The Early Asimov. Volume 2

by Isaac Asimov

  'We've only seen one, but that one is from the Arcturian System. He's better than seven feet tall, and comfortably past the three-hundred-pound mark. He'd mop us up - all ten of us - with his bare fists. I thought you had one run-in with him already, Eric.'

  There was a thickish silence.

  Williams added, 'And even if we could knock him out and finish as many others as there may be in the ship, we still haven't the slightest idea where we are or how to get back or even how to run the ship.' A pause. Then, 'Well?'

  'Nuts!' Chamberlain turned away, and glowered in silence.

  The door kicked open and the giant Acturian entered. With one hand, he emptied the bag he carried, and with the other kept his neuronic whip carefully leveled.

  'Last meal,' he grunted.

  There was a general scramble for the rolling cans, still lukewarm from recent heating. Morton glared at his with disgust.

  'Say,' he spoke stumblingly in Galactic, 'can't you give us a change? I'm tired of this rotten goulash of yours. This is the fourth can!'

  'So what? It's your last meal,' the Arcturian snapped, and left.

  A horrified paralysis prevailed.

  'What did he mean by that?' gulped someone huskily.

  'They're going to kill us!' Sweeney was round-eyed, the thin edge of panic in his voice.

  Williams' mouth was dry and he felt unreasoning anger grow against Sweeney's contagious fright. He paused - the kid was only seventeen - and said huskily, 'Stow it, will you? Let's eat.'

  It was two hours later that he felt the shuddering jar that meant the landing and end of.the journey. In that time, no one had spoken, but Williams could feel the pall of fear choke tighter with the minutes.

  Spica had dipped crimsonly below the horizon and there was a chill wind blowing. The ten Earthmen, huddled together miserably upon the rock-strewn hilltop, watched their captors sullenly. It was the huge Arcturian, Myron Tubal, that did the talking, while the green-skinned Vegan, Bill Sefan, and the fuzzy little Denebian, Wri Forase, remained placidly in the background.

  'You've got your fire,' said the Arcturian gruffly, 'and there's plenty of wood about to keep it going. That will keep the beasts away. We'll leave you a pair of whips before we go, and those will do as protection, if any of the aborigines of the planet bother you. You will have to use your own wits as far as food, water and shelter are concerned.'

  He turned away. Chamberlain let loose with a sudden roar, and leaped after the departing Arcturian. He was sent reeling back with an effortless heave of the other's arm.

  The lock closed after the three other-world men. Almost at once, the ship lifted off the ground and shot upward. Williams finally broke the chilled silence.

  They've left the whips. I'll take one and you can have the other, Eric.'

  One by one, the Earthmen dropped into a sitting position, back to the fire, frightened, half panicky.

  Williams forced a grin. 'There's plenty of game about - the region is well-wooded. Come on, now, there are ten of us and they've got to come back sometime. Let's show them we Earthmen can take it. How about it, fellows?'

  He was talking aimlessly now. Morton said listlessly.

  'Why don't you shut up? You're not making this any easier.'

  Williams gave up. The pit of his own stomach was turning cold.

  The twilight blackened into night, and the circle of light about the fire contracted into a little flickering area that ended in shadows. Marsh gasped suddenly, and his eyes went wide.

  'There's some - something coming!'

  The stir that followed froze itself into attitudes of breathless attention.

  'You're crazy,' began Williams huskily - and stopped dead at the unmistakable, slithering sound that reached his ears.

  'Grab your whip!' he screamed to Chamberlain.

  Joey Sweeney laughed suddenly - a strained, high-pitched laugh.

  And then - there was a sudden shrieking in the air, and the shades charged down upon them.

  Things were happening elsewhere, too.

  Tubal's ship lazed outward from Spica's fourth planet, with Bill Sefan at the controls. Tubal himself was in his own cramped quarters, polishing off a huge flagon of Denebian liquor in two gulps.

  Wri Forase watched the operation sadly.

  'It cost twenty credits a bottle,' he said, 'and I only have a few left.'

  'Well, don't let me hog it,' said Tubal magnanimously, 'match me bottle for bottle. It's all right with me.'

  'One swig like that,' grumbled the Denebian, 'and I'd be out till the Fall exams.'

