Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  He made it his business to report briefly and accurately, trusting that the plain facts of his feat would attract suitable recognition. They did. Chairman Diamond's sharp blue eyes glinted out of the fat mask of his features.

  "Well done, my boy!" he grunted, with a joviality he did not bother trying to make sound overly sincere. "So they have it! You must see our men immediately, and point out where they have gone wrong. You may leave it to me to decide who has gone wrong!"

  * * * * *

  Arnold Gibson shivered involuntarily before reminding himself that he had seen the correct answer proved before his eyes. He had stood there and watched--more, he had worked with them all his adult life--and he was the last whom the muddled fools would have suspected.

  The officer outside the door, Colonel Korman, was recalled and given orders to escort Gibson to the secret state laboratories. He glanced briefly at the scientist when they had been let out through the complicated system of safeguards.

  "We have to go to the second moon," he said expressionlessly. "Better sleep all you can on the way. Once you're there, the Chairman will be impatient for results!"

  Gibson was glad, after they had landed on the satellite, that he had taken the advice. He was led from one underground lab to another, to compare Centaurian developments with Solarian. Finally, Colonel Korman appeared to extricate him, giving curt answers to such researchers as still had questions.

  "Whew! Glad you got me out!" Gibson thanked him. "They've been picking my brain for two days straight!"

  "I hope you can stay awake," retorted Korman with no outward sign of sympathy. "If you think you can't, say so now. I'll have them give you another shot. The Chairman is calling on the telescreen."

  Gibson straightened.

  Jealous snob! he thought. Typical military fathead, and he knows I amount to more than any little colonel now. I was smart enough to fool all the so-called brains of the Solar System.

  "I'll stay awake," he said shortly.

  Chairman Diamond's shiny features appeared on the screen soon after Korman reported his charge ready.

  "Speak freely," he ordered Gibson. "This beam is so tight and scrambled that no prying jackass could even tell that it is communication. Have you set us straight?"

  "Yes, Your Excellency," replied Gibson. "I merely pointed out which of several methods the Solarians got to yield results. Your--our scientists were working on all possibilities, so it would have been only a matter of time."

  "Which you have saved us," said Chairman Diamond. His ice-blue eyes glinted again. "I wish I could have seen the faces of Haas and Co-ordinator Evora, and the rest. You fooled them completely!"

  Gibson glowed at the rare praise.

  "I dislike bragging, Your Excellency," he said, "but they are fools. I might very well have found the answer without them, once they had collected the data. My success shows what intelligence, well-directed after the manner of the new states of Centauri, can accomplish against inefficiency."

  The Chairman's expression, masked by the fat of his face, nevertheless approached a smile.

  "So you would say that you--one of our sympathizers--were actually the most intelligent worker they had?"

  He'll have his little joke, thought Gibson, and I'll let him put it over. Then, even that sour colonel will laugh with us, and the Chairman will hint about what post I'll get as a reward. I wouldn't mind being in charge--old Haas' opposite number at this end.

  "I think I might indeed be permitted to boast of that much ability, Your Excellency," he answered, putting on what he hoped was an expectant smile. "Although, considering the Solarians, that is not saying much."

  The little joke did not develop precisely as anticipated.

  "Unfortunately," Chairman Diamond said, maintaining his smile throughout, "wisdom should never be confused with intelligence."

  * * * * *

  Gibson waited, feeling his own smile stiffen as he wondered what could be going wrong. Surely, they could not doubt his loyalty! A hasty glance at Colonel Korman revealed no expression on the military facade affected by that gentleman.

  "For if wisdom were completely synonymous with intelligence," the obese Chairman continued, relishing his exposition, "you would be a rival to myself, and consequently would be--disposed of--anyway!"

  Such a tingle shot up Gibson's spine that he was sure he must have jumped.

  "Anyway?" he repeated huskily. His mouth suddenly seemed dry.

