by Anthology
And every one of the crazy galoots was plumb naked.
And so was he! He'd just realized it.
It had all happened so quietly that that fool bird up in the tree was still singing. Hadn't missed a note. Funny how a thing like that stood out above all the rest. Still singing.
Jed got up on his knees, scrambled to his feet, and dodged behind a tree. Fine lot of authority he'd have as village mayor if anybody saw him standing out in his front yard naked as a jay bird.
The reminder of his responsibility caused him to sweep his eyes beyond the sight of the village to where their spaceship should be in its hangar, always ready for instant escape if anything should go wrong, real wrong, that is. This ship wasn't there. The hangar wasn't there. Nothing.
For a little bit he thought he must be looking in the wrong direction. He'd got turned around or something in the confusion, because there was a grove of trees where the hangar ought to be. And it was the same grove they'd cleared away over two years ago. He recognized one of the trees because it had a peculiar shape.
And he remembered feeding the trunk of that very tree into the power saw for lumber. It was twisted and gnarled, and Martha had asked him to save the wood for furniture because it was real pretty. That was the tree, there on the edge of the grove.
He felt drunk, in a daze. He turned the other direction and looked out where the experimental fields ought to be. They'd cleared that whole area of timber and brush because it was a good, flat land. Only they hadn't, because that was virgin forest, too.
Maybe he'd gone insane? He felt a flood of relief. Sure, that was it. He'd just gone insane, that was all. Everything else was all right.
"The calves have got loose to the cows and they're going to take all the milk, Jed."
He turned around and looked at Martha. If he was crazy, so was she. Her eyes showed it. Her words showed it, at a time like this to be worrying about them fool calves getting out. It took all the comfort away from him. Her face was white, her eyes were dazed.
"You got some dirt on your cheek, Martha," he heard himself saying. "And for Pete's sake, woman, put on some clothes. The committee's coming over, and you running around like that!"
He thought he had the solution then. He'd fallen asleep in the hammock after all, while he was waiting for the committee, and he was dreaming. Of course, he ought to have known all along. This was just the way things happened in a dream--even him and Martha running around naked. He even chuckled to himself. He must be a pretty moral kind of fellow after all, because even in a dream it was his own wife that was next to him there, naked--not some other man's.
The fool things a man can dream! Might as well make the most of it. He took her into his arms, and she clung to him.
Must have got the sheet tangled around his throat to choke him, and he was dreaming it was her arms. But there hadn't been any sheet in the hammock when he went to sleep.
And he wasn't dreaming.
"What's happened, Jed?" she whispered. Even her whisper was shaking with fear, and her arms were wound around his neck so tight now he could hardly breathe.
"Now, now, Martha," he cautioned. "Don't you go getting hysterical."
"What has happened?" she asked again.
"I don't know," he said. They were both talking in low tones.
"It's some kind of a miracle," she whispered.
"Now there's a woman's thinking for you," he chided her fondly, joshing her a little. "Nothing of the sort. It's just plain ... Well any scientist would tell you that ..." And then he stopped. He was pretty sure the frameworks of science, as he knew them, wouldn't be able to tell you.
He guessed that while they stood there clinging to one another, they both went a little nuts. It was sort of like drowning, he guessed. You'd have the feeling of sinking down and down, and there'd be nothing but blinding, swirling chaos all around you. Then you'd kind of come to for a minute, and there'd be the trees, the sky, the farm animals, the sea in the distance.
You'd look down toward the village, and make a mental note, almost absently, that people were getting to their feet now, some of them clinging together the way you and Martha were--and then back down into mental chaos you'd go again.
That went on several times, he remembered, before he'd begun to snap out of it a little.
"But the funniest thing of all," Jed said, and looked at Cal quickly, penetratingly. "I had the feeling all the time that we were being watched!"
Cal said nothing.
"You know," Jed explained. "Like catching an animal in a trap? Then watching it, to see what it will do?"