  Tubal paid scant attention. 'This,' he began, 'is going to make campus history as the hazing stunt -'

  And at this point, there was a sharp, singing pinging ping-g-g-g, scarcely muffled by intervening walls, and the lights went out.

  Wri Forase felt himself pressed hard against the wall. He struggled for breath and stuttered out in gasps.

  'B-by Space, we're at f-full acceleration! What's wr-rong with the equalizer?'

  'Damn the equalizer!' roared Tubal, heaving to his feet. 'What's wrong with the ship?'

  He stumbled out the door, into the equally dark corridor, with Forase crawling after him. When they burst into the control room, they found Sefan surrounded by the dim emergency lights, his green skin shining with perspiration.

  'Meteor,' he croaked. 'It played hob with our power distributors. It's all going into acceleration. The lights, heating units and radio are all out of commission, while the ventilators are just barely limping.' He added, 'And Section Four is punctured.'

  Tubal gazed about him wildly. 'Idiot! Why didn't you keep your eye on the mass indicator?'

  'I did, you overgrown lump of putty,' howled Sefan, 'but it never registered! It - never - registered! Isn't that just what you'd expect from a second-hand jalopy, rented for two hundred credits? It went through the screen as if it were empty ether.'

  'Shut up!' Tubal flung open the suit-compartments and groaned. 'They're all Arcturian models. I should have checked up. Can you handle one of these, Sefan?'

  'Maybe.' The Vegan scratched a doubtful ear.

  In five minutes, Tubal swung into the lock and Sefan, stumbling awkwardly, followed after. It was half an hour before they returned.

  Tubal removed his head-piece. 'Curtains!'

  Wri Forase gasped. 'You mean - we're through?'

  The Arcturian shook his head. 'We can fix it, but it will take time. The radio is ruined for good, so we can't get help.'

  'Get help!' Forase looked shocked. 'That's all we need. How would we explain being inside the Spican system? We might as well commit suicide as send out radio calls. As long as we can get back without help, we're safe. Missing a few more classes won't hurt us too much.'

  Sefan's voice broke in dully. 'But what about those panicky Earthmen back on Spica Four?'

  Forase's mouth opened, but he didn't say a word. It closed again, and if ever a Humanoid looked sick, Forase was that Humanoid.

  That was only the beginning.

  It took a day and a half to unscramble the space jalopy's power lines. It took two more days to decelerate to safe turning point. It took four days to return to Spica IV. Total - eight days.

  When the ship hovered once more over the place where they had marooned the Earthmen, it was midmorning, and the Tubal's face as he surveyed the area through the televisor was a study in length. Shortly he broke a silence that had long since become sticky.

  'I guess we've made every boner we could possibly have made. We landed them right outside a native village. There's no sign of the Earthmen.'

  Sefan shook his head dolefully. 'This is a bad business.'

  Tubal buried his head in his long arms clear down to the elbows.

  'That's the finish. If they didn't scare themselves to death, the natives got them. Violating prohibited solar systems is bad enough - but it's just plain murder now, I guess.'

  'What we've got to do,' said Sefan, 'is to get down there and find out if there are any
still alive. We owe them that much. After that-'

  He swallowed. Forase finished in a whisper.

  'After that, it's expulsion from the U., psycho-revision - and manual labor for life.'

  'Forget it!' barked Tubal. 'We'll face that when we have to.'

  Slowly, very slowly, the ship circled downward and came to rest on the rocky clearing where, eight days previously, ten Earthmen had been left stranded.

  'How do we handle these natives?" Tubal turned to Forase with raised eyebrow ridges (there was no hair on them, of course), 'Come on, son, give with some sub-Humanoid psychology. There are only three of us and I don't want any trouble.'

  Forase shrugged and his fuzzy face wrinkled in perplexity. 'I've just been thinking about that, Tubal. I don't know any.'

  'What!' exploded Sefan and Tubal in twin shouts.

  'No one does,' added the Denebian hurriedly. 'It's a fact. After all, we don't let sub-Humanoids into the Federation till they're fully civilized, and we quarantine them until then. Do you suppose we have much opportunity to study their psychology?'

  The Arcturian seated himself heavily. 'This gets better and better. Think, Fuzzy-face, will you? Suggest something!'

