The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction Fifth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

  “Why not? You seem to be sterile.”

  Foolish, hot ego of youth. He had meant to stir and shock a very proper Cynthia, and he had done so. Her moan of rage and hurt had made him for that triumphant moment the flame-thrower he was destined to be.

  He hadn’t counted on a divorce, but then it was impossible for him to give up his victory. He was Ralph Hiller, a man who asked no favors—

  Ah, that was ten years ago when he was barely twenty-five! Many times since the divorce he’d wished for her quiet calmness. She had stayed in the arms of science, never marrying again, preferring the well-lighted lab to the dark halls of passion. But such an act could rankle and bum over the years…

  The affairs of the Short Ones pressed impatiently on him, and he turned to his job with unsteady nerves.

  ~ * ~

  When Valsek appeared, towing his clay idol of Hiller on a handcart, the soldiers were too drunk to be cruel to him. They merely pricked his buttocks with their swords and laughed at him. And the priests of Melton, likewise sated with violence, simply threw stones at him and encouraged the loiterers to upend the cart and smash the grinning nonentity of clay. Hiller indeed! Would a new god creep into their lives on a handcart pulled by a crazy old man? Go away, old man, go away.

  Back at the farm Valsek found Telfus finishing up a new idol.

  “You knew?” he asked sadly.

  “It was somehow written in my mind that you would need a new idol,” said Telfus. “I am quite enthusiastic about this new god, and if I may be permitted to sleep in the bam, I am sure that I would get the feel of him and help you do good works in his name.”

  “It is not permitted to sleep in the bam,” grunted Valsek, easing his tender backside on a haypile. “Also I take notice that the plowing has stopped.”

  “Your wife fainted in the fields,” said Telfus. “I could not bring myself to kick her back to consciousness as you ordered because I have a bad leg from sleeping on the ground. I have slept on the ground many, many years and it is not good for the leg.”

  The fire of fanaticism burned in Valsek’s eyes. “Bother your leg,” he said. “Place my new idol on the handcart; there are other towns and other ears to listen, and Hiller will not fail me.”

  ~ * ~

  In a short time Valsek had used up several of the idols to Hiller in various towns and was required to rest from the injuries given him by the scornful priests, the people and the soldiers.

  “When I beg,” said Telful, “I place myself before the door of a rich, man, not a poor one. Would it not be wisdom to preach before King Giron himself rather than the lesser figures? Since Melton is his enemy, the King might welcome a new god.”

  “You are mad,” said Valsek. “Also, I do not like your latest idols. You are shirking on the straw which holds the clay together. I suspect you of eating my straw.”

  Telfus looked pained. “I would not dream of eating Hiller’s straw,” he said, “any more than I would dream of sleeping in the bam without permission. It is true, however, that your wife and goat occasionally get hungry.”

  Valsek waved a hand. “Prepare a knapsack. It has occurred to me that I should go to the very courtyard of the King himself and tell him of Hiller. After all, does a beggar beg at the door of a poor man?”

  Telfus nodded. “An excellent idea, one I should’ve thought of.”

  “Prepare the knapsack,” ordered Valsek. “We will go together.”

  ~ * ~

  At the gate of the palace itself, Telfus stopped. “Many Short Ones have died,” he said, “because in the midst of a hazardous task they left no avenue of escape open. Therefore I shall entertain the guards at the gate with my juggling while you go on in. Should it be necessary for you to fly, I will keep the way open.”

  Valsek frowned. “I had planned for you to pull the idol-cart for me, Telfus, so that I might make a better impression.”

  “An excellent idea!” said Telfus. “But, after all, you have the company of Hiller, which is worth a couple of regiments. And I have a bad leg, and Hiller deserves a better appearance than to be pulled before a King by a limping beggar. Therefore I will remain at the gates and keep the way open for you.”

  Valsek took the cart rope from Telfus, gave him a look of contempt and swept into the courtyard of King Giron.

