Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "I'd always thought so," Deering said, "though my education was almost completely confined to the technical. I'm rather skimpy on the humanities."

  "And I," Jars said, and now looked at me. "But not you, Werig."

  "I don't know them, sir," I said. "Surface manifestations, as we've said before today. It would need a closer study. Their huddling is what intrigues me the most."

  One of the rare smiles came to Jars' lined face as he looked at Deering. "Huddling, the lad says. If you don't say it, I won't, Arn."

  Deering smiled in return. "We'll change the routine, this time; you say 'love' and I'll say 'fear'. But seriously, Jars, you fear these--people?"

  "I fear them," Jars said. "Scientifically, perhaps, they are tyros, but mechanically they are not. They have discovered forces and developed machines which they do not understand, and yet, have achieved efficiency with them. I fear any monster that powerful even though it is blind."

  "And you think there is a possibility of their becoming--aware of us within any determinable time?"

  "I do. You will remember how quickly the Algreans developed, once they achieved unity? You will remember how quickly they became a threat?"

  "Yes," Deering said quietly, "and I have been trying a long time to forget what we did to that planetoid."

  "It was necessary for survival," Jars said simply. "I think, by any standards, we would be the ones chosen to survive."

  Deering's smile was cynical. "At least, by our standards. We had a closer communication with them. About the huddlers, we know only what we convert from their stronger video broadcasts. It is a device they seem to use more for entertainment than for information."

  Jars nodded, and stood up. "And love is their major entertainment, perhaps. Love and war. But we gabble. I had a plan in mind, a plan to put before the assembly."

  * * * * *

  He had a plan, all right, and I was part of it. The humanities had been no major with me, but they didn't want a scholar, they wanted a reporter, anyway. Or perhaps I could be called a recorder.

  Jars talked and the assembly listened. They always do, when Jars talks.

  And I was their boy, and went into a concentrated and complete briefing. They put me under the lucidate and poured it to me, night and day, all the information we had on the huddlers and all the theories based on that information.

  They put me into a space sphere, and said "good luck" and do our people proud, young man. Oh, yes. And don't fall in love. Oh, no. They'd pick me up, again, when they got a signal. They didn't expect to wait too long for that, I guess, at the time.

  The sphere was a relic of the Algrean business, and Algrea hadn't been this much of a trip. But Mechanics said it would do, and it did.

  I landed in the Pacific, about three-quarters of a mile off the Santa Monica yacht basin, and let the sphere float north for a while until I reached a secluded spot. In a small curve of the shore line, a few miles above Santa Monica, I beached her, and opened the dissolving cocks.

  I watched her melt into the surging water, and turned to face the red and green light almost immediately overhead. I walked up from the beach to the road, not even knowing what they looked like. Their evolution should have matched ours, but who could be sure?

  For all I knew, I might be a freak to them. I should have thought of that before dissolving the ship.

  Above, the light changed from red to green and across the street, I saw a sign. This was Sunset Boulevard, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This was open country, but Los Angeles.

  Along the Coast Highway, a pair of lights were bearing down on me, and they seemed to waver, as though the machine were under imperfect control.

  I moved back, out of the way, and the light overhead turned to red. The car stopped about even with me, its motor running.

  I couldn't see the occupants nor the driver. The light changed, the car jerked, and the motor stopped.

  "Damn," somebody said. It was a female voice.

  There was a grinding noise, and another damn, and then a head appeared through the open window on my side of the road.

  It was a blond head, and what I could see of the face looked attractive.

  "Are you sober?" she asked.

  "Not always," I answered. "Some times I'm quite cheerful. But I'm some distance from home, and have nothing to be cheerful about, at the moment."

  "Try not to be a Cerf," she said angrily. "What I mean is, are you--have you been drinking?"

  "Not recently, though I could use some water." I could see her face more clearly now, and it was like the faces of our women, only prettier than most, I thought.

  "Look," she said, "I'm drunk. Could you drive this thing? Could you drive me home?"

  "I'd be glad to," I answered, "if you will tell me where you live."

