Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Suddenly the pool exploded into motion, the water frothed and flashed white and the line in his hand sang like a piano wire. Automatically, he jerked his line and began to reel in, at the same time his mind was telling him no line of its weight could long hold what he had hooked. As suddenly as the action had begun, it was ended and he was pulling something heavy against the stream bank. He gaped at it, his eyes popping. Then he heard the rustle of leaves and the snap of a stick behind him.

  "Catch somep'n, teach'?" a voice asked.

  "Yes, I caught something." He got his tobacco pouch from his pocket and filled his pipe, trying to keep his hands from trembling.

  "Gee, he's a big one, teach'," the voice said.

  Ward stood up. The boy, Jacky Hodge, leaning over the bank looking down at the fish. Behind him, Ward saw Bobby, Alec Cress, Danny and several others. Now which of you is laughing? he wondered. But there was no way to tell. Jacky, a boy of twelve or thirteen, had his usual look of stupid good nature. Bobby, under the flambeau of red hair, dreamed at the fish. The others wore the open poker faces of children.

  "That's a funny fish," one of them said and then they were all laughing as they raced away.

  With some difficulty, Ward got the fish out of the water and began to drag it up the hill toward his house.

  "Outspace fish," Ward said as he dumped the thing on the work table where Ann had deposited the bag of groceries.

  "Where did you get that?"

  "I just caught it. Down in the stream."

  "That? In our stream?"

  "Yeah."

  He looked at it. The fish resembled a small marlin in shape, but it looked as if its sides had been painted by an abstract artist.

  "They planted it on my hook," he told her. "Teleported it from somewhere and planted it on me. Like the tigers."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know--one of the kids. There were a bunch of them down by the river."

  "Is it the proof you wanted?"

  "Almost. I'd like to make them--whoever they are--admit it, though. But you can't pry anything out of them. They stick together like--like kids, I guess. Tell me, why is it that the smart ones don't discriminate? They'd as soon play with morons like Hodge or Cress as with the brainy ones."

  "Democratic, I guess," Ann said. She looked at the fish without enthusiasm and turned it over on its other side. "Weren't you the same way, when you were a boy?"

  "Guess so. Leader of my group was almost an idiot. Head of the 3Rs now." He started to put his fishing tackle away. "Got to get ready for Star Watch," he said. "I'm on the early trick tonight." He halted in the kitchen doorway, still holding the rod and creel. He looked back at the fish. "That kind of thing is likely to take all the fun out of fishing," he told her.

  * * * * *

  Usually, he found Star Watch a bore. There were often Saucer sightings, it was true. He had had many himself, some of them very close in, but all that had become routine. At first, the government had tried shooting them down, but the attempts had ended in total failure and the Saucers still came, aloof and unreasonable, as if they did not even know that they were being shot at. Later, communication had been tried--but with no better results.

  Now, when the Saucers were sighted, the Watcher phoned in a report, some bored plotter in Saucer Control took bearings and speed, or replied that they had the thing on radar. The next day, the score of sightings would be Spellcast--it was less exciting than watching for grunnion.

  Tonight, however, Ward was excited. As he left his house, he set out at a fast pace for the school. He found Bobby in front of the boys' dormitory.

  "What is it, John?" the boy called as he trotted over to the teacher.

  "How'd you like to come on Star Watch with me?"

  "All right." They went down the street together.

  "I want to try something," Ward told the boy. "I think I know how we can get in touch with the Saucer people."

  "But they have tried."

  "Yes, I know--with radio and blinker lights and all that. But maybe that's the wrong way. Bobby, you're a telepath, aren't you?"

  "I'm not very good at it and anyway I don't think it'll work."

  "Why not?"

  "I tried once, but I couldn't seem to get anywhere. They seemed--I dunno--funny."

  "In what way?" Ward asked the boy.

  "Just sort of funny."

  "Well, if we're lucky, maybe we can try again tonight."

