by Jerry
Slower and slower rolled the wheels. They began to weave, to wobble as though mounted on a Shaky axle. Some seemed scarcely able to move at all, sometimes pausing for the space of several breaths, rocking gently back and forth as though stuck in a mudhole. And most unexpected of all, they began to stagger into each other. We had never seen wheel touch wheel before. Under normal conditions I’m sure they never did. It didn’t seem to make any difference, though. They simply richocheted sluggishly and wobbled off in a new direction.
Soon they were all doing it. The jeep sat in the middle of a ridged and valleyed pinball table miles long, with thousands of pinballs rolling at once. It was like some incredible danse macabre, and we grew dizzy watching it.
“Drunk,” Ursula said. “Gorged and drunk.” Her fingers never stopped their endless sketching. The sketch sheets were piled beside her. And Lindy’s tape camera saw it all, and the Stardust movies filled out the record.
Then the wheels turned inland.
They had finished feeding. How much each had taken in, how long it would last them, was not a calculable thing. The slime, though, was gone. They had licked their plates clean.
They reeled and veered and staggered, again in long lines, back through the gaps and over the ridges into the rolling plains of the interior. From the Stardust movies later we saw what they did then. Instead of going to ground and resting, or digesting, or whatever disposal they made of their food, they kept rolling. They fanned out, spreading farther and farther apart. They couldn’t roll fast, but they never stopped. On a land mass as large as greater Asia, North and South America combined, there was room to spread.
And spread they did. There seems no doubt that some of them traveled as far as space allowed them. Two weeks later, wherever we cruised over the land mass, we still saw them rolling, only one in sight at a time, apparently getting as far apart as was possible, dividing up the continent into a checkerboard of vast territories. And the weirdest thing of all was that we never saw a wheel in all that expanse that didn’t behave as though it had been a part of the fighting force. Yet their only locomotion seemed to be their ability to roll.
It seems probable that the food they took in may have lasted for years. It may have stimulated some strange reproductive process of which I still have no knowledge. It may thus have made existence more hazardous for the Rainbow cubes. But this is hypothesis. I don’t know.
The last wheel had not rolled out of sight before Pegleg cut the forcefield, and we climbed stiffly out of the jeep. The ground felt good under our feet. It was different ground, too. The green of the ridges didn’t exist any more. Where the battle had raged, the lettuce was gone. There was no juice, no smell, nothing; just the dust-fine, gray-brown soil, packed as though steam-rollered.
I stood by Lindy. We were holding hands, her fingers braided with mine, while we stared at the changed, but again empty landscape. Lindy scuffed her sandal on the packed soil.
“Armageddon,” she whispered. “It won’t happen again for a thousand years.”
“It’ll never happen again,” I said.
Ursula gouged the soil and came up with a smashed strip of metal.
“Made a mess of my easel,” she said wryly.
“Build you another one right away,” Pegleg offered. “Glad I saved the umbrella, though. What would we do without that little bit of color?”
Lindy pointed a slender finger.
“There’s color,” she said.
They were back. Or at least, many of them were. They sat in a wide-spaced line along the next ridge inland, the line extending on and on, perhaps the length of the battlefield, the closest of them fifty yards or more from where we stood. They simply sat there, as usual, and none came closer. Nor did we feel the pulse of communication, the good feeling of rapport which we had come to know so well. They might have been the gaudy building blocks they seemed to be. I swept the line with my binoculars. The black cube was not in sight.
Then I noticed that they sat where the green began again, where the lettuce was still growing. It was the packed and naked battlefield that they avoided. Perhaps, as I think of it now, that was what I was meant to notice. Instead of explaining, they made me figure it out.
The battle had been fought in the usual bright sunshine of Planet Four, but now shadows swept over the beaches and dunes, a chill came off the water. Cyrene vanished behind low, heavy rainclouds, the first we had ever seen here. Within minutes a rainstorm broke, violent, dashing, but without wind, lightning or thunder. We scurried for the jeep again. The forcefield turned weather as easily as other forces.
