Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley

by Robert Sheckley

  “Haven’t you got any spotters?” he asked, with the right expression of amazement.

  “No.” She looked at him, full in the face, and Frelaine saw something he hadn’t noticed before.

  She was very lovely.

  “I am a bad, bad girl,” she said lightly. “I got the idea I’d like to commit a murder, so I signed for ECB. Then—I couldn’t do it.”

  Frelaine shook his head, sympathizing with her.

  “But I’m still in, of course. Even if I didn’t shoot, I still have to be a Victim.”

  “But why don’t you hire some spotters?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t kill anyone,” she said. “I just couldn’t. I don’t even have a gun.”

  “You’ve got a lot of courage,” Frelaine said, “coming out in the open this way.” Secretly, he was amazed at her stupidity.

  “What can I do?” she asked listlessly. “You can’t hide from a Hunter. Not a real one. And I don’t have enough money to make a good disappearance.”

  “Since it’s in your own defense, I should think—” Frelaine began, but she interrupted.

  “No. I’ve made up my mind on that. This whole thing is wrong, the whole system. When I had my Victim in the sights—when I saw how easily I could—I could—”

  She pulled herself together quickly.

  “Oh, let’s forget it,” she said and smiled.

  Frelaine found her smile dazzling.

  After that, they talked of other things. Frelaine told her of his business, and she told him about New York. She was twenty-two, an unsuccessful actress.

  They had supper together. When she accepted Frelaine’s invitation to go to the Gladiatorials, he felt absurdly elated.

  He called a cab—he seemed to be spending his entire time in New York in cabs—and opened the door for her. She started in. Frelaine hesitated. He could have pumped a shot into her at that moment. It would have been very easy.

  But he held back. Just for the moment, he told himself.

  The Gladiatorials were about the same as those held anywhere else, except that the talent was a little better. There were the usual historical events, swordsmen and netmen, duels with saber and foil.

  Most of these, naturally, were fought to the death.

  Then bull fighting, lion fighting, and rhino fighting, followed by the more modern events. Fights from behind barricades with bow and arrow. Dueling on a high wire.

  The evening passed pleasantly.

  Frelaine escorted the girl home, the palms of his hands sticky with sweat. He had never found a woman he liked better. And yet she was his legitimate kill.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do.

  She invited him in and they sat together on the couch. The girl lighted a cigarette for herself with a large lighter, then settled back.

  “Are you leaving soon?” she asked him.

  “I suppose so,” Frelaine said. “The convention is only lasting another day.”

  She was silent for a moment. “I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

  They were quiet for a while. Then Janet went to fix him a drink. Frelaine eyed her retreating back. Now was the time. He placed his hand near the button.

  But the moment had passed for him, irrevocably. He wasn’t going to kill her. You don’t kill the girl you love.

  The realization that he loved her was shocking. He’d come to kill, not to find a wife.

  She came back with the drink and sat down opposite him, staring at emptiness.

  “Janet,” he said. “I love you.”

  She sat, just looking at him. There were tears in her eyes.

  “You can’t,” she protested. “I’m a Victim. I won’t live long enough to—”

  “You won’t be killed. I’m your Hunter.”

  She stared at him a moment, then laughed uncertainly.

  “Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’m going to marry you.”

  Suddenly she was in his arms.

  “Oh, Lord!” she gasped. “The waiting—I’ve been so frightened—”

  “It’s all over,” he told her. “Think what a story it’ll make for our kids. How I came to murder you and left marrying you.”

  She kissed him, then sat back and lighted another cigarette.

  “Let’s start packing,” Frelaine said. “I want—”

  “Wait,” Janet interrupted. “You haven’t asked if I love you.”

  “What?”

  She was still smiling, and the cigarette lighter was pointed at him. In the bottom of it was a black hole. A hole just large enough for a .38 caliber bullet.

  “Don’t kid around,” he objected, getting to his feet.

  “I’m not being funny, darling,” she said.

