The Complete Serials

by Clifford D. Simak

  “It would have advantages,” said Sharp, speaking musingly and more to himself than to the rest of them. “It would admit of independent action and it would be small, much smaller than the mechanism that we have to use. It would have to be able to go inside the brain and . . . I don’t suppose, Lambert, that you know too much about it?”

  “I told you,” Lambert said. “Not a thing. I wasn’t really interested in how it worked. Simonson happens to be a friend of mine—”

  “But why here? Why did you come here? To this particular place and time?”

  “An accident, that’s all. And once I arrived it looked a lot more civilized than a lot of places I had been, and I started inquiring around to orient myself. Apparently I had never been so far into the future before, for one of the first things I learned was that you did have time travel and that here was a Time College. Then I heard that Miss Clayton had a painting of mine, and thinking that if she had a painting I had done she might be disposed favorably toward me, I sought her out. In hope, you see, of finding out how to contact the people who might be able to use their good offices to send me home again. And while I was there Inspector Drayton arrived.”

  “Now, Mr. Lambert,” Nancy said, “before you go any further, there is something that I want to ask you. Why didn’t you, when you were back in the Jurassic or wherever it was that Harlow said you were, and you painted this picture—”

  “You forget,” Lambert told her. “I haven’t painted it yet. I have some sketches and someday I expect to.”

  “Well, then. When you get around to painting that picture, why don’t you put in dinosaurs? There aren’t any dinosaurs in it, and you just said you knew you were a long way in the past because there were dinosaurs.”

  “I put no dinosaurs in the painting,” said Lambert, “for a very simple reason. There were no dinosaurs.”

  “But you said—”

  “You must realize,” Lambert explained, patiently, “that I paint only what I see. I never subtract anything. I never add anything. And there were no dinosaurs because the creatures in the painting had chased them all away. So I put in no dinosaurs, nor any of the others.”

  “Any of the others?” asked Maxwell. “What are you talking about now? What were these others?”

  “Why,” said Lambert, “the ones with wheels.”

  He stopped and looked around him at their suddenly stricken faces.

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

  “Oh, not at all,” Carol said sweetly.

  “Go right ahead, Mr. Lambert. Tell us all about the ones with wheels. We are all terribly interested.”

  “You probably won’t believe me,” Lambert said, “and I can’t tell you what they were. The slaves, perhaps. The work horses. The bearers of the burdens. The serfs. They were life forms, apparently. They were alive, but they went on wheels instead of feet and they were not one thing alone. Each one of them was. a hive of insects, like bees or ants. Social insects, apparently. You understand, I don’t expect that you’ll believe a word I say. But I swear—”

  From somewhere far away came the low, thudding rumble of rapidly advancing wheels. As they stood transfixed and listening they knew that the wheels were coming down the corridor. Nearer came the rumble, growing louder as it advanced. Suddenly it was just outside the door and slowing down to turn, and all at once a Wheeler stood inside the door.

  “That’s one of them!” screamed Lambert. “What is it doing here?”

  XXVIII

  “Mr. Marmaduke,” said Maxwell, “it is good to see you once again.”

  “No,” the Wheeler told him. “Not Mr. Marmaduke. The so-called Mr. Marmaduke will not be seen by you again. He is in very bad disgrace. He made a vast mistake.”

  Sylvester had started forward, but Oop had readied down and grabbed him by the loose skin of the neck and was holding him tightly while he struggled to break free.

  “There was a contract made,” the Wheeler said, “by a humanoid that went by the name of Harlow Sharp. Which one of you would be Harlow Sharp?”

  “I’m your man,” said Sharp. “Then, sir, I must ask you what you intend to do about the fulfillment of the contract.”

  “There is nothing I can do,” said Sharp. “The Artifact is gone and cannot be delivered. Of course your payment will be refunded promptly.”