The downpour sluiced over the hard-packed soil, scrubbing down the battlefield with a meteorological mop. And through the curtains of water we could see the cubes sitting, immobile, impervious to the pounding goose-drownder I suddenly felt sure that they had caused.
The rain was brief. The clouds thinned, the sun broke through, the wet soil smelled fresh and good like it does after an April shower at home. In half an hour the sky was clear; just a nice, sunny early afternoon, peaceful and calm. We tracked around in the thin mud and debated.
“Should we go over to them?” Pegleg asked. “They’re not in any hurry to come to us.” He waved a hand at the line of cubes.
“Let’s wait ’em out,” I said. “Tell Johnny to keep the Stardust high. This business isn’t over yet, I feel. Be a shame to spoil it. Lindy?”
“I feel,” Lindy said gently, “like something nice is coming. It’s almost like we’re being invited to wait.”
“Ursula?”
“Wish they hadn’t smashed my easel,” Ursula said. “Going to need it. Help me set up a frame on the side of the jeep, Roscoe. Can’t miss this.”
That settled it. We waited.
XIV
It was an hour, maybe, before it happened. Then suddenly they were all around us again. Not the line of cubes on the ridge. They didn’t move. These around us were cubes we knew, individuals we recognized. The chalk white one, the rosy one of our first encounter, a strange, haunting lemon yellow, a flashing royal blue. The feel was a good feel, a happy, grateful feel, a genuinely friendly feel. Let Pegleg talk me no talk about these beings and friendship. They understood it. They were our friends.
They shifted and formed a pattern before us. It was an attention-holding, compelling sort of arrangement, yet simple and predictable. They were a checkerboard, aligned with orderly precision a number of rows deep. There were not many of them, perhaps no more than fifty or sixty, covering not a quarter of an acre. As Lindy expressed it later, “lust a few friends of the family.” But I realized after a moment, with a little throb of dismay, that the black cube was missing. Many had been destroyed in the battle, that I knew. But reassurance came immediately. Although it wasn’t present, I knew it still existed.
The checkerboard of cubes sat in friendly immobility. I got the impression that the color arrangement was not random, but was an artistic blend deliberately achieved. Certainly it was strangely soothing and satisfying. _The feel was the same as I sometimes get when soft music and my mood come together. A rare, pleasing, relaxing sort of feel.
Ursula painted. Lindy’s tape camera whispered.
The black cube appeared almost directly before us, and beside it, a cube-span away, the delicate cream-ivory cube sat daintily.
There was nothing to tell us what would happen. We knew, though. Honorable fusion. Two may become one. And when the two become one, then the two no longer exist, and the one is a new one. And the new one, which has been two, may and will make others, small miniatures of itself, which will feed and grow and learn and enjoy. And, in their turn, fuse honorably.
One moment the two cubes sat before us and in strange gladness told us good-by. The next, they were gone, and in the space that had been between them a new cube glowed, an exquisite perfection of flashing oxblood, which hailed us with a joyous greeting. You think I’m using words. You think I’m fooling. But I’m not. It was like that.
Ursula’s
brush strokes had stopped, and her strange eyes stared in awe. Lindy, her tape camera forgotten, sobbed softly. And the new cube, which never had been before, spoke to us more perfectly, more plainly, than any ever had. It was a blend, not only of mass and of color and of friendship, but of learning. Its speech was in the air, as though it were visible words, and as words the meaning came to me.
“Permanent disintegration came to many, so space was made available. Two wished honorable fusion, and because there was space, it became possible. So I now exist.
“You are different. You are wise. You are my friends. While you stay, I will always be near. We go now, all, but when you want us, we will come. We will know.
“Two wished you to be near when fusion came. It is the most important of all things to happen. It seems, I cannot quite understand how, that it also happens to you. So you know.”
