“In that case,” said the other pontifically, “time travel is still an impossibility and you’d just be wasting your time. Has it not been written, ‘That which is needs no proof, and that which is not cannot be proven.’ And anyway, I don’t want any more planets blown up. It upsets the astronomers.”
“But . . .” wailed Klen.
“No but’s!”
“But I couldn’t blow anything up with my machine if I wanted to. All that it does is—”
“You’re wasting my time!” snapped the Chief Coordinator. “Permission refused.”
Klen humped submissively, took one farewell look at the gleaming machine at the other end of his laboratory, and then taking his nether extremity in his mouth, began to ingest himself.
It took a moment for the Chief Coordinator to realize what was happening. When he did he gave a double flap of horrified indignation.
“Stop that at once, you crazy idiot!” he shouted. “Have you forgotten the penalty for cannibalism?”
“No,” mumbled Klen indistinctly. “The offender is compelled to commit suicide.”
“Well?”
“But I am committing suicide,” said Klen plaintively. He gulped convulsively and another foot of his other end disappeared. “My whole life is in that machine. If I am not to be allowed to find out whether it will work or not, there’s no point in going on.”
He waited for Shiral’s flappings to subside.
“I won’t be intimidated,” growled Shiral. Klen opened his jaws to take another bite of himself. “However,” the coordinator added hastily, “there’s no reason why we can’t have a more detailed discussion. And for your information, it isn’t civilly or militarily respectful to talk with your mouth full.”
A sudden look of hope came into Klen’s eye and with a sudden convulsion of stomach muscles, he regurgitated the swallowed extremities.
“How was it?” asked the Chief Coordinator with a rather coarse effort at jocularity, quite possibly interlarded with curiosity.
Klen looked down pensively at the almost digested end of his nether extremity. “A little on the gamey side,” he admitted. “I don’t know if my stomach could have tolerated all of me.”
II
The Chief Coordinator had a one-track mind. He waited until the thunder of the great dynamo had crescendoed its way up into inaudibility and then said in an anxious voice, “You’re very sure you’re not going to blow anything up?”
“Very sure,” said Klen patiently. “As I explained before, I am concerned with checking the possibility of time travel—not with sub-nuclear fission. The energies to be released in this experiment are negligible.”
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that,” said Shiral dubiously. “But assuming that the machine does work and you are able to open up a portal a quarter of a million kersogs in the past and give the third planet a couple of good jolts of gamma rays—how are you ever going to be able to prove that you were actually successful?”
“Elementary, my dear Shiral,” said Klen smugly. “Watch.” He reached over to the controls of his electronic telescope, and after checking a table of calculations, made a series of fine adjustments. A moment later the great vision screen which occupied all of one wall of his laboratory flickered on. Mirrored in it was a rolling grassy plain dotted with. small knots of long-tusked, hairy animals who were contentedly cropping away at the rich vegetation.
“First we have the third planet in an age geologically remote,” he continued. “Now we select a representative sample of the dominant species and observe him carefully.”
“Just a minute,” protested the Chief Coordinator. “I’m no expert on extra-Martian biology, but I was under the impression that the dominant species use two tentacles for locomotion rather than four.”
“I didn’t say the grass eaters were dominant. What we’re after should be along in a minute.” He cranked up the magnification of the screen until their apparent vantage point was only twenty-five feet to the left of a clearly defined path that wound down the bottom of a small ravine. “A family group of them come down every day about this time to drink at the water hole. As soon as they pass we’ll get set and catch them on their way back.”
“There’s something about that quarter-of-a-million figure that bothers me,” said Shiral. “I wish I could remember what it is.”
His thinking about it was interrupted a few minutes later when a hairy, beetle-browed figure came shambling down the path followed by his mate and two young.
“Interesting—in a disgusting sort of way,” said the Chief Coordinator. “But what do they have to do with testing your hypothesis?”
“If it’s right, we should have some sort of immediate evidence. Just watch them closely. I’m hoping that the change will be great enough so that we can spot it.”
“What kind of change?”
“It’s hard to say. Maybe a little more hair or a little less. If we’re really lucky, perhaps an extra digit on each extremity.”
Shiral let out a loud slurp of annoyed bewilderment. “Why?”
“Through induced mutation, of course.”
“What?”
“Through mutation,” Klen repeated. “One way of producing genetic variation is to submit the germ plasm to hard radiation. I’ve set my machine to open a portal a quarter-of-a-million kersogs in the past. Once the warp is established, several hundred different areas on the third planet will receive short intensive bursts of gamma rays. Some of this little group’s progenitors are bound to be affected. What I’m hoping is that the change will be great enough to be externally evident.”
“I’m confused,” grumbled the Chief Coordinator.
“You shouldn’t be.” Klen paused and thought for a minute. “Look, suppose a general mutation had been introduced into our own species a long time ago. Let’s say that it resulted in the young being spawned with six tentacles instead of seven. You and I would have six now, wouldn’t we?”
“That is a disgusting suggestion,” said Shiral severely.