  “That, Mr. Sharp,” the Wheeler said, “will not be sufficient. It will fall far short of satisfaction. We shall bring the trial of law against you. We shall bust you, mister, with everything we can. We shall do our best to poverty you and—”

  “Why, you miserable go-cart,” Sharp yelled, “there is no law for you! Galactic law does not apply with a creature such as you. If you think you can come here and threaten me—”

  Ghost appeared out of thin air, just inside the doorway.

  “It’s about time,” Oop yelled angrily. “Where’ve you been all night? What did you do with Shakespeare?”

  “The Bard is safe,” said Ghost, “but there is other news.” The arm of the robe raised and gestured at the Wheeler. “Others of his kind swarm in to try to trap the dragon.”

  So, thought Maxwell, somewhat illogically, it had been the dragon they wanted after all. Could the Wheelers have known all along that there had been a dragon? Of course they would have known; it had been they or their far ancestors who had done the work back in Jurassic days.

  In Jurassic days on Earth, and how many other times on how many other planets? The serfs, Lambert had said, the horses, the bearers of the burdens. Were they now, or had they been, inferior members of that ancient tribe of beings, or had they been, perhaps, simply domesticated animals, harnessed biologically by genetic engineering, for the jobs they were assigned?

  And now these former slaves, having established an empire of their own, reached out their hands for something that they may have reason to believe should be their heritage. Theirs, since nowhere else in the universe was there left any trace of the great colonization project dreamed by the crystal planet.

  And perhaps, thought Maxwell—perhaps it should be theirs. For theirs had been the labor that had engineered the project.

  Had the dying banshee, laden with an ancient guilt, sought to right a wrong when he had doublecrossed the crystal planet, when he had sought to help these former slaves? Or had he perhaps believed that the heritage should go, not to some outsider, but to a race of beings who had played a part, however menial, however small, in the great project that had crumbled into failure?

  “You mean,” Sharp said to the Wheeler, “that at the very moment you were standing here and threatening me, you had your bandits out?”

  “He works all the angles that there are,” said Oop.

  “The dragon went home,” said Ghost, “to the only home that he could recognize upon this planet. To where the Little Folk reside, so that he could see his fellows once again, flying in the clear moonlight above the river valley.

  And then the Wheelers attacked him in the air, trying to force him to the ground, so that he could be captured. The dragon is fighting back most magnificently, but—”

  “Wheelers can’t fly,” protested Sharp. “And you make it sound like there were a lot of them. There can’t be. Mr. Marmaduke was the only. . . .”

  “Perhaps,” said Ghost, “they are not believed to fly, but they are truly flying. And as for the number of them, I am mystified. Perhaps here all the time, hiding from the view. Perhaps many coming in through the transport stations.”

  “We can put a stop to that,” said Maxwell. “We can send word to Transportation Central.”

  Sharp shook his head. “No, we can’t do that. Transportation is inter-galactic, not of Earth alone. We cannot interfere.”

  “Mr. Marmaduke,” said Inspector Drayton, speaking in his best official voice, “or whoever you may be, I think I’d better run you in.”

  “Leave off this blathering,” said Ghost. “The Little Folk need help.”

  Maxwell reached out and picked up t
he chair. “It’s time we put an end to fooling,” he declared. He raised the chair and said to the Wheeler. “It’s time for you to start talking, friend. And if you don’t, I’ll damn well cave you in.”

  A circle of jets suddenly protruded from the Wheeler’s chest, and there was a hissing sound. A stench hit them in the face, a terrible fevor that struck like a clenched and savage fist, that made the stomach somersault and set the throat to gagging.

  Maxwell felt himself falling to the floor, unable to control his body, which seemed tied up in knots from the fearful stink that exuded from the Wheeler. He hit the floor and rolled. His hands went to his throat and tore at it, as if to rip it open to allow Himself more air—although there seemed to be no air, nothing but the foulness of the Wheeler.

