Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Do?" Starza chuckled. "Why, slacken line speeds, lower production standards, fifty percent at least. By tomorrow we'll be down to forty jobs an hour. They want loose standards, we'll give it to them."

  "But my cost?"

  "Obscenity your cost. Look, Jake, no matter how you set an operation up, the Terms manage to work in some glittering little ritual. They have to create beauty. Their esthetic sense must be fed. They can't adjust to quick change. Supposing you cut line speeds by ten per cent. They adjust, but it almost kills them. Then drop thirty per cent. Their ritual loses timing, becomes discordant. What happens?"

  I blinked. "They go mad."

  "And our little Guild saboteur will be guilty of a few Term deaths. He'll have violated a basic Guild tenet. He'll go home with his tail between his legs. Catch?"

  I caught.

  By midafternoon we had the conveyor speeds down thirty per cent. The red line on my cost chart soared precariously. The entire production line slowed to a crawl. We waited.

  At five o'clock it happened. Three Terms in the body shop went mad. It started a chain reaction throughout the trim line. Six more Terms ran amuck and had to be destroyed. Final assembly became a shambles. Starza called me on the visicom, delighted. "Our Guild agent played right into our hands, Jake. In forcing a production slump he's harming the workers. His next move will probably be a bluff."

  I wasn't so sure.

  That evening the executive dining room was choked with a tight, gnawing tension. Department heads spoke in hushed whispers, eyes darting. The man across the table could be a mindless-controlled, a Guild pawn. Smile at him politely and keep your mouth shut. I ordered thar, a Terminorb arthapod that was usually more delicious than Venusian lobster, but tonight it tasted like broiled leather. It was like eating in a morgue.

  I saw Carmody, at the next table. I nodded coolly to him and he hitched his chair over and said, "By the way, Jake, I'm sorry about Harvey. He's going back to Earth next week."

  "Why?"

  "His stability index was too low," Carmody said smoothly. "Sure, we could have given him the works, but you didn't want a robot."

  I said deliberately, "I needed that boy, Don."

  Carmody got up, his smile infinitely contemptuous. "We don't all have your stability index, Jake."

  I stared after him, and the thought suddenly struck me that not once had I considered quitting, ever. Somehow, the thought disturbed me.

  Abruptly the public address speaker boomed.

  "Attention," Starza's voice crackled. "To the Guild agent, wherever he may be. Today you murdered thirty-seven Terms. Is this your altruism? Is this your vaunted justice?" He went on, his voice like organ music, sweeping away all doubt, making you proud and glad to be a part of Amalgamated, part of Production, when quite suddenly his voice choked off. Simultaneously another voice ripped through the hall. A cold ironic whisper, lashing at the mind.

  "Altruism, yes. But not as you conceive it. Today you passed your own judgment. You have twenty-four hours to evacuate before this Plant is destroyed. The verdict is final."

  The dining hall echoed with moans. Hands leaned to agonized temples. The thoughtcaster again, on a wide band frequency. Through the pain I was conscious of Starza's voice. The Guild was trying to bluff us. We wouldn't let them. I stumbled out of the hall, my teeth chattering, took the lift down to the first level, and got outside, to walk free in the park.

  Here was Eden. Giant conifers and ferns wove a cool green pattern of delight, and the laughter of the crystal fountains soothed. Terms had fashioned this garden, had created a poem in living green, a quiet fugue of oneness, each leaf blending exquisitely with the next, the unity, the perfect whole. For one weak moment I let the pattern seep insidiously into me, and then, ashamed, focused my eyes on that jarring splash of white in the center of the garden. The ten-foot model of the Amalgamated X-3M, squat with power, lifting on her stern jets. A symbol of Amalgamated's strength, the indomitable spirit of mankind, beauty born of pure utility. Oddly, a half-remembered poem of the Ancients flitted through my brain:

  Dirty British Coaster with her salt-caked smokestack, Butting through the Channel on the mad March days—

  That was man.

  On an infinity of planets he had met resistance, through force, through guile—even through beauty. And he had conquered. I drew a slow deep breath and sat on one of the benches, staring up at the gigantic horseshoe of the factory, hearing the muted hum of the atomics. Twenty-four hours.