  Chairman Diamond smiled out of the telescreen, so broadly that Gibson was unpleasantly affected by the sight of his small, gleaming, white teeth.

  "Put it this way," he suggested suavely. "Your highly trained mind observed, correlated, and memorized the most intricate data and mathematics, meanwhile guiding your social relations with your former colleagues so as to remain unsuspected while stealing their most cherished secret. Such a feat demonstrates ability and intelligence."

  Gibson tried to lick his lips, and could not, despite the seeming fairness of the words. He sensed a pulsing undercurrent of cruelty and cynicism.

  "On the other hand," the mellow voice flowed on, "having received the information, being able to use it effectively now without you, and knowing that you betrayed once--I shall simply discard you like an old message blank. That is an act of wisdom.

  "Had you chosen your course more wisely," he added, "your position might be stronger."

  By the time Arnold Gibson regained his voice, the Centaurian autocrat was already giving instructions to Colonel Korman. The scientist strove to interrupt, to attract the ruler's attention even momentarily.

  Neither paid him any heed, until he shouted and tried frenziedly to shove the soldier from in front of the telescreen. Korman backhanded him across the throat without looking around, with such force that Gibson staggered back and fell.

  He lay, half-choking, grasping his throat with both hands until he could breathe. The colonel continued discussing his extinction without emotion.

  "... so if Your Excellency agrees, I would prefer taking him back to Nessus first, for the sake of the morale factor here. Some of them are so addled now at having been caught chasing up wrong alleys that they can hardly work."

  Apparently the Chairman agreed, for the screen was blank when the colonel reached down and hauled Gibson to his feet.

  "Now, listen to me carefully!" he said, emphasizing his order with a ringing slap across Gibson's face. "I shall walk behind you with my blaster drawn. If you make a false move, I shall not kill you."

  Gibson stared at him, holding his bleeding mouth.

  "It will be much worse," Korman went on woodenly. "Imagine what it will be like to have both feet charred to the bone. You would have to crawl the rest of the way to the ship; I certainly would not consider carrying you!"

  In a nightmarish daze, Gibson obeyed the cold directions, and walked slowly along the underground corridors of the Centaurian research laboratories. He prayed desperately that someone--anyone--might come along. Anybody who could possibly be used to create a diversion, or to be pushed into Korman and his deadly blaster.

  The halls remained deserted, possibly by arrangement.

  Maybe I'd better wait till we reach his ship, Gibson thought. I ought to be able to figure a way before we reach Nessus. I had the brains to fool Haas and ...

  He winced, recalling Chairman Diamond's theory of the difference between intelligence and wisdom.

  The obscene swine! he screamed silently.

  Colonel Korman grunted warningly, and Gibson took the indicated turn.

  They entered the spaceship from an underground chamber, and Gibson learned the reason for his executioner's assurance when the latter chained him to one of the pneumatic acceleration seats. The chain was fragile in appearance, but he knew he would not be free to move until Korman so desired.

  More of their insane brand of cleverness! he reflected. That's the sort of thing they do succeed in thinking of. They're all crazy! Why did I ever ...

  But he shrank from
the question he feared to answer. To drag out into the open his petty, selfish reasons, shorn of the tinsel glamor of so-called "service" and "progress," would be too painful.

  * * * * *

  After the first series of accelerations, he roused himself from his beaten stupor enough to note that Korman was taking a strange course for reaching Nessus. Then, entirely too close to the planet and its satellites to ensure accuracy, the colonel put the ship into subspace drive.

  Korman leaned back at the conclusion of the brief activity on his control board, and met Gibson's pop-eyed stare.

  "Interesting, the things worth knowing," he commented. "How to make a weapon, for instance, or whether your enemy has it yet."

  He almost smiled at his prisoner's expression.

  "Or even better: knowing exactly how far your enemy has progressed and how fast he can continue, whether to stop him immediately or whether you can remain a step ahead."

  "B-but--if both sides are irresistible ..." Gibson stammered.

