“Indeed, sir?” the old man exclaimed. “How very fortunate that I happened along. I happen to have in my hand the initial volume of a brand new edition, fresh from the presses. Let your fingers feel the fine texture of the cloth, examine if you will the strong, white paper and the large easy-to-read type. I assure you, Mr. Carew, this new edition will supplant in every way all other encyclopedias, bringing to the fore as it does the latest developments the world over! And at the same amazing low price of sixty-seven dollars and fifty cents.”
Henry regarded him closely. “Does it tell all about the space platform?”
“Of course, of course, my dear sir. The very latest reports about the entire matter, plus, of course, allied fields. This new edition is years ahead of all others. But wait a moment and see for yourself.” The old fellow turned and hurried to the shining new car. From the trunk he brought forth an encyclopedia set and in three trips had carried the thirty-six volumes to the door. “I invite your closest inspection, Mr. Carew. A man of your outstanding intelligence wants only the best.”
Cary Carew reached down for the volumes keyed Soci-Suda and riffled the pages, seeking out the desired subject matter. His eyes opened wide in delight. There it was, some three and a half columns concerning space-stations, space platforms, orbits, military advantages and the like. “Sold!” he declared instantly.
“A most discerning gentleman,” the peddler said.
Hurriedly, Henry had a belated second thought and turned back to the title page to read the copyright date. His accusing eyes lifted to the old gentleman’s face and he thought to wag a reproving finger beneath the moustache.
“Tch, tch,” he said. “The same error.”
“Really?” the peddled asked. He peered at the offending date. “This is most unfortunate.”
“MCMLVII,” Cary read aloud. “That’s 1957. Your proofreaders aren’t very alert.”
“I admire your vast knowledge, sir!” the peddler said. “Your wits are as as sharp as your eyes. Suppose I reduce the price by two dollars and a half?”
“Sold,” Henry repeated, and wrote out a check. He carried the thirty-six volumes inside the door, and then waited there to watch the old gentleman drive away. That was certainly a spectacular car—something you wouldn’t expect to find on the streets for five or ten years yet.
Henry selected the one prized volume and retired to his den. He drew from the typewriter the counterfeiting story and threw it in the wastebasket, settled back to read up on space station data in preparation for Dan Devlin’s next exploit.
The End
*****************************************
King of the Planet,
by Wilson Tucker
Galaxy Oct. 1959
Short Story - 4755 words
No monarchy was ever more legal than his—
he had outlived every last challenger for the throne!
The king was annoyingly awakened before dawn by a noise in the sky.
The noise was an ear-splitting roar, an avalanche of sound, a rushing, tumbling, thunderous reverberation which filled the heavens from one horizon to another, the kind of noise—and the volume—that might be expected on the day the sun cracked open. The shattering thunder shook the stout old building, causing the king of the planet to creep from his shabby bed and go to the window. The dawn was still an hour or more away.
Nothing but empty sky and the roseate flush in the east was visible from the tiny window, but yet the echoes of intruding sound lapped about the building. Blinking away sleep and muttering at the trespass, the king went to the door, circuitously avoiding the cracked marble urn in the exact center of the room which contained his drinking water. He stepped out into the high grasses surrounding the building and turned to look skyward. It was there, as he had guessed.
The source of the monstrous noise was a monstrous vehicle hanging many miles above him, as stationary as a rock, but even at that distance its enormous size was apparent. The thing hung effortlessly in the early morning sky, washed with the new sunlight, and seemed to be supported on small tongues of flame which everywhere studded its massive belly. A coruscating envelope of pale blue, much like ancient neon lighting, laved the vehicle to create an eerie illusion in the yellowish rays of the sun. The tremendous sound that had awakened him had been caused by the braking effort of the great machine.
The king studied it closely for many minutes, watching for a Sign—an Omen, searching for a sacred Token to suggest that it might be something other than what his mundane senses had taken it to be. He waited, but a Revelation did not come. There was nothing about the machine to excite his hopes.
It was only a starship.
IT had disturbed his sleep and it was nothing more than a starship, probably inhabited by a pack of crazy fools bent on exploring each new planet to fall within their sights. Now they had discovered his, and in a few hours hordes of them would be descending on him.
The starship was too large and ungainly to land, but the people on it—if they were people—would come down on him like mosquitoes, in small scouting vessels, and conduct themselves like imbeciles on a picnic. Their military men would eye him suspiciously and cast dark glances at the surrounding forests. Their linguists would buzz about with primitive signs and symbols in an effort to establish communication. Their botanists would uproot great masses of weeds. Their archeologists would ransack the ruins and gouge deep holes in the ground, plundering graves, to carry away what they believed to be precious treasures, while their commander—ahh, the commander!
That nincompoop would fatuously plant a flag, or its gaudy equivalent, in the soil and claim ownership of the new world for his distant sovereign. The nincompoop would cheerfully ignore, of course, the very obvious fact that this world already possessed a sovereign.
A pox on them. Let them come down and play, and then go away again. They were not Significant. The starship had offered no Sign, and he was not greatly interested in its coming.