  ~ * ~

  King Giron, who had held power for more than a year now, stared out of his lofty bedroom window and listened to the words of Valsek carried on the wind from the courtyard below, as he preached to the loiterers. He turned white; in just such a fashion had he preached Melton the previous year.

  True, he no longer believed in Melton, but, since he was writing a bible for the worship of King Giron, a new god didn’t fit into his plans. He ordered the guards to bring the man before him.

  “Make a sign, old man,” he directed. “If you represent a new god, have him make a sign if as you say, Melton is dead and Hiller is the new god.”

  Valsek threw himself down and groveled to Hiller and asked for a sign. He crooned over Telfus’ latest creation, asking for a sign. There was none. Ralph was being careful.

  “But Hiller lives!” cried Valsek as the guards dragged him upright and King Giron smiled cynically. “Melton is dead! You can’t get a sign from Melton either! Show me a sign from Melton!”

  The two men stared at each other. True, Melton was gone. The King misdoubted that Melton had ever existed, except in the furious fantasies of his own mind which had been strong enough to convince other people. Here now was a test. If he could destroy the old man, that would prove him right— that the gods were all illusion and that the Short Ones could run their own affairs.

  The King made a cutting sign across his own throat. The guards threw Valsek to his knees and one of them lifted a sharp, shining blade.

  “Now cut his throat quickly,” ordered the King, “because I find him a very unlikely citizen.”

  “Hiller,” moaned Valsek, “Hiller, I’ve believed in you and still do. Now you must save me, for it is the last moment of my miserable life. Believe in me, Hiller!”

  Sweat stood out on Ralph’s brow. He had held his temper when the old man had been rejected by the others. He had hoped for a better Spokesman than this fanatic, but the other Short Ones were confused by King Giron’s defiance of all gods and Valsek was his only active disciple. He would have to choose the man after all, and, in a way, the fanatical old man did have spirit. . . . Then he grinned to himself. Funny how these creatures sneaked into your ego. And deadly, no doubt!

  The sword of the guard began to descend. Ralph, trying hard to divine the far-reaching consequences of each act he would perform, made his stomach muscles grip to hold himself back. He didn’t mean to pass any miracles, because once you started it became an endless chain. And this was obviously the trap of the test.

  Then King Giron clapped his hands in glee and a particle of Ralph’s anger shot through the tight muscles. His hand on the dial twitched.

  The sword descended part way and then hung motionless in the air. The guards cried out in astonishment, as did Ralph up above. King Giron stopped laughing and turned very white.

  “Thrust this man out of the gate,” he ordered hoarsely. “Get him out of my sight.”

  At the gate Telfus, who had been watching the miracle as openmouthed as the soldiers, eagerly grasped the rope of the handcart and started off.

  “What has become of your sore leg?” asked Valsek, relaxed after his triumph.

  “It is well rested,” said Telfus shortly.

  “You cannot maintain that pace,” said Valsek. “As you said this morning, it is a long, weary road back home.”

  “We must hurry,” said Telfus. “We will ignore the road.” His muscles tensed as he jerked the cart over the bumpy field. “Hiller would want us to hurry and make more idols. Also we must recruit. We must raise funds, invent insignia, symbols. We have much to do, Valsek. Hurry!”

  ~ * ~

  Ralph relaxed a little and looked at
Cynthia beside him. Her fair skin glowed in the subdued light of the Hall. There was a tiny, permanent frown on her forehead, but the mouth was expressionless. Did she expect he would lash out at the first opposition to his control? He would show her and Gerard and the rest of them. . . .

  ~ * ~

  They called Valsek the Man the King Couldn’t Kill. They followed him wherever he went and listened to him preach. They brought him gifts of clothes and food which Telfus indicated would not be unpleasing to such a great man, and his wife and servant no longer had to work in the fields. He dictated a book, Hiller Says So, to Telfus, and the book grew into an organization which rapidly became political and then began to attract the military. They made his barn a shrine and built him a mud palace where the old hut had stood. Telfus kept count with manure sticks of the numbers who came, but presently there weren’t enough manure sticks to count the thousands.