  Korman examined him contemptuously.

  "No irresistible weapon exists, or ever will!" he declared. "Only an irresistible process--the transmission of secrets! You are living proof that no safeguards can defend against that."

  He savored Gibson's silent discomfort.

  "I am sure you know how far and how fast the Centaurian scientists will go, Gibson, since I guided you to every laboratory in that plant. Your memory may require some painful jogging when we reach the Solar System; but remember you shall!"

  "But you--you were ordered to ..."

  "You didn't think I was a Centaurian, did you?" sneered Korman. "After I just explained to you what is really irresistible?"

  * * *

  Contents

  LET THERE BE LIGHT

  By Horace B. Fyfe

  No matter what the future, one factor must always be reckoned with--the ingenuity of the human animal.

  The two men attacked the thick tree trunk with a weary savagery. In the bright sunlight, glistening spatters of sweat flew from them as the old axes bit alternately into the wood.

  Blackie stood nearby, on the gravel shoulder of the highway, rubbing his short beard as he considered the depth of the white notch. Turning his broad, tanned face to glance along the patched and cracked concrete to where squat Vito kept watch, he caught the latter's eye and beckoned.

  "Okay, Sid--Mike. We'll take it a while."

  The rhythm of the axe-strokes ceased. Red Mike swept the back of a forearm across the semi-shaven stubble that set him as something of a dandy. Wordlessly, big Sid ambled up the road to replace Vito.

  "Pretty soon, now," boasted Mike, eyeing the cut with satisfaction. "Think it'll bring them?"

  "Sure," replied Blackie, spitting on his hands and lifting one of the worn tools. "That's what they're for."

  "Funny," mused Mike, "how some keep going an' others bust. These musta been workin' since I was a little kid--since before the last blitz."

  "Aw, they don't hafta do much. 'Cept in winter when they come out to clear snow, all they do is put in a patch now an' then."

  Mike stared moodily at the weathered surface of the highway and edged back to avoid the reflected heat.

  "It beats me how they know a spot has cracked."

  "I guess there's machines to run the machines," sighed Blackie. "I dunno; I was too young. Okay, Vito?"

  The relieving pair fell to. Mike stepped out of range of the flying chips to sit at the edge of the soft grass which was attempting another invasion of the gravel shoulder. Propelled by the strength of Vito's powerful torso, a single chip spun through the air to his feet. He picked it up and held it to his nose. It had a good, clean smell.

  When at length the tree crashed down across the road, Blackie led them to the ambush he had chosen that morning. It was fifty yards up the road toward the ruined city--off to the side where a clump of trees and bushes provided shade and concealment.

  "Wish we brought something to eat," Vito said.

  "Didn't know it would take so long to creep up on 'em this morning," said Blackie. "The women'll have somethin' when we get back."

  "They better," said Mike.

  He measured a slender branch with his eye. After a moment, he pulled out a hunting knife, worn thin by years of sharpening, and cut off a straight section of the branch. He began whittling.

  "You damn' fool!" Sid objected. "You want the busted spot on the tree to show?"

  "Aw, they ain't got the brains to notice."

  "The hell they ain't! It stands out like one o' them old street signs. D'ya think they can tell, Blackie?"

  "I dunno. Maybe." Blackie rose cautiously to peer over a bed of blackberry bushes. "Guess I'll skin up a tree an' see if anything's in sight."

  He hitched up his pants, looking for an easy place to climb. His blue denims had been stoutly made, but weakened by many rips and patches, and he did not want to rip them on a snag. It was becoming difficult to find good, unrotted clothing in the old ruins.

  * * * * *

  Choosing a branch slightly over his head, he sprang for it, pulled, kicked against the trunk, and flowed up into the foliage with no apparent effort. The others waited below. Sid glanced up occasionally, Vito idly kicked at one of the clubs made from an old two-by-four.