  Forase scratched his head. 'Well - uh - the best we can do is to treat them like normal Humanoids. If we approach slowly, palms spread out, make no sudden movements and keep calm, we ought to get along. Now, remember, I'm saying we ought to. I can't be certain about this.'

  'Let's go, and damnation with certainty,' urged Sefan impatiently. 'It doesn't matter much, anyway. If I get knocked off here, I don't have to go back home.' His face took on a hunted look. 'When I think of what my family is going to say -'

  They emerged from the ship and sniffed the atmosphere of Spica's fourth planet. The sun was at meridian, and loomed overhead like a large orange basketball. Off in the woods, a bird called once in a creaky caw. Utter silence descended.

  'Hmph!' said Tubal, arms akimbo.

  'It's enough to make you feel sleepy. No signs of life at all. Now, which way is the village?'

  There was a three-way dispute about this, but it didn't last long. The Arcturian first, the other two tagging along, they strode down the slope and toward the straggling forest.

  A hundred feet inside, the trees came alive, as a wave of natives dropped noiselessly from the overhanging branches. Wri Forase went under at the very first of the avalanche. Bill Sefan stumbled, stood his ground momentarily, then went over backward with a grunt.

  Only huge Myron Tubal was left standing. Legs straddled wide, and whooping hoarsely, he laid about right and left. The attacking natives hit him and bounced off like drops of water from a whirling flywheel. Modeling his defense on the principle of the windmill, he backed his way against a tree.

  Here he made a mistake. On the lowest branch of that tree squatted a native at once more cautious and more brainy than his fellows. Tubal had already noticed that the natives were equipped with stout, muscular tails, and had made a mental note of the fact. Of all the races in the Galaxy, only one other, Homo Gamma Cepheus, possessed tails. What he didn't notice, however, was that these tails were prehensile.

  This he found out almost immediately, for the native in the branch above his head looped his tail downward, flashed it about Tubal's neck and contracted it.

  The Arcturian threshed wildly in agony, and the tailed attacker was jerked from his tree. Suspended head-first and whirled about in huge sweeps, the native nevertheless maintained his hold and tightened that tail-grip steadily.

  The world blacked out. Tubal was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Tubal came to slowly, unpleasantly aware of the stinging stiffness of his neck. He tried vainly to rub that stiffness, and it took a few seconds to realize that he was tied tightly. The fact startled him into alertness. He became aware, first, that he was lying on his stomach; second, of the horrible din about him; third, of Sefan and Forase bundled up next to him - and last, that he could not break his bonds.

  'Hey, Sefan, Forase! Can you hear me?'

  It was Sefan that answered joyfully. 'You old Draconian goat! We thought you were out for good.'

  'I don't die so easy,' grunted the Arcturian 'Where are we?'

  There was a short pause.

  'In the native village, I imagine,' Wri Forase said dully. 'Did you ever hear such a noise? The drum hasn't stopped a minute since they dumped us here.'

  'Have you see anything of -'

  Hands were upon Tubal, and he felt himself whirled about. He was in a sitting posture now and his neck hurt worse than ever. Ramshackle huts of thatch and green logs gleamed in the early afternoon sun. In a circle about them, watching in silence, were dark-skinned, long-tailed natives. There must have been hundreds, all wearing feathered head-dresses and carrying short, wickedly barbed spears.

  Their eyes were upon the row of figures that squatted mysteriously in the foreground, and upon these Tubal turned his angry glare. It was plain that they were the leaders of the tribe. Dressed in gaudy, fringed robes of ill-tamed skins, they added further to their barbaric impressiveness by wearing tall wooden masks painted into caricatures of the human face.

  With measured steps, the masked horror nearest the Human-oids approached.

  'Hello,' it said, and the mask lifted up and off. 'Back so soon?'

  For quite a long while, Tubal and Sefan said absolutely nothing, while Wri Forase went into a protracted fit of coughing.

  Finally, Tubal drew a long breath. 'You're one of the Earth-men, aren't you?'

  'That's right. I'm Al Williams. Just call me Al.'

  'They haven't killed you yet?'

  Williams smiled happily. 'They haven't killed any of us. Quite the contrary. Gentlemen,' he bowed extravagantly, 'meet the new tribal - er - gods.'