  Throughout the land the cleavage grew, people deciding and dividing, deciding and dividing. If you didn’t care for King Giron, you fell under the sway of Hillerism. But if you were tired of the strange ways of the gods, you clung to Gironism in safety, for this new god spoke seldom and punished no one for blasphemy.

  King Giron contented himself with killing a few Hillerites. He was fairly certain that the gods were an illusion. Was there anything more wonderful than the mountains and trees and grass that grew on the plains? As for the god-wires, they were no more nor less wonderful, but to imagine they meant any more than a tree was to engage in superstition. He had once believed that Melton existed but the so-called signs no longer came, and by denying the gods—it was very simple— the miracles seemed to have ceased. True, there was the event when the guard had been unable to cut Valsek’s throat, but then the man had a history of a rheumatic father, and the coincidence of his frozen arm at the proper moment was merely a result of the man’s natural weakness and the excitement of the occasion.

  “We shall let the Hillerites grow big enough,” King Giron told his advisers. “Then we shall march on them and execute them and when that is done, the people will understand that there is no god except King Giron, and we shall be free of godism forever.”

  For his part, Valsek couldn’t forget that his palace was made of mud, while Giron’s was made of real baked brick.

  “Giron insults you!” cried Valsek from his barn-temple to Hiller. “His men have the finest temples in the city, the best jobs, the most of worldly goods. Why is this?”

  “Giron represents order,” Ralph directed through his electronic circuits. “It is not time to upset the smoothness of things.”

  Valsek made an impudent gesture. “At least give us miracles. I have waited all my life to be Spokesman, and I can have no miracles! The priests who deserted Melton for you are disgusted with the lack of miracles. Many turn to the new religion, Gironism.”

  “I don’t believe in miracles.”

  “Fool!” cried Valsek.

  In anger Ralph twisted the dial. Valsek felt himself lifted by a surge of current and dashed to the floor.

  “Thanks,” he said sadly.

  Ralph shot a look at Cynthia. A smile, almost dreamy, of remembrance was on her lips. Here comes the old Ralph, she was thinking. Ralph felt himself tense so hard his calf muscles ached. “No more temper now, none,” he demanded of himself.

  Giron discovered that his King’s Book of Worship was getting costly. More and more hand-scribes were needed to spread the worship of Gironism, and to feed them he had to lay heavier taxes on the people. He did so. The people responded by joining the Hillerites in great numbers, because even those who agreed with Giron about the illusory existence of the gods preferred Hiller’s lower tax structure. This angered the King. A riot began in a minor city, and goaded by a determined King Giron, it flowered into an armed revolt and flung seeds of civil war to all corners of the land.

  Telfus, who had been busy with organizational matters, hurried back to the mud palace.

  “I suspect Hiller does not care for war,” he said bitterly. “Giron has the swords, the supplies, the trained men. We have nothing. Therefore would it not be wise for us to march more and pray less—since Hiller expects us to take care of ourselves?”

  Valsek paced the bam. “Go hide behind a rock, beggar. Valsek fears no man, no arms.”

  “But Giron’s troops are organizing—”

  “The children of Hiller need no troops,” Valsek intoned.

  Telfus went out and stole, begged or borrowed all of the cold steel he could get. He began marching the men in the fields.

  “What—troops!” frowned Valsek. “I ordered against it.”

  “We are merely practicing for a pageant,” growled Telfus. “It is to please the women and children. We shall re-enact your life as a symbol of marching men. Is this permitted?”

  “You may do that,” nodded Valsek, appeased.

  The troops of Giron came like a storm. Ralph held out as he watched the Gironists destroy the homes of the Hillers, deflower the Hiller women, kill the children of Hillers. And he waited. . . .

  Dismayed, the Hillerites fell back on Valsek’s bishopric, the mud palace, and drew around the leader.