  The other lay beneath the piled jackets; but enough of the end protruded to show that they had been chopped from the same timber, gray-painted on one side, stained and gouged on the other where boards had once been nailed. A coil of rope lay beside the axes.

  High in the upper branches, Blackie braced himself with negligent confidence and stared along the concrete ribbon.

  From here, he thought, you'd almost think the place was still alive, instead of crumbling around our ears.

  The windows of the distant houses were dark, unglassed holes, but the sunlight made the masonry clean and shining. To Blackie, the ragged tops of most of the buildings were as natural as the tattered look of the few people he knew. Beyond, toward the center of the city, was real evidence of his race's bygone might--a vast jumble of shattered stone and fused metal. Queer weeds and mosses infected the area, but it would be centuries before they could mask the desolation.

  Better covered, were the heaps along the road, seemingly shoved just beyond the gravel shoulders--mouldering mounds which legend said were once machines to ride in along the pavement.

  Something glinted at the bend of the highway. Blackie peered closer.

  He swarmed down the tree from branch to branch, so lithely that the trio below hardly had the warning of the vibrating leaves before he dropped, cat-footed, among them.

  "They're comin'!"

  He shrugged quickly into his stained jacket, emulated in silent haste by the others. Vito rubbed his hands down the hairy chest left revealed by his open jacket and hefted one of the clubs. In his broad paws, it seemed light.

  They were quiet, watching Sid peer out through narrowly parted brush of the undergrowth. Blackie fidgeted behind him. Finally, he reached out as if to pull the other aside, but at that moment Sid released the bushes and crouched.

  The others, catching his warning glance, fell prone, peering through shrubbery and around tree trunks with savage eyes.

  The distant squawk of a jay became suddenly very clear, as did the sighing of a faint breeze through the leaves overhead. Then a new, clanking, humming sound intruded.

  A procession of three vehicles rolled along the highway at an unvarying pace which took no account of patches or worn spots. They jounced in turn across a patch laid over a previous, unsuccessful patch, and halted before the felled tree. Two were bulldozers; the third was a light truck with compartments for tools. No human figures were visible.

  A moment later, the working force appeared--a column of eight robots. These deployed as they reached the obstacle, and explored like colossal ants along its length.

  "What're they after?" asked Mike, whispering although he lay fifty yards away.

  "They're lookin' over the job for
whatever sends them out," Blackie whispered back. "See those little lights stickin' out the tops o' their heads? I heard tell, once, that's how they're run."

  Some of the robots took saws from the truck and began to cut through the tree trunk. Others produced cables and huge hooks to attach the obstacle to the bulldozers.

  "Look at 'em go!" sighed Sid, hunching his stiff shoulders jealously. "Took us hours, an' they're half done already."

  They watched as the robots precisely severed the part of the tree that blocked the highway, going not one inch beyond the gravel shoulder, and helped the bulldozers to tug it aside. On the opposite side of the concrete, the shoulder tapered off into a six-foot drop. The log was jockeyed around parallel to this ditch and rolled into it, amid a thrashing of branches and a spurting of small pebbles.

  "Glad we're on the high side," whispered Mike. "That thing 'ud squash a guy's guts right out!"

  "Keep listenin' to me," Blackie said, "an' you'll keep on bein' in the right place at the right time."

  Mike raised his eyebrows at Vito, who thrust out his lower lip and nodded sagely. Sid grinned, but no one contradicted the boast.

  "They're linin' up," Blackie warned tensely. "You guys ready? Where's that rope?"

  Someone thrust it into his hands. Still squinting at the scene on the highway, he fumbled for the ends and held one out to Mike. The others gripped their clubs.

  "Now, remember!" ordered Blackie. "Me an' Mike will trip up the last one in line. You two get in there quick an' wallop him over the head--but good!"

  "Don't go away while we're doin' it," said big Sid. "They won't chase ya, but they look out fer themselves. I don't wanna get tossed twenty feet again!"