  Above him he heard a fearful screaming. When he rolled around so he could look up, he saw Sylvester suspended above him, his front claws hooked around the upper portions of the Wheeler’s body, his rear legs clawing and striking at the bulging and transparent belly in which writhed the disgusting mass of roiling insects. The Wheeler’s wheels were spinning frantically, but something had gone wrong with them. One wheel spun in one direction and the second in another. The Wheeler whirled about in a giddy dance, with Sylvester clinging desperately and his back legs working like driving pistons at the Wheeler’s belly. It looked for all the world, thought Maxwell, as if the two of them were engaged in a rapid and unwieldly waltz.

  An unseen hand reached out, grasped Maxwell by the arm and hauled him unceremoniously across the floor. As his body thumped across the threshold, some of the foulness diminished. There now was a breath of air.

  Maxwell rolled to his hands and knees and fought his way erect. He reached up with his fists and rubbed at his streaming eyes. The air still was heavy with stench, but one no longer gagged.

  Sharp sat propped against the wall, gasping and rubbing at his eyes. Carol was slumped upon the floor. Oop, crouched in the doorway, was tugging Nancy out of the fetid room, from which still came the screaming of a sabertooth at work.

  Maxwell staggered forward, reached down, picked up Carol and slung her like a sack across one shoulder. He beat an unsteady retreat down the corridor.

  Thirty feet away he stopped and turned around. As he did, the Wheeler burst out of the doorway, finally free of Sylvester and with both wheels spinning in unison. He came down the hall, wheeling crazily and lopsidedly—staggering blindly, if a thing with wheels could be said to stagger, slamming into one wall and caroming off it to smash into the other. From a great rent in his belly small whitish objects dropped and scattered all across the floor.

  Ten feet from where Maxwell stood, the Wheeler finally collapsed when one wheel hit the wall and caved in. Slowly, with what seemed to be a rather strange sort of dignity, the Wheeler tipped over.

  Out of the tom belly gushed a bushel or so of insects that piled up on the floor.

  Sylvester came slinking down the hall, crouched low, his muzzle extended in curiosity, taking one slow step and then another as he crept up on his handiwork. Behind Oop and Sylvester came the rest of them.

  “You can let me down now,” said Carol.

  Maxwell let her down, stood her on her feet. She leaned against the wall.

  “I never saw a more undignified way to be carried,” she declared. “You haven’t got a spark of chivalry to pack a girl around in a manner such as that.”

  “It was all a mistake,” said Maxwell. “I should have left you there, laid out on the floor.” Sylvester had stopped now and reaching out his neck, sniffed at the Wheeler, all the while with wrinkles of disgust and wonder etched upon his face. There was no sign of life in the Wheeler. Satisfied, Sylvester pulled back, squatted on his haunches and began to wash his face. On the floor beside the fallen Wheeler, the mound of bugs were seething. A few of them started crawling from die pile, heading out into the hall.

  Sharp swung out past the Wheeler.

  “Come on, he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The corridor still was sour with the terrible stench.

  “But what is it all about?” wailed Nancy. “Why did Mr. Marmaduke—”

  “Nothing but stink bugs,” Oop told her. “Can you imagine that? A galactic race of stink bugs! And they had us scared!”

  Inspector Drayton lumbered forward importantly. “I’m afraid it will be necessary for you all to come with me,” he said. “I will need your statements.”

  “Statements,” Sharp said, viciously. “You must be out of your mind. Statements, at a time like this, with a dragon loose!”

  “But an alien has been killed,” protested Drayton. “And not just an ordinary alien. A member of a race that could be our enemies. This could have repercussions.”

  “Just write it down,” said Oop, “killed by a savage beast.”

  “Oop,” snapped Carol, “you know better than to say a thing like that. Sylvester isn’t savage. He’s gentle as a kitten. And he is not a beast.”

  Maxwell looked around. “Where is Ghost?” he asked.

  “He took it on the lam,” said Oop. “He always does when trouble starts. He’s nothing but a coward.”

  “But he said—”

  “That he did,” said Oop. “And we are wasting time. O’Toole could do with help.”