The indescribable oxblood cube, quite the most perfect thing in a race of perfection, sat for a brief while longer. The good feeling that came from it and from its fellows welled up around us in the now familiar waves. Then suddenly, as always, they were gone. The landscape was empty. The waves rolled in to the sandy beaches, a gentle breeze blew, and that was all.
But it was not all for me. I glowed like the cube.
“A zygote!” I said. “A cubic zygote! We speak of two becoming one, but they really mean it.”
Lindy dabbed at the tears on her face. “It was lovely,” she sniffed and blew her nose. Then she smiled at me. “I always cry at weddings.” Pegleg grunted something unintelligible. He turned to contact the Stardust, which would soon be dropping down. Ursula painted again.
I put my arm around Lindy and took over the mopping job.
“You can cry at your own wedding, and soon,” I told her. “We can’t become one as they did, but—” Lindy put her fingers over my lips. “Don’t spoil it,” she said softly. “We can try!”
STARPATH
Neal Barrett, Jr.
The Starpathers were always too few and usually too late . . . but without them the galaxy was dead!
I
The light flicked from OPERATIONAL green to amber READY. I leaned back in the cushioned depths, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. My body automatically began the discipline that let every nerve, muscle and fiber approach controlled unconsciousness.
Without moving, I glanced at Cadet DeLuso. The boy was quiet, but a fine mist covered his cheek. Natural enough, under the circumstances. First op-jump ought to bring out the sweat in a man, if he has any sense at all.
The blinking amber said 12, 11—10 seconds. I closed my eyes and silently wished Cadet Matt DeLuso luck. That’s the least you can do for these kids—wish them a little luck. . . .
No, I caught myself—that’s not all, Waldermann. There’s one thing more. You can stop thinking of your Cadets as kids. They’re not kids at all, they’re men. And damn fine ones, too. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t make it this far—they wouldn’t be starpath candidates.
So, seconds before jumpoff, I gave DeLuso manhood—the least I could do, and maybe the most. DeLuso himself would have to take it from there.
Then READY amber turned to red TRANSMIT, and the soft gong began pealing the seconds from one to ten—in the very special note that triggers a deeply keyed response in every Starpather’s brain. My eyes closed, and I began to trance out. A deep hum rolled through my body, rising from thunder to a siren shriek. Through some far, dimly wakeful sense, I heard a faint cry from DeLuso. Then I exploded. . . .
There’s always that tiny jolt, like a hundred billion little cubes of ivory clamping together at once. Ask any Starpather about that jolt. He’ll tell you it’s the sweetest sound in the world.
You see, it isn’t a stack of cubes at all, friend—it’s you. And if you can feel that jolt it means your body is back in one piece again, and you’ve made it through Starpath.
The first thing I did was look at DeLuso—fast. He was there, his eyes flickering open, breath steady. I pushed myself up, and the cushions petaled wide to let me through. DeLuso turned then and looked at me.
“Congratulations,” I said dryly. “For some reason, Cadet, it appears you’ve made it through Starpath.”
DeLuso was a light shade of classroom chalk, but he managed a grin. “Thank you, sir. It’s—a lot different than I expected.”
I shot his sick grin right back at! him. “Oh? Really, Cadet? Well, it’s also a lot different than I expected, Mister!”
DeLuso stared. I jerked coveralls and slipons from the locker and glared at him. “You made a noise, Cadet. Did you know that? No, you didn’t hear it, but I did. You made a noise during transmit! Your relaxation cycle was imperfect. Something tensed, probably a muscle in the lower throat, and a little breath of air you weren’t supposed to have in the first place moved over that muscle causing vibration, motion, sound. Our, as we call it in Starpath, Cadet—good old Instant Death. Evidently you stopped in time. You are here—and that pretty well proves it, doesn’t it? Now, next question: How many times do you think you can get away with a damn fool stunt like that?”
I glanced at the tiny station chronometer set in the curved wall of the shell. “You have twenty-one minutes, forty-two seconds, standard time, to work out that little problem. I suggest you have it solved on schedule, or you won’t have to worry about getting chewed out at the next station. Any questions?”