  I tried to run through my axioms, and I was suddenly terrified. I couldn't remember them! That damned thoughtcaster. Twice in one day. Perhaps there was some gradual neural disintegration. My head hurt terribly. Tomorrow I'd go to Psych for a checkup. I thought about that marble villa in Venusport, and about my bank account. Not enough. Another year, just one more year, and I could retire, at thirty-four. I thought about the Venusian twilights, and the turquoise mists off the Deeps, and wondered dully if I'd ever see Venus or the Earth again.

  I saw Fern, walking among the conifers, her face a pale mask of strain. "You heard it, Jake?"

  I nodded.

  We sat in the aquamarine twilight, and Fern was shivering, and I put my arm around her.

  "Looks like altruism is a relative thing," I said. "What do they want?"

  "Uncontaminated Terms," she said bitterly. "No science, no stars, no wars and no progress. A big beautiful planet-mind, the Term mind, forever static, forever dead."

  "It's a bluff," I said. "Our little fanatic's stalling for time, hoping to stampede us while he finds another way."

  "For example?"

  "Why do you think we insist on basic English for all Terms? Supposing a foreman should start jabbering Terminese during an operation. The Terms would revert, we'd have a line shutdown. They can't adjust—say!" A random thought was nibbling at my brain. "Where was Carmody this morning? Just before I reeled in?"

  Her fine brows knitted. "Why, he went—oh, Jake, surely you don't think—?"

  "Went where?"

  "Down the hall. Towards Personnel."

  "Towards the conference hall, you mean. He never even examined Harvey!"

  "It wasn't necessary," she said uncomfortably. "Don just wanted to verify his stability index."

  "Sure! So he stood outside the conference hall and put a whammy on me—"

  Fern was smiling. I scowled. "It fits. It has to be him."

  "Or Tichnat," she said. "Or Starza. Or me."

  I stared at her. "You'd do." My voice shook. "You were gone three months. They could have got to you."

  Her rich, warm laughter sifted through the twilight, and I wanted to hit her. "They did," she gurgled, "but I've decided to relent, Jake. I'll spare the plant on one condition—that you take me to the Term festival tomorrow night."

  I grunted. "Carmody working overtime, I suppose?"

  "If the plant's still standing."

  I changed the subject.

  Two hours later Starza called a council of war.

  The conference room was crammed with quivering executives. Starza carefully let the tension build to a shrill crescendo before he said:

  "One of you gentlemen is a Guild mindless-controlled."

  Ragged silence. Starza's smile was very faint.

  "You gave us an ultimatum. But destroying this plant is an admission of failure you're not willing to make—yet. You'll try another tack. You're just beginning to discover that this environment we've created for the Terms is superior to the primitive jungle. Tichnat!"

  Tichnat stepped forward. His antennae were a proud, brilliant gold.

  "Do you want a shutdown?" Starza asked softly.

  "Are we fools?" Tichnat clicked. "To lose what we've gained? To return to our tribe? To be destroyed?"

  Starza's calm gaze caressed each face, probing. "You see? Stalemate. Whoever you are, you're bluffing. Tomorrow our conveyor speeds return to normal. You'll do nothing. You may try to agitate the Terms, but they're satisfied—"

  On
e of the superintendents cleared his throat. "Look," he said unsteadily, "sometimes you can't afford to call a bluff."

  Starza said pleasantly, "Any resignations will be accepted right now. You can wait safely in the Term village until next week's freighter arrives. No repercussions, I promise."

  The lie was blatant. Carmody stood by the door, his smile strained. It was all too obvious what would happen to any resignees.

  "None?" Starza's brows rose. "I'm proud of you. That's it, gentlemen."

  The next day was a frenetic nightmare. My cost dropped, but it didn't matter. That was one day when the best company man became a clock-watcher. Line foremen, department heads, cracked under the strain, and were summarily removed to Psych. Carmody and staff worked overtime.

  I toiled feverishly over operation schedules, the crazily fluctuating cost charts. My headache was gone, but I still couldn't remember my axioms! I felt guilty over not going to Psych, but there just wasn't the time.

