * * * *

  "You have that secret?" asked Martell.

  "Get off it," growled Terry. "You know it, and I know it, and Beauregarde knows it.

  Maybe even Peter Hawley knows it by now."

  "Yes," smiled Martell suavely. "But you see, I know it now because you've told me."

  "Terry," said Beauregarde, "you can't fight this city hallitician with words. You'll find that he and his gang of Peacekeepers were acting only in the best interests of Xanabar, and for both Earth and its hapless youth, Terence Lincoln. That he and his have put you through a wringer, and out of it comes a hidden secret--that's just serendipity, Terry."

  "Well," replied Terry thoughtfully, "nothing we've done is a capital crime, so he'll have to release us sooner or later."

  "I'd prefer it sooner," said Beauregarde. "This cage isn't big enough, and I'm not in favor of cages anyway. Peter--"

  "You can forget Peter Hawley," said Martell. "The danger of you and the youth together was so great that we have cleared the entire district of anybody except us Peacekeepers, who have sworn to lay down our lives to maintain the Peace of Xanabar."

  "And I suppose that stunt with the truck full of crushable gunch was simply part of the Peacekeeping activity?"

  "How would you apprehend a headstrong youth and a dangerous animal who had just invaded the car of a citizen and threatened the citizen with the loss of life or limb? Would you hold up a hand and cry 'Stop!' or perhaps--"

  "Forget it," said Beauregarde. "You make me--"

  There came a crash. The van lurched, humping high on one corner, and then dropping down so that the corner was lower than the others. The sense of smooth motion stopped.

  There was muffled shouting outside. The van lurched slowly again. Then came that incredibly short electrical tingle that fills the region when a nerve stunner is fired; the effect came through the metal walls of the van, even though the bolt would not have penetrated.

  The uproar outside ceased. The van door opened, and two Peacekeepers came in carrying a man by ankles and armpits. The man was not as stiff as a board, because the old cliche implies something straight and flat. The man was stiff all right, but he had been frozen in the typical posture of a man halfway through the act of getting out of a car in a tearing hurry. The Peacekeepers dropped him on the floor, where he rolled over, statuelike, until three points of rest came to ground with the center of gravity between them.

  "He came roaring down the street flat out," explained one Peacekeeper. "He didn't try to miss you. Instead, he aimed the car like a missile."

  Martell nodded and waved the Peacekeeper away. "Now we are complete," he said cheerfully. "Terence Lincoln, may I present Peter Hawley--who won't be able to do anything for a day or so. Now," he said to the dog, "what were you thinking about Peter Hawley?"

  "There isn't much to say," said Beauregarde. "You've got me caged, Terry manacled to that chair, and Peter Hawley in the deep freeze. We can't even go where you'd like us to go--we'll have to be taken."

  Martell turned to Homburg. "Whistle up your car. There'll be room in it for all of us, if we put Hawley and his dog in the trunk." He turned to Beauregarde. "And that makes three,"

  he said, waving a hand at Peter. "Lawbreakers all; for we will find that his stated purpose was to come here to assist you criminals to escape. He is an accessory, and thus accused of the same breaches of the peace as you."

  Beauregarde made an ugly dog-noise deep in his chest. Terry rattled the handcuffs helplessly. Peter Hawley startled everybody by emitting a long, lung-shuddering sigh and collapsing from his up-ended statue position to a completely flaccid limpless flat upon the slightly tilted floor.

  "They must have hit him with a near-miss or a splash-off from the car body," said Martell. "He shouldn't go limp for at least another hour."

  "No matter, Martell," said Homburg. "It will make him easier to put in my trunk."

  "So it will, Homburg. So it will."

  Inwardly, Homburg glowed. Martell had been addressed as an equal and had replied in kind. He had been accepted.

  For one of five in the office van, things were looking up.

  * * * *

  X

  The man who entered wore the uniform of a Peacekeeper, complete with sidearm, but on his shoulder was the blazer of a chauffeur. He saluted Homburg and said, "Your car, Zer Homburg."

  "You made good time," nodded Homburg. "Get help and put that one in the trunk.

  Then come and get that animal and put it with its master. In the trunk. We will be quite capable of handling the youth."