  "Yeah," Bobby said, "it's probably a good night for it. Full moon. Why do you suppose they seem to like the full moon, John?"

  "I wish I knew."

  It didn't look as if they were going to have any luck. They had waited for two hours and Bobby was asleep on a bench in the small "duck blind" the Watchers used. Then John heard it.

  It was a high shimmer of sound and it gave him gooseflesh, as it always did. He couldn't see anything yet. Then it appeared to the north, very low, like a coagulation of the moonlight itself, and he shook the boy.

  Bobby was awake immediately and, together, they watched its approach. It was moving slowly, turned on an edge. It looked like a knife of light. Then it rolled over, or shifted its form, and the familiar shape appeared. The humming stopped and the Saucer floated in the moonlight like a giant metallic lily-pad, perhaps a half mile away.

  "Try now, Bobby," he said, attempting to keep calm.

  The boy stood in the moonlight in front of the blind, very still, as if collecting the silence out of the night. Once he shook his head as though to clear it and started to say something. Then, for a long minute, he held his face toward the moon as if he were listening.

  Suddenly, he giggled.

  "What is it?" Ward snapped, unable to repress his impatience.

  "I'm not sure. I thought it seemed something like a joke."

  "Try to ask where they're from."

  A moment later, the boy shook his head. "I guess I can't get anything," he said. "All I seem to get is that they're saying, 'We're here.' As if they didn't understand me."

  "All right. Try to get anything."

  A moment later, the ship turned on edge, or shifted its shape, and slid back into the sky. Ward picked up the phone and called Saucer Control.

  "Got it," the bored voice said.

  He put down the phone and sat in silence, feeling sick with frustration.

  "Might as well knock off, Bobby," he said gently to the boy. "I guess that's all for the night. You run along and hit the sack."

  The boy started to leave and then turned back. "I'm sorry, John," he said. "I guess I'm not very good at it. There's one thing though...." He hesitated.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't think they know any poetry. In fact, I'm pretty sure of that."

  "All right," Ward said, laughing. "I guess that's the most important thing in your life right now. Run along, Bobby."

  * * * * *

  An hour later, his watch ended and he started for home, still feeling depressed at having failed. He was passing the dormitory when he saw it. It hung in the air, almost overhead. The color of the moonlight itself, it was hard to spot. But it was not the Saucer that held him rigid with attention.

  Over the roof of the dormitory, small and growing smaller as it went straight toward the Saucer, he saw a figure, then another and then a third. While he watched, there was a jet of blue light from the object in the sky--the opening of an airlock, he thought--and the figures disappeared, one by one, into the interior of the ship. Ward began to run.

  It was strictly forbidden for a teacher to enter the dormitory--that part of the boys' world was completely their own. But he ignored that ruling now as he raced up the stairs. All he could think of was that this was the chance to identify the invaders. The boys who had levitated themselves up to the Saucer would be missing.

  He was still exultantly certain of this as he jerked open the doors of the first three rooms. Each one was empty. And the fourth and fifth, as well. Frantically, he pulled open door after door, going through the motions, alth
ough his mind told him that it was useless, that all of the boys, with a Saucer so close, would be out looking at it.

  Wait until they returned? He couldn't remain in the dormitory and, even if he did, when they all came back, how could he find out which boys had gone up to the ship? They wouldn't be likely to tell, nor would the others, even if they knew. Aimlessly, he went on opening doors, flashing his Watcher's light.

  Perhaps there would be a clue in one of the rooms. Excited again, he rapidly checked them, rummaging in closets, picking up their sports things and their toys. Nothing there. Until he found the book.

  It was an odd-looking book, in a language he couldn't read. He looked at it doubtfully. Was the script simply Cyrillic? Or Hebrew? He stuffed it into his pocket and glanced around at the walls of the room. Pictures of athletes, mostly, and a couple of pin-ups. In a drawer, under some clothing, a French post card. He examined some of the objects on the dresser.