“Admitted. But it’s true, isn’t it? We’d be different from our present selves.”
The other cogitated for a moment and then gave a reluctant ripple of agreement.
“And if I turned my machine back into our own past and introduced such a mutation, we’d never know about it because, as far as we were concerned, we would have always had six tentacles.”
The Chief Coordinator waved his seventh tentacle wildly in the air. “But how could we have always had six when we’ve always had seven. And if we’ve always had seven . . . This is all over my heads. Switch on the machine and let’s get it over with!”
Klen gave an excited, nod. It seemed to be hours before the little group of Neanderthal men came back up the path from the water hole. As soon as they were centered on the screen, he reached forward and threw the master control switch of his time machine. “From now on it’s automatic.”
There was a muted humming and then suddenly a loud scream from Shiral.
“Turn it off! Quickly!”
“I can’t!” shouted Klen in alarm. “Why?”
“I just remembered what there was about that quarter-of-a-million kersog figure that bothered me. It was just about that time that the physicist Clexal was testing his hypothesis as to the practicability of space flight. He and a small expedition spent some time on the third planet. If they should be in one of the affected areas you’d be introducing a genetic change into our own race.”
Klen turned a pale mauve as the full import of what the other had said hit him.
“If they were the damage is already done!” He began a frenzied inventory of himself and his companion. “One mouth, one eye, two heads, six tentacles . . .” When he finished he gave a long ripple of relief. “I never want to go through a moment like that again. Either we missed the expedition altogether or the change isn’t great enough to be noticeable. Anyway—”
“Look!” There was a sudden gasp from the Chief Coordinator an
d he pointed dramatically at the vision screen. “The machine worked! Your hypothesis is correct! Time travel is possible!”
The rolling prairie was still there but the hairy beasts—both fourlegged and two-legged—were gone. Instead, a high fence bisected the screen and in the distance a needle shaped object with fins at the bottom pointed its nose toward the sky. Far to the left was a clump of low buildings. With shaking tentacles Klen fumbled with the vision screen controls until they were looking directly through the barred window of one of them.
III
“Well,” said the general in Command of Guided Missile Project H 70, “let’s get on with it.”
The man in the white smock reached tentatively toward a small red button and then withdrew his hand.
“I’m almost certain our calculations are right,” he said nervously. “But if we’ve slipped up somewhere the results could be catastrophic. We’ve been pushed so fast we haven’t had time to check properly.”
“You’ve been right so far,” growled the general. “That’s good enough for me. You civilians never seem able to understand the necessity for the calculated risk.”
The man in the white coat started to protest, but the general cut him off short.
“Get going. That’s an order. Those swine on the other side have come up with a big missile that’s three times more powerful than our X bomb. They could wipe out our entire continent with ten of them. That’s why we’ve got to go ahead with this baby of yours. If your figures can be trusted—and I know damn well they can—we’ll be secure again. With three of the Brewster Specials we can pulverize their whole hemisphere.”
The general drew himself up. “Yes, General,” sighed the other wearily. “Just as you wish. It’s your world.” He pressed the red button and in the distance the silver needle began to rise slowly into the air. “What’ll I use for a test area?” The general took a long self-assured draw on his cigar. “Don’t worry about targets, son. I’ve had a nice little island tucked away for some time now. It’s in the middle of the Pacific, a thousand miles from nowhere. I’ve been saving it for just such an occasion as this.”
IV
“What’s happening?” asked the Chief Coordinator anxiously.
“I don’t know.” Klen worked busily over the vision screen controls to keep the rapidly accelerating rocket in focus. “I didn’t expect an induced mutation to lead to anything like this. Maybe they’re experimenting with space flight.”
“If they are,” said the other ominously, “you’d better go back and reverse whatever it was you did. Those Earthlings are a hundred times our size. If they came here they could gobble us up.”
Klen didn’t answer. He just sat watching the screen tensely. Slow minutes went by and then suddenly he let out a shrill buzz of relief. “They’re a long way from space flight yet. That rocket expended all its fuel when it was only five hundred miles up. Look, it’s falling back to Earth.”
As the shining shape plunged down toward a tiny speck of rock that stood all by itself in the middle of the blue ocean, it gained such terrific speed that Klen had difficulty keeping up with it. He finally gave up trying, and swooped down for a close focus on the rocky little island that was the missile’s obvious target. He didn’t have long to wait.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to blow anything up,” said the Chief Coordinator. “By the time you characters finish checking all of your hypotheses, the Solar System is going to be nothing but one big Asteroid Belt. First the fifth planet, now the third! When’s all this going to stop?”
Klen gave a sick ripple. “For me, right now.” Opening his mouth, he prepared to grab his nether extremity.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” howled the Chief Coordinator. “If you think you’re going to ingest yourself and leave me holding the bag, you’ve got another think coming. You may die soon, but it’s not going to be from overeating. You got me into this! Now get me out!”
“How?” asked Klen with a dispairing look at his farther end.