  In a fraction of a second, Frelaine had time to wonder how he could ever have thought she was not much over twenty. Looking at her now—really looking at her—he knew she couldn’t be much less than thirty. Every minute of her strained, tense existence showed on her face.

  “I don’t love you, Stanton,” she said very softly, the cigarette lighter poised.

  Frelaine struggled for breath. One part of him was able to realize detachedly what a marvelous actress she really was. She must have known all along.

  Frelaine pushed the button, and the gun was in his hand, cocked and ready.

  The blow that struck him in the chest knocked him over a coffee table. The gun fell out of his hand. Gasping, half-conscious, he watched her take careful aim for the coup de grace.

  “Now I can join the Tens,” he heard her say elatedly as she squeezed the trigger.

  SHAPE

  PID THE pilot slowed the ship almost to a standstill. He peered anxiously at the green planet below.

  Even without instruments, there was no mistaking it. Third from its sun, it was the only planet in this system capable of sustaining life. Peacefully it swam through its gauze of clouds.

  It looked very innocent. And yet, something on this expedition had claimed the lives of every expedition the Glom had sent.

  Pid hesitated a moment, before starting irrevocably down. He and his two crewmen were as ready now as they would ever be. Their compact Displacers were stored in body pouches, inactive but ready.

  Pid wanted to say something to his crew, but wasn’t sure how to put it.

  The crew waited. Ilg the Radioman had sent the final message to the Glom planet. Ger the Detector read sixteen dials at once, and reported, “No sign of alien activity.” His body surfaces flowed carelessly.

  Pid noticed the flow, and knew what he had to say. Ever since they had left Glom, Shape-discipline had been disgustingly lax. The Invasion Chief had warned him; but still, he had to do something about it. It was his duty, since lower castes such as Radiomen and Detectors were notoriously prone to Shapelessness.

  “A lot of hopes are resting on this expedition,” he began slowly. “We’re a long way from home now.”

  Ger the Detector nodded. Ilg the Radioman flowed out of his prescribed shape and molded himself comfortably to a wall.

  “However,” Pid said sternly, “Distance is no excuse for promiscuous Shapelessness.”

  Ilg flowed hastily back into proper Radioman’s Shape.

  “Exotic shapes will undoubtedly be called for,” Pid went on. “And for that we have a special dispensation. But remember—any shape not assumed strictly in the line of duty is a device of The Shapeless One!”

  Ger’s body surfaces abruptly stopped flowing.

  “That’s all,” Pid said, and flowed into his controls. The ship started down, so smoothly coordinated that Pid felt a glow of pride.

  They were good workers, he decided. He just couldn’t expect them to be as Shape-conscious as a high-caste Pilot. Even the Invasion Chief had told him that.

  “Pid,” the Invasion Chief had said at their last interview, “We need this planet desperately.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pid had said, standing at full attention, never quivering
from Optimum Pilot’s Shape.

  “One of you,” the Chief said heavily, “must get through and set up a Displacer near an atomic power source. The army will be standing by at this end, ready to step through.”

  “We’ll do it, sir,” Pid said.

  “This expedition has to succeed,” the Chief said, and his features blurred momentarily from sheer fatigue. “In strictest confidence, there’s considerable unrest on Glom. The miner caste is on strike, for instance. They want a new Digging Shape. Say the old one is inefficient.”

  Pid looked properly indignant. The Mining Shape had been set down by the ancients fifty thousand years ago, together with the rest of the basic shapes. And now these upstarts wanted to change it!

  “That’s not all,” the Chief told him. “We’ve uncovered a new Cult of Shapelessness. Picked up almost eight thousand Glom, and I don’t know how many more we missed.”

  Pid knew that Shapelessness was a lure of The Shapeless One, the greatest evil that the Glom mind conceived of. But how, he wondered, did Glom fall for His lures?

  The Chief guessed his question. “Pid,” he said, “I suppose it’s difficult for you to understand. Do you enjoy Piloting?”