  Then he was looking stupidly at his hand. He was holding a piece of string with a ring attached to it. And, just as certainly, there was something attached to the other end. Or it had been. But there was nothing he could see now. He pulled on the string and it tightened. Yes, there was a drag on the other end, but there was nothing he could see ... or feel.

  He tried to reconstruct his actions. He had been pawing among the things. He had taken hold of the string and had pulled something attached to the end of it off the table. The thing had fallen and disappeared--but where? It was still tied to the string, but where was it?

  Another dimension, he thought, feeling the hair stand up on his neck, the sudden riot of his blood as he knew he had found the evidence he wanted.

  He snapped off the light and groped his way rapidly down the stairs. Once on the street, he began to run. It did not occur to him to feel ridiculous at dragging along behind him, on the end of a string, some object which he could not see.

  * * * * *

  "Okay," Ann said. "But what is it?" She sat on the divan looking at the book.

  "I don't know, but I think it's alien."

  "I think it's a comic book. In some foreign language--or maybe in classical Greek for all we know." She pointed to an illustration. "Isn't this like the fish you caught? Of course it is. And look at the fisherman--his clothes are funny looking, but I'll bet he's telling about the one that got away."

  "Damn it, don't joke! What about this?" He waved the string.

  "Well, what about it?"

  "It's extra-dimensional. It's...." He jerked the string with nervous repetition and, suddenly, something was in his hand. Surprised, he dropped it. It disappeared and he felt the tug on the end of the string.

  "There is something!" He began jerking the string and it was there again. This time he held it, looking at it with awe.

  It was neither very big nor very heavy. It was probably made out of some kind of glass or plastic. The color was dazzling, but that was not what made him turn his head away--it was the shape of the thing. Something was wrong with its surfaces. Plane melted into plane, the surface curved and rejoined itself. He felt dizzy.

  "What is it, John?"

  "Something--something like a Klein Bottle--or a tesseract--or maybe both of them together." He looked at it for a moment and then turned away again. It was impossible to look at it very long. "It's something built to cut through our three-dimensional space," he said. He dropped it, then tugged. The thing dropped out of sight and reappeared again, rolling up the string toward his hand.

  That was when he lost control. He lay down on the floor and howled in a seizure of laughter that was like crying.

  "John!" Ann said primly. "John Ward, you stop!" She went out of the room and returned with a glass half full of whisky.

  Ward got up from the floor and weakly slouched in a chair. He took a long drink from the glass, lit his pipe with great deliberation, and spoke very softly. "Well," he said, "I think we've got the answer."

  "Have we?"

  "Sure. It was there all the time and I couldn't see it. I always thought it was strange we couldn't get in touch with the Outspacers. I had Bobby try tonight--he couldn't do anything either. I thought maybe he wasn't trying--or that he was one of them and didn't want to let me in on it. He said they sounded--funny. By that, he meant strange or alien, I thought."

  "Well, I'm sure they must be," Ann said, relaxed now that John's outburst was over.

  "Yes. But that's not what he meant--he's just a normal human genius. He meant funny." He lifted his hand. "Know what this is?" He held up the strange object on the string. "It's a yo-yo. An extra-dimensional yo-yo. And you were right--that thing is a comic book. Look," he said. He held the odd object toward her. "See this? J.H.--Jacky Hodge, one of the stupidest ones. It's his yo-yo. But I was right about one thing. We are being invaded. It's probably been going on for centuries. Invaded by morons, morons with interstellar drives, super-science--super-yo-yos! Morons from the stars!"

  He began to laugh again. Ann went out to the kitchen for another glass. Then, after a while, she went back for the bottle.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE TERRIBLE ANSWER

  By Arthur G. Hill

  They came down to Mars ahead of the rest because Larkin had bought an unfair advantage—a copy of the Primary Report. There were seven of them, all varying in appearance, but with one thing in common; in the eyes of each glowed the greed for Empire. They came down in a flash of orange tail-fire and they looked first at the Martians.

  "Green," marveled Evans. "What a queer shade of green!"