  Valsek nervously paced in the bam. “Perhaps it would be better to kill a few of the Gironists,” he suggested to Ralph, “rather than wait until we are dead, for there may be no battles in heaven.”

  There was silence from above.

  The Gironist troops drew up before the palace, momentarily stopped by the Pageant Guards of Telfus. You had to drive a god, thought Valsek. With a sigh, he made his way out of the besieged fortress and presented himself to the enemy. He had nothing to offer but himself. He had brought Hillerism to the land and he alone must defend it if Hiller would not.

  King Giron smiled his pleasure at the foolish old man who was anxious to become a martyr. Was there ever greater proof of the falseness of the gods? Meekly Valsek bowed before the swords of King Giron’s guardsmen.

  “I am faithful to Hiller,” said Valsek, “And if I cannot live with it, then I will die for it.”

  “That’s a sweet way to go,” said King Giron, “since you would be killed anyway. Guards, let the swords fall.”

  ~ * ~

  Ralph stared down at the body of Valsek. He felt a thin pulse of hate beating at his temples. The old man lay in the dust murdered by a dozen sword wounds, and the soldiers were cutting the flesh from the bones in joy at destroying the fountainhead of Hillerism. Then the banners lifted, the swords and lances were raised, the cry went down the ranks and the murderous horde swept upon the fortress of the fallen Valsek. A groan of dismay came from the Pageant troops when the Hillerites saw the severed head of Valsek borne before the attackers.

  Ralph could hardly breathe. He looked up, up at the audience as they stirred, alive to the trouble he was in. He stared at Cynthia. She wet her lips, looking down, leaning forward. “Watch the power load,” she whispered; “there will soon be many dead.” Her white fingers rested on a dial.

  Now, he thought bitterly, I will blast the murderers of Valsek and uphold my ego down there by destroying the Gironists. I will release the blast of energy held in the hand of an angry god—

  And I shall pass the critical point and there will be a backlash and the poor ego-destroyed human up here will come screaming out of his Director’s chair with a crack in his skull.

  Not me!

  Ralph’s hands felt sweaty on the dials as he heard the far-off cries of the murders being wrought among the Hillerites. But he held his peace while the work was done, stepping down the system energy as the Short Ones died by the hundreds. The Hillerites fell. They were slaughtered without mercy by King Giron. Then the idols to Hiller were destroyed. Only one man, severely wounded, survived the massacre.

  Telfus . . .

  That worthy remembered the rock under which he had once slept when he plowed Valsek’s fields. He crept under the rock now, trying to ignore his nearly severed leg. Secure, he peered out on the field of human misery.


  “A very even-tempered god indeed,” he told himself, and then fainted.

  ~ * ~

  There was an almost audible cry of disappointment from the human audience in the Life Hall above Ralph’s head. He looked up and Cynthia looked up too. Obviously human sentiment demanded revenge on the ghastly murderers of King Giron’s guard. What sort of Secretary of Defense would this be who would let his “side” be so destroyed?

  He noted that Bruce Gerard frowned as he scribbled notes. The Life Hall critic for the Times, spokesman for the intellectuals. Ralph would be ticked off proper in tomorrow’s paper: “Blunt-jawed, domineering Ralph Hiller, Assistant Secretary of Defense, turned in a less than jolly Life Hall performance yesterday for the edification of the thoughtful. His pallid handling of the proteins in the Pentagon leads one to believe that his idea of the best defense is signified by the word refrainment, a refinement on containment. Hiller held the seat long enough to impress his warmth upon it, the only good impression he made. By doing nothing at all and letting his followers among the Short Ones be slaughtered like helpless ants, he was able to sit out the required time and gain the valuable certificate that all politicos need. What this means for the defense of America, however, is another thing. One pictures our land in ashes, our people badly smashed and the porticoed jaw of Mr. Hiller opening to say, as he sits with folded hands, ‘I am aware of all that is going on. You should respect my awareness.’ “