  She gave me an address on Sunset, and this was Sunset, this lateral street, ending at the ocean. So, quite obviously, it was an address I could find.

  I went over to climb in behind the wheel. There were two smells in that pretty car with the canvas top. One smell was of gasoline, the other was of alcohol.

  "There's obviously alcohol in the gasoline," I said, "though that shouldn't prevent it from igniting."

  "A funny, funny man," she said. "Keep the dialogue to a minimum, will you, Bogart? I'm not exactly sharp, right now."

  I depressed the starter button, and the motor caught. I swung left onto Sunset, and started up the hill.

  The car was clearly a recent model, but Jars had been wrong about the mechanical excellence of these huddlers. The machine simply had no life, no zest.

  * * * * *

  We drove past a shrine and around two curves, climbing all the while, past some huddled houses on the left, and the whole shining sea spread out on the right.

  The woman said, "If you know a place where the coffee is drinkable, stop."

  "I have no money," I said. Diamonds I had, a bagful of them, for we knew that huddlers treasured diamonds. But no money.

  "I've got money," she said. "I've got a hell of a lot more money than I have sense. Have you ever been in love, Bogart?"

  "Never," I said.

  We were coming into a small huddled area, now. A sign read, Pacific Palisades.

  "I have," she said. "I still am. Isn't it a miserable rotten world?"

  "This one?" I asked, and then said quickly, "I mean--this part of it?"

  "Any part of it," she said. "I've seen most of it, and any part where there's men is bad, Bogart."

  "My name," I told her, "is not Bogart. My name is Fred Werig."

  "A pleasure, Fred," she said. "My name is Jean Decker. And I'm beginning to feel better."

  "It couldn't be my company," I said, "so it must be the air. I haven't seen any coffee places that are open."

  I caught a flare of light from the corner of my eye, and turned to see her applying flame to something in her mouth. I remembered from our history; she was smoking. It was a habit long dead where I came from.

  And then I remembered what she'd said about being drunk, and knew that, too, as one of our long disused vices. What was it Akers had said about 'being directed'? A theory, but discredited now, since our scientific advance. But this almost parallels evolution?

  "Cigarette?" she said, and I said, "No, thanks. I--don't smoke."

  "You're the only thing in Los Angeles that doesn't," she said bitterly. "Where are you from, Fred?"

  "New York," I said. "Where are you from, Jean?"

  "Believe it or not, I was born here," she said. "I'm one of the three people in this town who was born here."

  "It's a big town, isn't it?" I said. "Less huddled than the others."

  "Huddled," she said, and laughed. "Huddled. I like that. They huddle, all right, and not just the football teams. The gregarious instinct, Freddy boy."

  "Well, yes," I agreed, "but why, Jean? Why haven't they outgrown it? Is it--fear?"

  "You would have to ask somebody bright," she said. "When you get to Bundy, turn over toward Wilshir
e. We'll find an eating place that's open."

  "You tell me when I get to Bundy," I said. "I'm not exactly familiar with this part of town."

  She told me, and we got to Wilshire, eventually, and on Wilshire there were many eating places.

  We went into one; it was too cold to eat outside. And it was bright in there, and I got my first really clear look at the face and figure of Jean Decker.

  Well, it was ridiculous, the attraction that seemed to emanate from her. It actually made me weak.

  And she was staring at me, too.

  "If you're hungry," she said finally, "get a sandwich. You won't find me stingy.... What in the world is that material in that suit, Fred?"

  "I don't know," I said. "You are beautiful, Jean."

  She smiled. "Well, thanks. You can have a piece of pie, too, for that. That certainly is a fine weave in that material. What did your tailor call it?"

  We were next to a sort of alcove, furnished with a table and two high-backed benches, and she sat down. I sat across from her.

  "I don't have a tailor," I said. "Your lips are so red, Jean."

  She frowned. "Slowly, sailor."

  Then a waitress was there, and I saw how red her lips were, too, and I realized it was another of the old vices I'd forgotten, cosmetics.