Apprehension had started across his face, but it faded quickly. “No, sir,” he said smartly. “No questions, sir.” Good man.
I tossed him coveralls and slipons. “Get dressed, Cadet. Let’s see what’s going on outside.”
We left the dome and stepped out on the plastic circle under the dim moon of Arcturus Seven, better known to the colonists there as Gellhell. We were 33 light-years from Earth as the crow flies—microseconds by Starpath. The Frostrees beyond the settlement clearing were halfway through their screaming lunch, tearing each other apart and flinging bloody foliage to the pink sky. The ragged, scab-covered colonists stood just beyond the dome’s field, pelting us with filth. Several of them dropped dead and began to decompose as we watched.
Cadet Matt DeLuso didn’t say a thing. I was beginning to think he might actually make Starpath.
“Okay,” I told him, “you’ve caught the scenery. Go get the cargo—we only have 18 more minutes here.”
DeLuso retreated to the dome and lugged out the 3x5 flat aluminoid carton. I opened it near the edge of the field, checked it quickly, released the inner seal and closed it up again. They saw what we had, and for a brief minute they even forgot about throwing stuff at us. A low moan swept over the crowd.
I looked them over. One guy was a little taller than the rest. He was skin and bones like everyone else, but a trifle less scabby.
“You,” I pointed, “would you come to the edge of the field, please?” He dragged himself over on shaky legs and stopped a yard away. He stared at men through rheumy eyes, then spat at my face. The spittle hit the field and rolled away.
“You’re a little late, Starpather,” he croaked. His mouth curled up in hate, and I thought for a second he might spit again.
“I’m sorry. We do what we can. How many have you lost?”
He laughed, and that just about ended the conversation right there. “You want this morning’s count, or up to the last three minutes? We started with 900 people here, mister. We got about 200 left.”
“I’m sorry about that, too,” I told him. I picked up the case and tossed it through the field: It landed in the soft turf on the other side.
You always throw cargo through the field. You never roll it, or push it or shove it. The field’s about an inch thick, and if you happen to shove something a little too easy, or a pebble gets in the way—or anything—your cargo just stays there till Hell freezes over. Things that get caught in that inch don’t move. Once you lose momentum you can’t push it through, and certainly no one on the other side can pull it. Not unless you turn off the field. And brother, th
at is just what you don’t do—ever.
The colonists were already into the carton and passing out the little blue pills, but the tall man in front of me hadn’t moved.
“Think that stuff’ll work?” he asked doubtfully.
I nodded. “It should. They worked on the sample culture you furnished. No reason it shouldn’t do the job.”
“Uhdiuh. But you don’t really know, do you?” he said dully. I could tell die poor guy was dead on his feet. In his condition he shouldn’t have even been standing up. He made no move to get his share of the pills. I had an idea he just really didn’t care any more.
“No,” I said quietly, “I don’t know for sure. I hope they do. I’d like to make you understand that we want to save as many people as possible on Gellhell.”
“I’ll bet you do,” he said darkly. “I’ll bet you stay awake nights thinking about Gellhell. I’ll bet you can hardly take a drink of good Earth whiskey or pull a Fungirl into the sack you’re so . . . worried . . . about. . . .”
I turned away from him. His eyes were clouding up, and he was shaking all over. “DeLuso! Over here!”
He came up quickly. “We have about 6 minutes, Cadet. Get in there and run through Operational prep. I’ll be with you in three and a half minutes.”
DeLuso stared. “Operational? Sir, you want me to activate?”
I watched him a moment. Right now he could use a bit of fatherly encouragement, a little friendly service cajolery. To hell with that. He also needed to learn to follow orders without a moment’s hesitation.
“Cadet, you received an order.” I let the hard freeze travel from my eyes to his. He swallowed hard. But again control returned quickly. He snapped off a perfect salute and disappeared into the dome. I turned back to my scarecrow colonist.
He was exactly where I had left him, and he made no motion toward the antiplague drugs.