  XXX

  Mr. O’Toole was waiting for them when they got off the roadway.

  “I knew coming you would be,” he greeted them. “Ghost, he said he would get you yet. And badly do we need someone who will talk sense to the trolls, who hide and gibber in their bridge and will listen to no reason.”

  “What have the trolls got to do with it?” asked Maxwell. “For once in your life, can’t you leave the trolls alone?”

  “The trolls,” Mr. O’Toole explained, “filthy as they are, may be our one salvation. They be the only ones who, from lack of any civilization whatsoever, or any niceties, remain proficient in the enchantments of old times. And they specialize in the really dirty kinds of work, the most vicious of enchantments. The fairies, naturally, also cling to the old abilities, but all of their enchantments are of the gentle sort. And gentleness is something which we do not stand in need.” Sharp asked, “Can you tell us exactly what is going on? Ghost didn’t hang around to explain.”

  “Gladly,” said the goblin, “but leave us start to walking and, walking, I’ll relate to you all the happenstance. We have but little time to waste and the trolls are stubborn souls and vast persuasion they will need to do a job for us. They lurk within the mossy stones of that senseless bridge of theirs and they titter like things which have lost their minds. Although, bitter truth to tell, them stinking trolls have little minds to lose.”

  They trudged in single file up, the rocky ravine which lay in the notch between the hills, and in the east the dawn-light had begun to show, but the path, buried in the trees and flanked by bushes, was dark. Here and there birds woke from sleep and twittered. Somewhere up the hill a raccoon was whickering.

  “The dragon came home to us,” O’Toole told them as they walked, “the one place on Earth left for him to go, to be with his own kind again. And the Wheelers—which in ancient times had another name than Wheelers—have attacked him, like broomsticks flying in formation. They must not force him to the ground, for then they have him caught and can whisk him hence very rapidly. And, forsooth, he has made a noble fight of it, the fending of them off, but he is growing tired. We must hurry rapidly and with much dispatch if we are to give him aid.”

  “And you’re counting,” Maxwell said, “on the trolls being able to bring the Wheelers down like they brought down the flier.”

  “You apprehend most easily, my friend. That’s what lingers in my mind. But these befouled trolls make a bargain of it.”

  “I never knew,” said Sharp, “that the Wheelers could fly. All I’ve seen them do was trundle.”

  “Of abilities they have many,” said O’Toole. “From their bodies they can grow devices without number and beyond imagination.
Nozzles for the spreading of their nasty gas, guns to shoot the lethal bolt, jets to make them broomsticks that move with amazing speed. And never are they up to any good. Full of anger and resentment after all the ages, lying out there, deep in the galaxy, with rancor eating like a cancer into their putrid minds, waiting for a chance to be what they never can be—for no more than menials they are or ever will be.”

  “But why bother with the trolls?” asked Drayton, out of sorts. “I could have guns and planes here.”

  “Don’t try to be any more of a fool than you already are,” said Sharp. “We can’t lay a finger on them. We can’t create an incident. The humans can take no part in this. This is something between the Little Folk and their former slaves.”

  “But the cat already killed—”

  “The cat. Not a human.”

  Carol said, “Sylvester was only trying to protect us.”

  “Do we have to go so fast?” protested Nancy. “I’m not used to this.”

  “Here,” said Lambert, “take my arm. The path does seem slightly rough.”

  “Do you know, Pete,” said Nancy, bubbling, “that Mr. Lambert has agreed to be my house guest for a year or so and paint some pictures for me. Isn’t that a lovely thing for him to do?”

  “Yes,” said Maxwell. “I am sure it is.”

  The path had been climbing the hillside for the last hundred feet or so. Now it dipped down toward the ravine, which was clogged with tumbled boulders which, in the first faint light of morning, looked like crouched, humped beasts. And spanning the ravine was the ancient bridge, a structure jerked raw from an old medieval road. Looking at it, Maxwell found it hard to believe that it had been built only a few decades ago when the reservation had been laid out.