  "Just coffee, for me, black," Jean said. "Golden boy over there will have a beef barbecue, probably, won't you, Fred?"

  "I guess," I said. "And some milk, cow's milk."

  Jean laughed. "It's my money. Have canary milk."

  "Not tonight," I said.

  The waitress went away, and there was a noticeable period of silence. Jean was tracing some design on the table top with her index finger. Her nails, too, were painted, I saw. I liked the effect of that.

  She looked up, and faced me gravely, "Fred, you're a very attractive gent, which you undoubtedly know. Are you connected with pictures?"

  I shook my head. "Just a traveler, a tourist."

  She said, "Oh" and went back to tracing the design. I thought her finger trembled.

  A very dim smile on her face, and she didn't look away from the table top. "You've been--picked up before, undoubtedly."

  "No. What kind of talk is this, Jean?"

  Now, she looked up. "Crazy talk. You're no New Yorker, Freddy lad. You're a Middle Westerner; you can't fool me. Fresh from the farm and craving cow's milk."

  "I never saw a cow in my life," I told her truthfully, "though I've heard about them. What makes you think I'm from a farm?"

  "Your freshness, your complexion and--everything about you."

  The waitress brought our food, then, and I didn't answer. I tried to keep my eyes away from Jean as I ate; I had a mission, here, and no time for attachments beyond the casual. I was sure, even then, that loving Jean Decker would never qualify as casual.

  She drank her coffee and smoked; I ate.

  She asked, "Where are you staying, in town, Fred? I'm sober enough to drive, now."

  "I'll get public transportation," I said. "You get home, and to bed."

  She laughed. "Public transportation? Freddy, you don't know this town. There isn't any. Did you just get here, tonight?"

  I looked at her, and nodded.

  "On the bum?" she said quietly.

  "I--suppose," I said honestly, "though the word has connotations which don't describe me." I put my hand in my jacket pocket and fumbled in the open bag for one of the smaller diamonds. I brought one out about the size of my little finger nail, and placed it on the table.

  All the light in the room seemed to be suddenly imprisoned there. She stared at it, and up at me.

  "Fred--for heaven's sake--that's not--real, is it?"

  I nodded.

  "But--it--" She glanced from the diamond to me, her mouth partially open. "Fred, what kind of monstrous gag is this? God, I thought I'd seen everything, growing up in this town. Fred--"

  "I'd like to sell it," I said. "You, Jean, are my only friend in this town. Could you help me arrange for its sale?"

  She was looking at me with wonder now, studying me. "Hot?" she asked.

  "Hot--?"

  "Stolen--you know what I mean."

  "Stolen? Jean, you didn't mean to accuse me of that."

  Skepticism was ugly on her lovely face. "Fred, what's your angle? You step out of the darkness like some man from Mars in a strange suit, with no money, but a diamond that must be worth--"

  "We'll learn what it's worth," I said. "Mars isn't inhabited, Jean. Don't you trust me? Have I done anything to cause you to distrust me?"

  "Nothing," she said.

  "Do you distrust all men, Jean?"

  "No. Just the ones I've met. Oh, baby, and I thought you were a farmer." She was crushing out her cigarette. "You haven't a place to stay, but I've got a guest house, and you'll stay there, tonight. You aren't stepping back into the darkness, tonight, Fred Werig. You, I want to know about."

  The words held a threat, but not her meaning, I was sure. And what better way to orient myself than in the home of a friend?

  * * * * *

  That was some home she had. Massive, in an architecture I'd assumed was confined to the south-eastern United States. Two-story place, with huge, two-story pillars and a house-wide front porch, the great lawn studded with giant trees.

  And she lived there alone, excepting for the servants. She was no huddler, and I told her that.

  "Dad owned a lot of property in this town," she said. "He was a great believer in the future of this town."

  At the time I didn't understand what that had to do with her lack of huddling.

  The guest house was small, but very comfortable, a place of three bedrooms and two baths and a square living room with a natural stone fireplace.