  Hell, I'd never needed indoctrination. I was an Amalgamated man through and through. Finally I grabbed an engineering manual, leafed angrily through it—and sat there, empty and shaking.

  I'd gone insane.

  The words were gibberish. Oh, I could read them all right, but they didn't make sense. What a filthy trick. Semantic block, Starza would call it. I kept staring at the meaningless words, conscious of a tearing sense of loss. And I wanted to cry.

  Six o'clock was zero hour.

  Six o'clock came, and the factory held its collective breath while nothing happened.

  At six-thirty Starza made a long speech over the public address. About the selfless spirit of man, helping the Terms reach the stars, about how we would never admit defeat, and about how, after tonight, the Term festival would be discontinued. The Terms had adopted mankind's culture, they had no further need of their effete native customs.

  At seven, Fern and I were walking past Administration towards the lighted square-mile enclosure of the Term village. Fern had never seen a festival.

  "A throwback," I said, "to their old tribal days. Their harvest, when they pay tribute to the Queen-Mother and pray for good crops and work well done. It's their yearly substitute for Stammverstand. Back in the native villages, whenever a Term's in trouble, he goes to the council hut and the others join him in a silent, group telepathy. But we've just about weaned them, angel! They'll be individuals soon."

  We walked down the deserted row of Term huts, past the council hall, to the great stone amphitheatre, and sat with the other execs. Fern was very gay and cheerful, but I kept thinking about my axioms, trying to bring them back to life. I felt dead, all dead inside.

  Starza came up, frowning, and I congratulated him.

  "It's too pat, Jake, it worries me. Where's Carmody?"

  "Setting up those semantic reaction tests you gave him," Fern said.

  "But I never gave him—"

  Abruptly the lights snuffed out. At one end of the arena loomed a twelve-foot statue of a bloated Term, limned in a soft pale glow. The Queen-Mother.

  The hush. Then the radiance.

  Slowly the Terms filed into the arena, rank upon rank of living flame. First the fighters, their antennae shining crimson and splendid against the tall night. Then the twins glows of blue that denoted the spinners, the weavers. The golden blaze of the harvesters. The lambent colors crept through the air like a mood, like a dream, and deepened into a shimmering cataract of rainbow fire, a paean of light and glory that whirled and spun in a joyous rhythm as old as the race itself.

  Then—chaos.

  A blinding flare cascaded from the six-foot antennae of the statue. The radiance grew, brighter than an atomic flare, more terrible than the sun. The Terms stood frozen. Beside me, Starza swore.

  This wasn't in the script.

  That colossal voice.

  Ear-snapping clicks, and liquid vowels. Terminese. The forbidden tongue. The voice blared. I caught most of it.

  "Children, you have sinned. You are defiled with the taint of alien monsters. You have failed the Queen-Mother. Return, my children, return to your tribes. Return to the tabernacle of unity, the one-in-all, the Queen-Mother! For in death there is life, and there is joy in immolation. Return!"

  Lastly, the climax. That last shattering hunk of propaganda that would have been so tritely amusing if it hadn't been so terrifying.

  "You have nothing to lose but your chains."

  The giant antennae faded to a liquid silver. The silver of hope, of forgiveness.

  For a moment I was blind. I felt Fern trembling against me. The execs were chattering like frightened sheep. Then I could see. I saw Starza. He was moving down the aisle, cursing in a tight, dull monotone.

  I followed him down into the arena. The Terms stood shriveled, mute. Starza was fumbling at the base of the statue, and he said in a thick horrible voice, "Look." The loudspeaker. The coiled wiring.

  The Terms stirred.

  Starza leaped to the lap of the statue. He bawled, "Listen! This is sacrilege! You have been victims of a hoax—"

  Not listening, they filed in silent groups out of the arena. Their antennae were the color of ashes. Starza jumped down. He pounded after them. He was shouting at Los Tichnat.

  "I know," Tichnat droned. He kept walking. "You are right. It does not matter that you are right. The Queen-Mother called."

  "Listen," Starza mouthed. "It was a fraud, a trick. You can't—"

  "We must." Tichnat paused. For a long moment the great faceted eyes stared somberly. "It was a splendid dream, the thing you offered us. But this is the final reality. And yours is but a dream."