Cal nodded, without speaking.
"It was just another crazy thought, I guess," Jed said deprecatingly. "Plumb crazy."
But, clearly, he didn't believe it was.
14
At E.H.Q. on Earth communication had been working fine. The operator sat back and listened with trained ear alert for flaw or fade. A glance at the adjacent recording instrument told him it was taking down everything said--had been for hours.
Nice deal about those naked colonists. Maybe the astronavigator on the E cruiser had been right. Maybe they'd all just gone back to nature, all the way back.
He wondered if there were any pretty young female colonists. And how far did that word experimental take you? Some experiment! He realized his interest was running deeper than that of a detached technician's concern for well-operated equipment--mechanical, that is. Well, let it. Live a little once in a while. At least dream.
The department supervisor hovered near the back of the operator's chair, breathing down his neck. He gnawed at the knuckles of his hand, and hoped nothing would go wrong this time. That astronavigator, Louie LeBeau, was probably right. Those colonists had turned nudist, and were afraid to report what they'd done back to Earth!
Well!
He looked around guiltily, wondering if he'd exclaimed it aloud. He decided he hadn't.
If he were out there, instead of that E, he'd make them put their clothes back on, on the double. Getting everything all upset, causing all this trouble, getting everybody excited, all of E.H.Q. aroused, taking up the time of an E--just because they wanted to frolic around without any clothes on!
If they were going to act like irresponsible children, they should be spanked like irresponsible children.
He wondered if there were any young pretty female colonists who ought to be spanked.
"... E Gray has just stepped off the landing ramp," the pilot out there was reporting. "He is walking toward the three colonists. Now they have started walking toward him. They do not seem hostile. They seem glad to see us. My crew and I are still at our stations, ready for ..."
Silence.
The set simply didn't register anything more except that faint sigh of uncompleted force fields in space.
"What now? What now?" the supervisor pushed the operator to one side, and barely restrained the impulse to cuff him on the side of the head. "Now what did you do? Why did you meddle with it when it was coming in so clear and strong? What's happened?"
"I didn't do anything. I didn't meddle with it. I don't know what's happened," the operator flared back. "The signal just stopped. That's all."
There was an imperative flashing of the signal light on the line that had been rigged to give direct connection of the running report to Hayes's office. The operator hesitated, then flipped open the key, as if he were touching a rattlesnake.
"What's happened down there?" Hayes complained abruptly, without diplomatic softness. "This is a very crucial point!"
"I don't know what happened. I don't know," the supervisor quarreled back. "The signal just stopped coming. We weren't doing anything to the equipment."
He looked up at the continuously changing tri-di star map which made the far wall appear to be a view into a miniature universe. "There's no reason for an occlusion," he said to Hayes. "And the set here is alive. It must be at the other end."
He turned to the operator, and said loudly, "Bounce
a beam on Eden's surface. Just see if any booster has gone out between here and there." Most of it was making a show of efficiency for Hayes.
"Here we go again," the operator mumbled to himself, and pressed down a key. The returning pips showed the signal was getting through to Eden.
"Pilot Lynwood! Pilot Lynwood!" the supervisor nagged into the mike. "Speak up! Do you hear me?"
The operator sighed deeply. His panel partner grimaced something halfway between a grin and a sneer of disgust.
"They don't answer," the supervisor said at last to Hayes. "It's the same as before."
"Here we go again," Hayes groaned, but not only to himself. "All right," he said wearily, after a moment's hesitation. "Keep the channel open. Keep trying to contact them. Let me know if signal resumes."
But he already felt the conviction that it would do no good. It was too much of the same pattern as before. What could have happened?
There'd have to be another review, he supposed. A longer and more detailed one. There must be, had to be, something they'd overlooked in the first one. Had he been right in freezing out so many who wanted to speculate in that first one? But in the interests of time!