  I had my first night of sleep on this planet, and slept very well. I woke to a cloudy morning, and the sound of someone knocking on the front door.

  It was a servant, and she said, "Miss Decker sent me to inform you that breakfast will be ready any time you want it, sir. We are eating inside, this morning, because of the cold."

  "I'll be there, soon, thank you," I said, and she went away.

  Showering, I was thinking of Akers for some reason and his directed theory and what was that other theory he'd had? Oh, yes, the twin planets. Senile, he was, by that time and not much listened to, but a mind like that? And who had he been associated with at that time? It was before my birth, but I'd read about it, long ago. The Visitor, Akers had called this man. The Earth man who had come to Venus. And what had his name been?

  Beer--? Beers--? No, but like that--and it came.

  Ambrose Bierce.

  Jean wore a light green robe, for breakfast, and it was difficult for me to take my eyes away from her.

  "I'm not usually this informal at mixed breakfasts," she told me, smiling, "but I thought it might warm up enough for a swim a little later."

  She threw the robe aside, and I saw she was wearing a scanty garment beneath it. Evidently the huddlers didn't swim naked, and I wondered at a moral code that sanctioned drinking alcohol but was ashamed of the human body.

  I was glad the house had been cold when I answered the maid's summons, for I had worn a robe I'd found there.

  Fruit juice and wheat cakes and sausage and toast and jelly and eggs and milk. We ate in a small room, off a larger dining room, a small room whose walls were glass on two sides.

  "It's too old a house to modernize completely," Jean told me. "I grew up in this house."

  "You don't--work, Jean?"

  "No. Should I?"

  "Work or study. Life must be very dull if you don't do one of those."

  "You might have a point there," she said. "I tried everything from the movies to sculpture. I wasn't very good at anything. What do you do, Fred?"

  "I'm a perpetual guest," I said lightly. "Do you read much, Jean?"

  "Too much, though nothing very heavy, I grant you."

  "Have you ever read about a man named Ambrose Bierce?"


  "I've read everything he ever wrote. Why did you ask that, Fred?"

  "I--heard about him. I wondered who he was."

  "Where did you hear about him, Fred? In Mexico?"

  "No. I don't remember where I heard about him."

  "He disappeared," she said quietly, "some time right before the first world war. I've forgotten the exact year. I think it was 1914."

  Before the war, before the "first" war.... And I thought of Jars' wife, who had come to us just before this last planetary war--the "second" world war. And what was his pet name for her? Guest, he called her, and joked about her coming from another world. But didn't Jars defend the discredited late-in-life theories of Akers? I tried to remember the name of Jars' wife, and then it came.

  I asked, "And Amelia Earhart?"

  Jean's voice was rough. "July 2nd, 1937. I guess I'll never forget that, when my god died. What are you trying to say? Is it some new damned cult you're promoting, Fred?"

  "You called her a god. Why, Jean?"

  "I don't know. I was only thirteen when she died. But she was so clean, so--so free and windswept, so--oh, what the spirit of America should be--and isn't."

  I looked up to see tears in her eyes. Why was she moved? This girl who certainly knew corruption, this worldly, lovely girl. I smiled at her.

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. "Fred, you are the strangest--I know this town's a zoo, but you, Fred--"

  I continued to smile at her. "I'm just a guy trying to learn. May I repeat something I said last night? You're beautiful, Jean."

  "You're no three-headed calf, yourself," she said.

  Twin planets and parallel evolution.... Parallel destiny? Not with a third planetary war shaping up here. Three major wars in less than fifty years. Why, why, why....

  She said, "Thinking, again? You do a lot of thinking, don't you?"

  "I have to think of something besides you," I told her honestly. "I can't afford to fall in love with you, Jean. I've too many places to go and too many things to see."

  She just stared at me. It must have been a full minute before she said, "Well, I'll be damned."

  After breakfast, it was still cold, and she said, "There'll be no swim this morning, I see. If you want to get an appraisal on that diamond, Fred, I'll phone one of our jewelers to come out."