  “Yes sir,” Pid said simply. Enjoy Piloting! It was his entire life! Without a ship, he was nothing.

  “Not all Glom feel that way,” the Chief said. “I don’t understand it either. All my ancestors have been Invasion Chiefs, back to the beginning of time. So of course I want to be an Invasion Chief. It’s only natural, as well as lawful. But the lower castes don’t feel that way.” He shook his body sadly.

  “I’ve told you this for a reason,” the Chief went on. “We Glom need more room. This unrest is caused purely by crowding. All our psychologists say so. Another planet to expand into will cure everything. So we’re counting on you, Pid.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pid said, with a glow of pride.

  The Chief rose to end the interview. Then he changed his mind and sat down again.

  “You’ll have to watch your crew,” he said. “They’re loyal, no doubt, but low-caste. And you know the lower castes.”

  Pid did indeed.

  “Ger, your Detector, is suspected of harboring Alterationist tendencies. He was once fined for assuming a quasi-Hunter shape. Ilg has never had any definite charge brought against him. But I hear that he remains immobile for suspiciously long periods of time. Possibly, he fancies himself a Thinker.”

  “But, sir,” Pid protested, “If they are even slightly tainted with Alterationism or Shapelessness, why send them on this expedition?”

  The Chief hesitated before answering. “There are plenty of Glom I could trust,” he said slowly. “But those two have certain qualities of resourcefulness and imagination that will be needed on this expedition.” He sighed. “I really don’t understand why those qualities are usually linked with Shapelessness.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pid said.

  “Just watch them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pid said again, and saluted, realizing that the interview was at an end. In his body pouch he felt the dormant Displacer, ready to transform the enemy’s power source into a bridge across space for the Glom hordes.

  “Good luck,” the Chief said. “I’m sure you’ll need it.”

  The ship dropped silently toward the surface of the enemy planet. Ger the Detector analyzed the clouds below, and fed data into the Camouflage Unit. The Unit went to work. Soon the ship looked, to all outward appearances, like a cirrus formation.

  Pid allowed the ship to drift slowly toward the surface of the mystery planet. He was in Optimum Pilot’s Shape now, the most efficient of the four shapes alloted to the Pilot Caste. Blind, deaf, and dumb, an extension of his controls, all his attention was directed toward matching the velocities of the high-flying clouds, staying among them, becoming a part of them.

  Ger remained rigidly in one of the two shapes alloted to Detectors. He fed data into the Camouflage Unit, and the descending ship slowly altered into an alto-cumulus.

  There was no sign of activity from the enemy planet.

  Ilg located an atomic power source, and fed the data to Pid. The Pilot altered course. He had reached the lowest level of clouds, barely a mile above the surface of the planet. Now his ship looked like a fat, fleecy cumulus.

  And still there was no sign of alarm. The unknown fate that had overtaken twenty previous expeditions still had not showed itself.

  Dusk crept across the face of the planet as Pid maneuvered near the atomic power installation. He avoided the surrounding homes and hovered over a clump of woods.

  Darkness fell, and the green planet’s lone moon was veiled in clouds.

  One cloud floated lower.

  And landed.

  “Quick, everyone out!” Pid shouted, detaching himself from the ship’s controls. He assumed the Pilot’s Shape best suited for running, and raced out of the hatch. Ger and Ilg hurried after him. They stopped fifty yards from the ship, and waited.

  Inside the ship a circuit closed. There was a silent shudder, and the ship began to melt. Plastic dissolved, metal crumpled. Soon the ship was a great pile of junk, and still the process went on. Big fragments broke into smaller fragments, and split, and split again.

  Pid felt suddenly helpless, watching his ship scuttle itself. He was a Pilot, of the Pilot Caste. His father had been a Pilot, and his father before him, stretching back to the hazy past when the Glom had first constructed ships. He had spent his entire childhood around ships, his entire manhood flying them.

  Now, shipless, he was naked in an alien world.

  In a few minutes there was only a mound of dust to show where the ship had been. The night wind scattered it through the forest. And then there was nothing at all.