The scientists would grumble, even worse than before, because now each one of them would be worried lest it was his own field of knowledge that had failed. Hunting a needle in a haystack was easy. At least you knew what a needle looked like, could recognize it when you saw it.
It would probably all end with nothing solved. E McGinnis would go out in a rescue ship. He'd already told E Gray that he would be available in an emergency, and this looked like an emergency. And that would leave E.H.Q. without a single E in residence.
Why didn't General Administration get busy and qualify more E's? It shouldn't be so difficult as all that to teach people to think! There was something mighty wrong with the way kids were brought up if only one in a million could still think by the time he was grown. Less than one in a million could qualify as an E.
A boy had to be a natural rebel to start with, because if he believed what people said he wouldn't get anywhere, no farther than the people who said it. And if he didn't believe what they told him, they punished him, outcast him, whipped him, violenced him into submission if they could. If they couldn't they shut him up in a prison, labeled him dangerous to society.
It was a wonder that any were able to walk the thin line between rebelliousness and delinquency! And if a few were able, they were still of no use unless they learned what science had to offer as a base. Ah, there was the rub. How to keep alive the curiosity, the inquisitiveness, the skepticism; and at the same time teach him the basics he must have for constructive thought? For if he were not beaten into submission by the punitive methods of society, he was persuaded into it by his teachers, who were ever so sure of their facts and proofs.
Now you take this Eden problem. Probably wouldn't be tough at all if a guy could just think. But what could have happened?
He understood there was an observer ship out there, sent out by the attorney general's office. Why wasn't it reporting? Probably was--to the attorney general's office. Fine lot of good E.H.Q. would get out of that. He was no fool. He knew the attorney general would gladly sacrifice the whole lot of colonists, if it would give him a weapon to fight E.H.Q.
Why hadn't E.H.Q. sent along an observer ship also? These cocky E's! Probably hadn't thought it necessary. Always ready to assume they could handle the situation by themselves!
He wondered if he dared voice that criticism during the review, get it on record. He thought about it, and decided in favor of playing it safe. Maybe that was the trouble. Everybody was too concerned with his own skin, too willing to play it safe. But an employee of E.H.Q. to make a public criticism of an E! No, better play it safe.
He sighed heavily, and asked the operator to please see if E McGinnis would talk to him.
He suspected that E McGinnis would just stand off from the planet and wait for E Gray to get in touch. Nothing seemed to have happened while E Gray's cruiser was out in space. It must be something connected with landing, being on the surface of the planet.
But E Gray could signal to E McGinnis. Those pesky colonists! Why hadn't they signaled to E Gray? Why hadn't they come out of their bushes and signaled the danger? Surely they must know what it was. They were alive and healthy, three of them at least. Why hadn't they used their stupid heads?
But then, how could they have known E Gray was out in space, or even in their stratosphere? Well, they had telescopes, didn't they? Or did they? Sure they did. No matter what happened to the buildings, they must have all sorts of equipment hidden under the trees, or in caves.
Why hadn't E Gray been more cautious about landing? Rushing in there like a green school kid, without even rudimentary precautions. That's what came from sending out a boy to do a man's job. Maybe the attorney general's office had been right in its attempt to prevent a Junior from going. What was the use of all that E training, if the boy didn't have enough sense ...
At least E McGinnis would have enough sense to stand off, not go rushing in blindly. Grand old man, E McGinnis. Now there was a real product of E science, the veritable dean of the E's.
E Gray would probably have enough sense to know he'd be followed by a rescue ship as soon as something went wrong. And between an E out in space and another on the ground, they shouldn't have any trouble in working it out. He wondered if he should suggest that to E McGinnis as soon as the operator located him. Even if the grand, lovable old man thought of it for himself, he'd compliment Hayes for thinking it, reasoning it all out!
The intercom operator came on his line.
"Sir," she said, and cleared her throat. He could hear her gulp. Her voice was very small, thin. "Sir," she began again. "I contacted E McGinnis. He said some things. He told me to tell you exactly what he said, word for word. I took it down in shorthand, so I could."