The king of the planet returned indoors and let himself down on the hard bed. He ruminated a short while and then drifted off to sleep, confident that their noisy scurryings would awaken him later.
He had momentarily considered closing the door, and then decided against it. The prying archeologists would probably come inside anyway; they would not be able to resist temptation, for the king’s indigent residence was a marble mausoleum nearly hidden among the weeds and wild grasses of an incredibly ancient cemetery.
The king of the planet lived in a mausoleum because the structure had withstood the ravages of time, because he had made it somewhat comfortable, and because it had seemed the best place to wait.
A FEW minutes after sunrise, a single scout left the mother ship and landed almost directly beneath it, resting quietly—but watchfully—on a grassy clearing well away from the dense woods. More than half of the crew of twenty had emerged from the scout and fanned out, each crew member going about his particular business. Some of their number had already discovered a promising mound and were bringing up heavy equipment to probe its probable mystery. One man was taking samples of the vegetation, while another was trapping insects in the soil.
Within the small scout ship, a woman hunched over a set of scanning instruments, her head concealed in an enveloping hood, the better to watch a series of glass plates. She listened to a contact speaker fastened behind an ear and spoke into a throat microphone. There was a gentle excitement in her voice, but no trace of fear or hysteria.
“The life-form is approaching from the northwest. Movement slow but progress steady. Near you, Seven.”
And a response from the clearing: “Seven, check.”
The woman continued, dividing her attention between two devices: “It appears to be warm-blooded and intelligent. It does not show fear of us, nor does there seem to be curiosity. I see nothing to indicate a weapon; it is carrying something that might be a walking stick. Are you tracking, Seven?”
“Negative,” Seven reported. “The tre
es interfere.”
“Eight?” the woman asked next.
“Eight, negative,” a new voice said. “I read nothing but soil life.”
“There are birds in the far distance,” she advised. “I expect our arrival has frightened them away. I have discovered no animal life except for— It has stopped.” She scanned the disc attentively. “It has put down the walking stick. Now it is behind a tree. I am receiving only a small positive signal.”
A deep male voice cut into the circuit. “Nineteen here,” it said. “Your animal is intelligent. It put down the stick to avoid its being mistaken for a weapon, and now is likely peeping at us from behind a tree. I’ll be right out with a translator.” The male voice was exultant. “Gently, gentlemen, gently. We’ve found a prize!”
The woman at the scanner spoke up. “The object is moving—coming directly toward the vessel. Seven, it is almost upon you! Don’t you see it?”
“Nega— correction.” His voice jumped. “It’s coming out now. I see it!”
“Eight, move in and cover,” the woman snapped. “Two, start recording.”
“I’m forty-five seconds ahead of you,” Two replied dryly. “Sight, sound and depth.”
“Be careful!” Nineteen cried. “Don’t scare it away. What is it—what does it look like?”
THE communication channel was silent for a moment and then Seven said, “It looks like you. It’s a man.”
“Are you certain?” the woman demanded.
“It’s a man,” the dry voice of the recorder cut in. “I can tell by his innards.”
Seven reported: “An old man; quite aged by the looks of him. Extremely long hair and long beard. He is naked—I think. And he needs a bath.”
“Weapons?”
“Negative, unless there is one hidden under the beard. There—he’s out of the woods. See him?”
“I see him,” she answered, and stared for a long moment. “I wish I could be more impressed. Well, I suppose we must extend the customary welcome. He is the only life-form”—she corrected herself—“the only human to reveal sign on this planet. Stand by, Seven.”
The king of the planet left the shadow of the trees and made his careful way into the clearing. He moved slowly because he could not trust his limbs to any reasonable speed and because he did not want to frighten the visitors into an unfriendly act. He had no wish to be a cripple after their departure.
The king paused ten or twelve feet short of the nearest intruder and examined the ship. His examination was a cursory one because he was little interested in its origin, its means of locomotion, or its physical properties. There had been others like it and unlike it, and doubtless there were more to come. The ship and the travelers were merely transients.
The impudent young fellow a dozen feet away stared at him with a friendly, idiotic grin. His feet were braced wide apart, his hands were outstretched—palms upward—in the usual gesture of welcome, and not too far away his mate waited with one hand resting on the butt of a weapon. They were military men, making their customary two-faced show of welcome.
The king looked at the friendly face and the grinning lips and wanted to snarl, looked at the upturned palms and wanted to spit on them, but he realized that such behavior would only complicate matters. It was better to help them tidy up their business and send them on their way.
He stuck out his two hands in an imitative gesture and tried to smile. It didn’t quite come off.
“Now that’s done,” he grunted. “Get on with your picking and clear off my planet!”
SEVEN did not understand him, of course, and promptly launched into a lengthy torrent of unintelligible speech which was the Response Courteous, the standard rejoinder to a native welcome.