“That’s your affair. All that I know is that the Egg Royal is an amateur astronomer. And that as an amateur astronomer he has been deriving a great deal of pleasure from observing the perturbations in the orbit of the third planet. And now that there isn’t any third planet left to pertubate . . .” His voice trailed off.
Klen turned pale. The Egg Royal was unpleasant enough when everything was running smoothly. But when he found out that somebody had broken his favorite toy, there would be a loud and prolonged screaming from every official, major or minor, who had the remotest connection with it.
“Look, Klen,” the Coordinator said with a calmness he was far from feeling. “Four heads are better than two. Let’s both settle down to some serious thinking.”
The obvious answer came sooner than either of them could have anticipated.
“Of course!” exclaimed Klen, intertwining all six of his tentacles in his excitement. “Why didn’t we think of it before!”
“Think of what before?”
“Moving up fifty thousand kersogs, going back into the past again and giving the third planet another shot of hard radiation. That should introduce enough variants in the past of the Earthlings to cancel out what just happened.”
“Go ahead and try it,” said Shiral unhappily. “Things couldn’t be worse than they are right now.” Two minutes later with a flick the Asteroid Belt disappeared and a green planet shone in its familiar place. The Egg Royal, who had been in his observatory the whole time, sent for the court optometrist to have his eye examined. “The third planet just jumped light years nearer,” he rippled in quivering disbelief.
V
“Yes, General,” sighed the man in the white coat wearily. It’s your Solar System.” He pressed the red button and in the distance a gigantic silver globe arose from a desert waste and disappeared. “What’ll we use for a target?”
The general took a long complacent draw on his cigar. “Don’t worry about targets, son. I’ve had a nice little world tucked away for some time now.” He pointed happily at a little red light point that glowed just above the horizon. “I’ve been saving it for an occasion just like this.”
The man in white turned pale.
“But supposing there’s a humanoid race on that planet, sir. We’d be little better than murderers.”
His gaze shifted skyward.
“It’s a chance we’ve got to take,” the general said calmly. “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, you know.”
TRAINING DEVICE
Hatch was facing his first day of combat and he was scared. But then, Larn was in much the same boat—or more specifically, body!
THE unshaven sergeant slowly surveyed the handful of new replacements and then let loose a stream of tobacco juice that just missed the feet of the blonde boy who stood at the end of the irregular line.
“Well?” he said finally.
Private Hatch stepped hesitantly forward, saluted awkwardly, and held out a manila envelope.
“We were told to report to Lieutenant Cutler, sir.”
The sergeant spat again. “My name’s Black,” he growled. “Sergeant Black. The only one that gets sirred around here is the lieutenant and he ain’t in no position to take any pleasure in it.” He pointed to a bloodstained shelter-half covered with a swarm of buzzing green flies that had something under it. “He got his last night, so I’m running things until headquarters digs up a stray louie somewheres. Four of you go and dig a hole over there and get him underground. He’s getting ripe already.”
The replacements shuffled their feet and looked at each other, but nobody made a move toward the bloody bundle that once had been a man.
Black’s voice cracked like a whip. “When I say do something, I want it done now, not tomorrow. “You!”—he stabbed a finger at the blond boy—“What’s your name?”
“Hatch, sir . . . I mean, sergeant.”
“You’re in charge of the burial detail. Take the three men next to you and ge
t that grave dug. And make it deep enough. God knows when we’ll be getting out of this hole, and unless you get him a good three feet under he’s going to stink up the place. The rest of you come with me.”
The four men watched as the sergeant led the rest into a dugout that cut into the side of the steep hill that stood between them and the enemy, and then reluctantly turned to the business at hand. Private Hatch went off by himself and got sick afterwards.
* * *
“I’d like to resign, sir. I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“Nonsense, son. After you have a couple of actions under your belt, you won’t mind a bit.”
There was a momentary blaze of light through the side vision port as the great training ship’s orbit took it out of the third planet’s shadow into the incandescent glare of the sun, and then it dimmed as a damping shield slid automatically into place.
“But, sir, he’d be alive now if I hadn’t got scared and made him run.”
The officer shrugged impatiently. “Another week, another month, what difference does it make? After all, we don’t start these wars. As for your losing your head—you obviously have to be censored for it, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. During your first action anything can happen. It’s how you hold up during your second and third and fourth that’s important “
“But for those few minutes I was him. I felt what he felt when I made him run away. When the bullet hit, it hit me!”
“So now you know what it feels like. Next time you’ll be more careful Request for permission to resign denied.”
A soft chime sounded from the wall speaker and then a crisp voice said, “Now hear this. Now hear this. All cadets will report to training stations at 36:82. All cadets will report to training stations at 36:82. That is all.”
the voice from the speaker died, the officer behind the desk gave a gesture of dismissal.
“All right, Lam, you’ve had your say. Now report to your station and draw yourself a new body. And remember that someday before too long you may be in a spot where you’ll have to use your own. The sooner you learn how to take care of it, the better.”
Collected Fiction Page 33