"Well! Well!" he exclaimed impatiently. His brusqueness seemed to give her courage.
"Sir," she said a little stronger. "E McGinnis won't talk to you. He says the foggy, rambling way that review was conducted was a disgrace. He says why don't you get on with what you have to do instead of bothering people. He says not to waste any more of his time unless you can come up with something he doesn't already know. He says he doubts you'd know what that was even if it hit you in the face. He said to tell you the exact words, so I took it down in shorthand, so I could. Because--he said to."
She was all but wailing, as she finished.
"All right," Hayes sighed tiredly. Senile old devil! No wonder things were going to pot, if this was a sample of E training. "Send me your notes so I can follow them carefully," he told the operator.
"So you can tear them up before they get spread all over the joint," she mumbled, but she had already thrown the key so he couldn't hear her.
Resignedly, because he knew he was going to catch it from the scientists just as bad, because he was feeling very sorry for himself that he must always be in the middle of things, he began to arouse the scientists.
He felt so sorry for himself that he dropped his tentative plan to have the midgit-idgit check the personal attributes of the individual colonists out there--to see if some of them might be young, pretty, female--34-24-34.
As if the idea were now red hot, he dropped the plan of telling General Administration that, since Eden was in his sector, perhaps he should go out there, personally.
15
The observer ship, with an assistant attorney general aboard was, indeed, reporting directly to the attorney general's office--to Gunderson in person. On their own secret channel, of course. Had to be secret. All right for them to know, because they were very special persons, but the people should not be told.
"Gray is coming out of the ship," the assistant was saying. "He is starting down the ramp. He is alone. He has no apparent weapons. Making a grandstand play of it. Far as we can tell, the crew isn't covering him. Now he is at the foot of the ramp. The three unclo
thed men are moving toward him, spread out a little, crouching, obviously going to attack. The stupid fool doesn't seem to realize it. He's ...
"Wait a minute. I don't believe it...."
"Well, what?" Gunderson exploded from his end.
"Sir," the assistant gulped, "the ship disappeared, just like that."
"Nonsense!"
"No, sir. It did. The three crewmen are sprawled on the ground. Now two of them are getting up. There isn't a sign of the ship, the ramp, or anything."
"Can't be. Has to be around somewhere."
"No, sir. Isn't. Sorry to contradict you, sir. It isn't anywhere."
"They probably set controls to send the ship back into space, and jumped out before it took off. Search space. You'll find it. Ships don't just disappear."
"I'll search, of course. But this ship just disappeared."
"All right, what's going on? What else?"
"They're naked. Naked as the day they were born. All four of them. Same as the colonists."
"Keep track of where they put their clothes. Photograph it. Get the evidence."
"Sir, their clothes disappeared right off their bodies. First they were fully dressed, Gray was, anyhow. Maybe the crew could have undressed inside the ship, but Gray was fully dressed--and then he wasn't. Just like that."
"Hm-m."
"Shall I land, sir? Place them under arrest?"
"Wait a minute. Let's think of a good charge. Something to stand up in court. Have to make this airtight right from the beginning in case some stupid judge decides to make a show of independence."
"Indecent exposure, sir? Lewd public behavior?"
"Pretty weak, in view of what's involved."
"A suggestion, sir. Maybe a morals charge is the most effective weapon we could have. Attack the E structure on the grounds of bad scientific judgment, and every egghead on Earth will feel compelled to rise up in their defense--except, of course, those employed by the government. But on a morals charge there wouldn't be one voice raised--fear of being tarred with the same brush. Except maybe a few radicals that are already discredited. Any other charge might get public sentiment aroused against us, but a morals charge--think of the backing we'd get from the women's clubs, P.T.A., all the pressure groups determined to dictate to the rest of the world how it should behave. It's worked for hundreds of years, sir. Never fails."