The Response Courteous was grandiose, pompous and rhetorical, punctuated with graceful gestures and primitive symbolisms; the eloquent sentry called upon the local rain god to increase the old man’s crops and upon the sun god to bless his aged bones; he complimented the native on his health, wealth and appearance, thanked him for so graciously offering the hospitality of his planet, begged him to allow them to stay a few days more that they might explore and catalogue the new world, flattered him with the observation that no other mud ball in the Universe was so beautiful as this one, assured him that they would do harm to none, and ended—finally—by respectfully inquiring after the old one’s lovely wife (wives?) and sturdy children.
It was an impressive speech, recited letter-perfect from the field manual.
The sentry then bowed and mumbled an aside into his microphone. “I don’t think I want to meet his lovely wife. I wish I was upwind of him.”
Two, the dry commentator operating the recording machine, suggested: “Perhaps you’d better run through that again. Nothing stirred beneath the leathery hide.”
“I’ll make you a wager,” Seven retorted. “I don’t believe he has a rain god.”
“Patience, gentlemen—I’m coming.” Nineteen came running from the lock of the scout ship. He carried a large bronze box which contained his own specialized exploring tool, and he was wearing a large, pleased smile. Behind him ran a pretty, youthful girl carrying two pillows.
The newcomers slowed cautiously as they approached the king of the planet and set down their equipment for his inspection. The king ignored Nineteen and his box to stare at the girl and her pillows.
She dropped to her knees, placed a pillow on the ground behind him, and invited him to sit. The king sat, staring at the girl’s bosom and bare legs. She smiled winningly and moved over to place a pillow for her superior. Nineteen seated himself and opened the lid of the bronze box. It contained an array of instruments and two slim bronze cables which terminated in handgrips.
NINETEEN placed a microphone on the ground between himself and the native, switched on his apparatus and motioned to the assistant. The girl removed the coiled cables from their nest and gave one to the old man, showing him how to hold the grooved handle with his curled fingers. The other cable was given to the smiling translator. An electrical connection was completed between the two men, monitored by the translating rig.
“H-2 type,” Nineteen murmured into his throat microphone.
“H-2 sub-a,” the distant recorder corrected him matter-of-factly. “Plus sub-something else which I am not qualified to identify. I recognize only a vague x quality to his digestive and regenerative systems.”
“Beetles and birchbark,” was Seven’s snide reply.
“Perhaps, but I daresay Hundred-Ten would like to lay him on her surgical table upstairs. He’d make a splendid subject for study.”
Nineteen cleared his throat meaningfully and the communication circuit went silent. He smiled again at the dour old man who was eying the girl.
“How do you do, sir?”
The king of the planet stared down at the handgrip in his gnarled fingers and wondered how they’d managed that trick; he had both heard and felt the smiling idiot’s words, and the utilization of the two senses enabled him to grasp the meaning of the question. It also caused him to realize they would understand his replies only too well, unless he was careful.
(The recorder whispered: “Curiosity, and mental reservations.”)
(“I expected it,” Nineteen replied.) To the old one, he said, “I am Nineteen, a linguist. Who are you?”
No harm in answering that. “I am the king of the planet.”
Nineteen watched the analyzers in the bronze box. (His communicator whispered: “Truth, pride.”) “What are you called, sir?”
The king grunted. “Many things. Ahasuerus, Joseph, Isaac, Salatheil ben Sadi ... I am called many names.”
(The whisper: “Bitterness.”)
Nineteen correctly deduced that the old one had referred to himself as the leader, or overlord, of the entire world; but the multiplicity of names confused him and he was not certain that he could pronounce any of them accurately.
“JO-SEFF,” he said, and watched to see if the native took offense at a po
ssible mispronunciation. “The leader of the world. Where are your people, Jo-seff?”
“The damned fools are dead,” the king retorted. “Every one of them.”
“They have expired? All of them?”
“That’s what I said.”
“How did they die, Jo-seff? Why did they die?”
“Because they were damned fools.”
(“Vituperation, anger, vague hatred.”)
Nineteen repeated gently, “How did they die? What caused all their deaths, Jo-seff?”
“Peace!” the king spat. “Eternal peace. Senility, sterility, boredom, retrogression. They curled up in their chosen wombs and died.”
“I don’t understand, Jo-seff.”
“That’s too bad.” The king abruptly switched languages because it pleased him to do so and because his interrogator was becoming too inquisitive. He lapsed into Latin, a tongue barely remembered. “They abolished conflict and returned to Paradise. That was the end of them.”
(Two reported: “Evasive tactics, but still truth.”)
Nineteen frowned and realized something was amiss. He studied his analyzers but found nothing wrong there; they continued to monitor and report the speech patterns in the normal fashion, giving normal readings, but despite that, he recognized a change in routine. The ancient king’s subjects had stopped fighting among themselves and perished as a result—that much was clear. But the exact manner of their going and the last two sentences were puzzling.
(“Is this doubletalk?” he asked the recorder.)
(“No, sir. Clear and straightforward.”)
“They died suffering peace, Jo-seff?”
“They did.”
“How can this be?”
“Easier than you think.”
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