  'The new tribal what?' gasped Forase. He was still coughing.

  '- er - gods. Sorry, but I don't know the Galactic word for a god.'

  'What do you "gods" represent?'

  'We're sort of supernatural entities - objects to be worshipped. Don't you get it?'

  The Humanoids stared unhappily.

  'Yes, indeed,' Williams grinned, 'we're persons of great power.'

  'What are you talking about?' exclaimed Tubal indignantly. 'Why should they think you were of great power? You Earth people are below average physically - well below!'

  'It's the psychology of the thing,' explained Williams. 'If they see us landing in a large, gleaming vehicle that travels mysteriously through the air, and then takes off in a burst of rocket-flame - they're bound to consider us supernatural. That's elementary barbaric psychology.'

  Forase's eyes seemed on the point of dropping out as Williams continued.

  'Incidentally, what detained you? We figure it was all a hazing of some sort, and it was, wasn't it?'

  'Say,' broke in Sefan, 'I think you're feeding us a lot of bull! If they thought you people were gods, why didn't they think we were? We had the ship, too, and -'

  'That,' said Williams, 'is where we started to interfere. We explained - via pictures and sign language - that you people were devils. When you finally came back - and say, were we glad to see that ship coming down - they knew what to do.'

  'What,' asked Forase, with a liberal dash of awe in his voice, 'are "devils"?'

  Williams sighed. 'Don't you Galaxy people know anything? Tubal moved his aching neck slowly. 'How about letting us up now?' he rumbled. 'I've got a crick in my neck.'

  'What's your hurry? After all, you were brought here to be sacrificed in our honor.'

  'Sacrificed!'

  'Sure. You're to be carved up with knives.'

  There was a horror-laden silence. 'Don't give us any of that comet-gas!' Tubal managed to grind out at last. 'We're not Earthmen who get panicky or scared, you know.'

  'Oh, we know that! I wouldn't fool you for the world. But simple ordinary savage psychology always goes for a little human sacrifice, and-'

  Sefan writhed against his bonds and tried to thr
ow himself in a rage at Forase.

  'I thought you said no one knew any sub-Humanoid psychology! Trying to alibi your ignorance, weren't you, you shriveled, fuzz-covered, pop-eyed son of a half-breed Vegan lizard! A fine mess we're in now!'

  Forase shrank away. 'Now, wait! Just -'

  Williams decided the joke had gone far enough.

  'Take it easy,' he soothed. 'Your clever hazing blew up right in your faces - it blew up beautifully - but we're not going to carry it too far. I guess we've had enough fun out of you fellows. Sweeney is with the native chief now, explaining that we're leaving and taking you three with us. Frankly, I'll be glad to get going - Wait a while, Sweeney's calling me.'

  When Williams returned two seconds later, his expression was peculiar, having turned a bit greenish. In fact, he got greener by the second.

  'It looks,' he gulped throatily, 'as if our counter-haze has blow up in our faces. The native chief insists on the sacrifice!'

  Silence brooded, while the three Humanoids thought over the state of affairs. For moments, none of them could say a word.

  'I've told Sweeney,' Williams added, glumly, 'to go back and tell the chief, that if the doesn't do as we say, something terrible is going to happen to his tribe. But it's pure bluff and he may not fall for it. Uh, - I'm sorry, fellows. I guess we went too far. If it looks really bad, we'll cut you loose and join in the fight.'

  'Cut us loose now,' growled Tubal, his blood running cold. 'Let's get this over with!'

  'Wait!' cried Forase frantically. 'Let the Earthmen try some of his psychology. Go ahead, Earthman. Think hard!'

  Williams thought until his brain began to hurt.

  'You see,' he said weakly, 'we've lost some of our godlike prestige, ever since we were unable to cure the chief's wife. She died yesterday.' He nodded abstractedly to himself. 'What we need is an impressive miracle. Er - have you fellows anything in your pockets?'

  He knelt beside them and began searching. Wri Forase had a stylus, a pocket-pad, a thin-toothed comb, some anti-itch powder, a sheaf of credits and a few odds and ends. Sefan had a collection of similar nondescript material.

  It was from Tubal's hip pocket that Williams withdrew a small black gunlike object with a huge hand-grip and a short barrel.