  "Yes, Zer Homburg."

  The chauffeur turned to walk toward Peter Hawley as Homburg approached Terry Lincoln. It was their first mistake.

  Terry waited, looking helpless as Homburg approached, the ring of keys dangling from his hand. "Behave," he said to the youth, "and you won't get hurt." Seeing no move or even an air of defiance, Homburg put the key in the lock, turned, and sprang the cuff. Terry lurched backward in his chair, curled like a ball, put his feet up, and let them fly outward.

  Homburg went hurtling back, the ring of keys completely torn from his grasp. He hit the dog's cage at the same time Terry's chair completed its backward overturn and hit the floor.

  The blow took Terry's breath, but he was young, and he had been hit before on the playing fields of Scholar's Cluster. He landed almost flat, and rolled to one side, the keys still dangling from the lock.

  Homburg's scream stopped all motion. He'd fallen with one arm close to the dog's cage. While Homburg's body was still atumble, Beauregarde had snapped at the fingers and caught. Now he had hand and arm through the bars; he had Homburg's wrist between the gleaming molars, with the fangs denting the skin on the far side of the wrist. As the echoing scream died, the dog applied pressure. Homburg screamed again.

  Terry got to his feet slowly, watching the action--or the frozen lack of it--warily.

  "Beauregarde means 'stop!' or your man Homburg loses a hand," he said.

  They stood. Martell in half-a-step forward; the Peacekeeper half-turned from Peter Hawley, his hand on the sidearm; Homburg on the floor, groveling in fear and pain; and Beauregarde with a trickle of blood on his muzzle.

  They stood frozen for but a moment, but it was moment enough for Terry to regain his breath and his balance. Then, as he reached to unlock the other cuff, Martell went into sound and fury.

  * * * *

  "Drill them both!" he shout
ed at the Peacekeeper, and with the words he leaped for Terry.

  Terry swung the manacles; they were not the morgenstern of knightly warfare, but they were lethal against unarmored flesh. The open cuff caught Martell in the mouth, and stopped him in midstep.

  Behind the Peacekeeper, Peter Hawley fought himself to his knees, lunged with painful lack of nearly all coordination, and managed to connect--not with the Peacekeeper's shooting arm, but with his calves and ankles. The shock wrecked the Peacekeeper's aim; the bolt hit the metal wall and simply disappeared. Its field tingle went unnoticed.

  Beauregarde snapped his head, and Homburg screamed once more and fainted.

  "Get me outa here!" roared the dog. Terry swung the manacles again, but Martell ducked back--and into the Peacekeeper, who was trying once more to take aim. They both went back a step, off balance; then the second step hit the still-trying Peter Hawley. Peacekeeper and Martell went down asprawl, landing on Peter, who did not feel a thing.

  There were, by luck, only two keys on the dangling ring that still hung from the cuff.

  One was the key still in its lock. The other was the only one free. Without even looking, Terry lunged with the other key, slid it into the lock on the cage, and turned. Beauregarde came out with a leap that brought him face to face with Martell--or more properly, fang to face with Martell. With a snarl, Beauregarde said, "I broke his wrist. What do you want to lose, Peacekeeper?"

  Martell cringed back from the fangs, but replied, "You wouldn't dare--"

  "Oh, I can bite gently," said the dog.

  "You cannot win. We're surrounded by my men for an entire district of City Coleban."

  "Then I suggest that you tell them that you are escorting Terence Lincoln to the spaceport, in person, with Beauregarde the dog and Peter Hawley the Terrestrial Agent as part of the embarking party."

  Martell sneered. "Watch," he said. He stepped to the door of the van, ran down the window and shouted orders that the Terrestrials were to be given free passage.

  * * * *

  Seconds later there was a muffled blast outside, and a black missile screeched in through the opened window, and hit the far wall. Beauregarde leaped, and caught it in mid-bounce, snapped his head aside without waiting to come to the floor, and whipped the smoking missile through the opened window. It burst outside; some of the pale blue gas billowed in, but not enough to do its job. A second missile hit the side of the van. A third hit the window, cracking it, as Terry wound it up. A fourth hit the closed window but did not shatter the glass.