  They waited. Nothing happened. The wind sighed and the trees creaked. Squirrels chirped, and birds stirred in their nests.

  An acorn fell to the ground.

  Pid heaved a sigh of relief and sat down. The twenty-first Glom expedition had landed safely.

  There was nothing to be done until morning, so Pid began to make plans. They had landed as close to the atomic power installation as they dared. Now they would have to get closer. Somehow, one of them had to get very near the reactor room, in order to activate the Displacer.

  Difficult. But Pid felt certain of success. After all, the Glom were strong on ingenuity.

  Strong on ingenuity, he thought bitterly, but terribly short of radioactives. That was another reason why this expedition was so important. There was little radioactive fuel left, on any of the Glom worlds.

  Ages ago, the Glom had spent their store of radioactives spreading throughout their neighbor worlds, occupying the ones that they could live on. Colonization barely kept up with the mounting birthrate. New worlds were constantly needed.

  This particular world, discovered in a scouting expedition, was needed. It suited the Glom perfectly. But it was too far away. They didn’t have enough fuel to mount a conquering space fleet.

  Luckily, there was another way. A better way.

  Over the centuries, the Glom scientists had developed the Displacer. A triumph of Identity Engineering, the Displacer allowed mass to be moved instantaneously between any two linked points.

  One end was set up at Glom’s sole atomic energy plant. The other end had to be placed in proximity to another atomic power source, and activated. Diverted power then flowed through both ends, was modified, and modified again.

  Then, through the miracle of Identity Engineering, the Glom could step through from planet to planet; or pour through in a great, overwhelming wave.

  It was quite simple. But twenty expeditions had failed to set up the Earth-end Displacer.

  What had happened to them was not known.

  For no Glom ship had ever returned to tell.

  Before dawn they crept through the woods, taking on the coloration of the plants around them. Their Displacers pulsed feebly, sensing the nearness of atomic energy.

  A tiny, four-legg
ed creature darted in front of them. Instantly, Ger grew four legs and a long, streamlined body and gave chase.

  “Ger! Come back here!” Pid howled at the Detector, throwing caution to the winds.

  Ger overtook the animal and knocked it down. He tried to bite it, but he had neglected to grow teeth. The animal jumped free, and vanished into the underbrush. Ger thrust out a set of teeth and bunched his muscles for a leap.

  “Ger!”

  Reluctantly, the Detector turned away. He loped silently back to Pid.

  “I was hungry,” he said.

  “You were not,” Pid said sternly.

  “Was,” Ger mumbled, writhing with embarrassment.

  Pid remembered what the Chief had told him. Ger certainly did have Hunter tendencies. He would have to watch him more closely.

  “We’ll have no more of that,” Pid said. “Remember—the lure of Exotic Shapes is not sanctioned. Be content with the shape you were born to.”

  Ger nodded, and melted back into the underbrush. They moved on.

  At the extreme edge of the woods they could observe the atomic energy installation. Pid disguised himself as a clump of shrubbery, and Ger formed himself into an old log. Ilg, after a moment’s thought, became a young oak.

  The installation was in the form of a long, low building, surrounded by a metal fence. There was a gate, and guards in front of it.

  The first job, Pid thought, was to get past that gate. He began to consider ways and means.

  From the fragmentary reports of the survey parties, Pid knew that, in some ways, this race of Men were like the Glom. They had pets, as the Glom did, and homes and children, and a culture. The inhabitants were skilled mechanically, as were the Glom.

  But there were terrific differences. The Men were of fixed and immutable forms, like stones or trees. And to compensate, their planet boasted a fantastic array of species, types, and kinds. This was completely unlike Glom, which had only eight distinct forms of animal life.

  And evidently, the Men were skilled at detecting invaders, Pid thought. He wished he knew how the other expeditions had failed. It would make his job much easier.

  A Man lurched past them on two incredibly stiff legs. Rigidity was evident in his every move. Without looking, he hurried past.