  He tramped stolidly on, after the others. The council hall door closed.

  Starza clawed at the door. It opened. He was too late. They sat silently around the great table, the faceted eyes dead, the antennae coruscating indigo, now green, now rose. Communion. The meshing of minds. Starza shouted at them. Stillness.

  Starza looked blindly at me. He was shaking. "Carmody," he said. "Carmody knows the Term mind. He can do something. Come on," he said.

  We found Carmody in his quarters, methodically packing. His eyebrows rose as we burst in. "Did you gentlemen ever try knocking?"

  Starza just looked at him. Carmody drew a long breath. "You'll find my resignation on your desk, Dave."

  "Ah?" Starza's voice was very soft.

  "It's only a question of time," Carmody said. "Call it the rat deserting the ship if you like, but I'm through."

  Starza was smiling, a fat man's smile. "So you really think you can pull it off," he whispered.

  Carmody shrugged, and Starza calmly took out a sonic pistol and shot him in the belly.

  A sonic blast hemorrhages. It rends the capillaries, ploughs the flesh into a flaccid collection of shattered nerve fibers and ruined arteries. It's a rotten way to die.

  Starza watched Carmody thrash himself to death on the floor. I turned away.

  "For the record, Jake, he made a full confession. We both heard him."

  "Just for the record," I said.

  "It had to be him," Starza said. "That thoughtcaster blast yesterday morning made reference to your study on the Term. Only Harvey and Carmody knew about that. It couldn't have been Harvey. He cut his throat this morning.

  "I've decided," Starza said. "This is a Type L planet, after all. The natives are chronically unstable. Hostile, in fact. Pursuant to Solar Regulation 3, we have the right to enforce martial law. It should be six months before an investigation. Meanwhile—"

  "We'll get production," I said.

  "We'll get production." He wiped his forehead, relaxed. "I'll send in a full report tonight. Better turn in, Jake," he said kindly. "I'll need you in the morning."

  I turned in.

  You lie awake, staring into the blackness. It gnaws.

  My head throbbed. I should have felt a triumphant relief, but I could not remember my axioms, and I felt a sick dull hate for the thing the Guild spy Carmody had done to me. What happens when you
strip a man of everything he believes in?

  He remembers other things.

  Those memories came trooping back like ghosts and I fought them, sweating, but they came. Once upon a time, there was a starry-eyed young engineer who started out to set the galaxy on fire. But he got squeamish, somewhere along the way. So Carmody operated on him. Carmody did things to his brain, made a good production man out of him.

  I remembered now.

  That time I had argued with Starza about standards, nine years ago. And I had resigned. And Starza sent me to Psych.

  Good old Carmody.

  There never would be a white marble villa on Venus. It was a harmless dream, a substitute for what I had lost. But it didn't matter! Those superimposed patterns had been removed, that thoughtcaster had crippled my thinking, but, by Heaven, I was still an Amalgamated man! They couldn't take that away.

  But Starza had been wrong about Carmody.

  Nothing definite. But when you dedicate your life into extrapolating curves, frozen chunks of time and motion, into the thunder of jets lifting Amalgamated ships from Terminorb, your mind becomes a very efficient analogue computor, if you know how to use. I used it now. I fed little things, facts, variables, into that computor, and it told me three times. Probability: sixty percent at least.

  I got up, dressed stiffly. I was trembling. I could still serve, after all.

  I took the lift up to Administration, and walked down that long gray corridor on leaden feet towards the illuminated rectangle of Starza's office.

  I opened the door.

  "Hello, darling," Fern said.

  She was unhurriedly burning Starza's report. Starza sat mutely in his chair, head tilted back at an impossible angle, staring at nothing.

  "It had to be you." I had never felt so tired. "You would have destroyed the plant, wouldn't you? Only I showed you another way. Make the Terms revert. And you had that hypo all ready when I reeled into Psych." I moved towards her carefully. "You're so damned altruistic. A Guild mindless-controlled," I said.

  Fern's smile was compassionate. She methodically ground the ashes to powder, lifted that calm green gaze.