  "Not important," Cleve, the psychologist, replied. "Merely a matter of pigmentation. White, yellow, black, green. It proves only that God loves variety."

  "And lord how they grin!"

  Cleve peered learnedly. "Doesn't indicate a thing. They were born with those grins. They'll die with them."

  Of the seven strong men, Larkin exuded the most power. Thus, his role of leader was a natural one. No man would ever stand in front of Larkin. He said, "To hell with color or the shape of their mouths. What we're after lies inside. Come on. Let's set up a camp."

  "For the time being," Cleve cautioned, "we must ignore them. Later—we know what to do. I'll give the nod."

  They brought what they needed out of the ship. They brought the plastic tents, broke the small, attached cylinders, and watched the tents bulge up into living quarters. They set up the vapor condenser and it began filling the water tank from the air about them. They plugged a line into the ship and attached it to the tent-line. Immediately the gasses in the plastic tents began to glow and give off both light and heat.

  They did many things while the Martians stood silently by with their arms hanging, their splay-feet flat on the ground, their slash-mouths grinning.

  The seven sat down to their first meal under the Martian stars and while they ate the rich, delicate foods, they listened to the words of Larkin. "A new empire waiting to be built. A whole planet—virgin—new."

  "Not new," Dane, the archeologist, said. "It's older than Earth. It's been worked before."

  Larkin waved an impatient hand. "But hardly scratched. It can have risen and fallen a thousand times for all we care. The important thing is the vital ingredient of empire. Is it here? Can it be harnessed? Are we or are we not, on the threshold of wealth, splendor, and progress so great as to take away the breath?"

  And as Larkin spoke, all seven men looked at the Martians; looked covertly while appearing to study the rolling plain and the purple ridges far away; the texture of the soil; the color of the sky; the food on their plates; the steaming fragrance of their coffee. They looked at all these things but they studied the Martians.

  "Stupid-looking animals," Evans muttered. "Odd though. So like us—yet so different."

  At first there had been only a handful of Martians to grin at the landing of the ship. Now they numbered over a hundred, their ranks augmented by stragglers who came to stare with their fellows in happy silence.

  "The prospe
cts are excellent," Cleve said. Then he jerked his attention back to Larkin from whom it had momentarily wandered. When Larkin spoke, one listened.

  Larkin had been directing his words toward a young man named Smith. Smith had inherited a great deal of money which was fine. But Larkin wasn't too sure of his qualifications otherwise. "—the pyramids," Larkin was saying. "Would they have ever been built if the men up above—the men with vision—had had to worry about a payroll?"

  Smith regarded the Martians with not quite the impersonal stare of the other six Earthlings. Once or twice he grinned back at them. "I'll grant the truth of what you say," he told Larkin, "but what good were the pyramids? They're something I could never figure."

  Smith had a sardonic twist of mouth that annoyed Larkin. "Let's not quibble, man. I merely used the pyramids as an example. Call them Empire; call them any Empire on Earth from the beginning of known history and let's face facts."

  "Facts?" Smith asked. He had been looking at a six-foot-six Martian, thinking what a magnificent specimen he was. If only they'd wipe off those silly grins.

  "Yes, facts. The building must be done. It is a law of nature. Man must progress or not. And what empire can arise without free labor? Can we develop this planet at union scale? Impossible! Yet it's crying to be developed."

  Cleve knocked the ashes off his cigar and frowned. Being a man of direct action, he inquired. "Do you want your money back, Smith?"

  The latter shook his head. "Oh no! Don't get me wrong, gentlemen. I'm for empire first, last and always. And if we can lay the foundations of one on the backs of these stupid creatures, I'm for it."

  "I still don't like your—"

  "My outspoken manner? Don't give it a thought, old man. I just don't want to be all cloyed up with platitudes. If we're going to chain the children of Israel into the house of bondage, let's get on with it."

  "I don't like your attitude," Larkin said stubbornly. "In the long run, it will benefit these people."