Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley

by Robert Sheckley

  In his twenty-seventh year, Danton decided to leave Earth and take up pioneering. It was a tearful day when he gave his breeding certificate to his best friend, Al Trevor.

  “Gee, Edward,” Trevor said, turning the precious little certificate over and over in his hands, “you don’t know what this means to Myrtle and me. We always wanted two kids. Now because of you—”

  “Forget it,” said Danton. “Where I’m going, I won’t need any breeding permit. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably find it impossible to breed,” he added, the thought having just struck him.

  “But won’t that be frustrating for you?” Al asked, always solicitous for his friend’s welfare.

  “I guess so. Maybe after a while, though, I’ll find a girl pioneer. And in the meantime, there’s always sublimation.”

  “True enough. What substitute have you selected?”

  “Vegetable gardening. I might as well be practical.”

  “You might as well,” Al said, “Well, boy, good luck, boy.”

  Once the breeding certificate was gone, the die was cast. Danton plunged boldly ahead. In exchange for his Birthright, the government gave him unlimited free transportation and two years’ basic equipment and provisions.

  Danton left at once.

  He avoided the more heavily populated areas, which were usually in the hands of rabid little groups.

  He wanted no part of a place like Korani II, for instance, where a giant calculator had instituted a reign of math.

  Nor was he interested in Heil V, where a totalitarian population of 342 was earnestly planning ways and means of conquering the Galaxy.

  He skirted the Farming Worlds, dull, restrictive places given to extreme health theories and practices.

  When he came to Hedonia, he considered settling on that notorious planet. But the men of Hedonia were said to be short-lived, although no one denied their enjoyment while they did live.

  Danton decided in favor of the long haul, and journeyed on.

  He passed the Mining Worlds, somber, rocky places sparsely populated by gloomy, bearded men given to sudden violence. And he came at last to the New Territories. These unpeopled worlds were past Earth’s farthest frontier. Danton scanned several before he found one with no intelligent life whatsoever.

  It was a calm and watery place, dotted with sizeable islands, lush with jungle green and fertile with fish and game. The ship’s captain duly notarized Danton’s claim to the planet, which Danton called New Tahiti. A quick survey showed a large island superior to the rest. Here he was landed, and here he proceeded to set up his camp.

  There was much to be done at first. Danton constructed a house out of branches and woven grass, near a white and gleaming beach. He fashioned a fishing spear, several snares, and a net. He planted his vegetable garden and was gratified to see it thrive under the tropic sun, nourished by warm rains which fell every morning between seven and seven-thirty.

  All in all, New Tahiti was a paradisical place and Danton should have been very happy there. But there was one thing wrong.

  The vegetable garden, which he had thought would provide first-class sublimation, proved a dismal failure. Danton found himself thinking about women at all hours of the day and night, and spending long hours crooning to himself—love songs, of course—beneath a great orange tropic moon.

  This was unhealthy. Desperately he threw himself into other recognized forms of sublimation; painting came first but he rejected it to keep a journal, abandoned that and composed a sonata, gave that up and carved two enormous statues out of a local variety of soapstone, completed them and tried to think of something else to do.

  There was nothing else to do. His vegetables took excellent care of themselves; being of Earth stock, they completely choked out all alien growths. Fish swam into his nets in copious quantities, and meat was his whenever he bothered to set a snare. He found again that he was thinking of women at all hours of the day and night—tall women, short women, white women, black women, brown women.

  The day came when Danton found himself thinking favorably of Martian women, something no Terran had succeeded in doing before. Then he knew that something drastic had to be done.

  But what? He had no way of signaling for help, no way of getting off New Tahiti. He was gloomily contemplating this when a black speck appeared in the sky to seaward.

  He watched as it slowly grew larger, barely able to breathe for fear it would turn out to be a bird or huge insect. But the speck continued to increase in size, and soon he could see pale jets, flaring and ebbing.

  A spaceship had come! He was alone no longer!

  The ship took a long, slow, cautious time landing. Danton changed into his best pareu, a South Seas garment he had found peculiarly well adapted to the climate of New Tahiti. He washed, combed his hair carefully, and watched the ship descend.

  It was one of the ancient Mikkelsen Drive ships. Danton had thought that all of them were long retired from active service. But this ship, it was apparent, had been traveling for a long while. The hull was dented and scored, hopelessly archaic, yet with a certain indomitable look about it. Its name, proudly lettered on the bow, was The Hutter People.

  When people come in from deep space, they are usually starved for fresh food. Danton gathered a great pile of fruit for the ship’s passengers and had it tastefully arranged by the time The Hutter People had landed ponderously on the beach.

  A narrow hatch opened and two men stepped out. They were armed with rifles and dressed in black from head to toe. Warily they looked around them.

  Danton sprinted over. “Hey, welcome to New Tahiti! Boy, am I glad to see you folks! What’s the latest news from—”

  “Stand back!’ shouted one of the men. He was in his fifties, tall and impossibly gaunt, his face seamed and hard. His icy blue eyes seemed to pierce Danton like an arrow; his rifle was leveled at Danton’s chest. His partner was younger, barrel-chested, broad-faced, short, and very powerfully built.

  “Something wrong?” Danton asked, stopping.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Edward Danton.”

  “I’m Simeon Smith,” the gaunt man said, “military commander of the Hutter people. This is Jedekiah Franker, second-in-command. How come you speak English?”

  “I’ve always spoken English,” said Danton. “Look, I—”

  “Where are the others? Where are they hiding?”

  “There aren’t any others. Just me.” Danton looked at the ship and saw the faces of men and women at every port. “I gathered this stuff for you folks.” He waved his hand at the mound of fruit. “Thought you might want some fresh goods after being so long in space.”

  A pretty girl with short, tousled blonde hair appeared in the hatchway. “Can’t we come out now, Father?”

  “No!” Simeon said. “It’s not safe. Get inside, Anita.”

  “I’ll watch from here, then,” she said, staring at Danton with frankly curious eyes.

  Danton stared back and a faint and unfamiliar tremor ran through him.

  Simeon said, “We accept your offering. We will not, however, eat it.”

  “Why not?” Danton reasonably wanted to know.

  “Because,” said Jedekiah, “we don’t know what poisons you people might try to feed us.”

  “Poisons? Look, let’s sit down and talk this over.”

  “What do you think?” Jedekiah asked Simeon.

  “Just what I expected,” the military leader said. “Ingratiating, fawning, undoubtedly treacherous. His people won’t show themselves. Waiting in ambush, I’ll bet. I think an object lesson would be in order.”

  “Right,” said Jedekiah, grinning. “Put the fear of civilization into them.” He aimed his rifle at Danton’s chest.

  “Hey!” Danton yelped, backing away.

  “But, Father,” said Anita, “he hasn’t done anything yet.”

  “That’s the whole point. Shoot him and he won’t do anything. The only good native is a dead native.”
<
br />   “This way,” Jedekiah put in, “the rest will know we mean business.”

  “It isn’t right!” Anita cried indignantly. “The Council—”

  “—isn’t in command now. An alien landfall constitutes an emergency. During such times, the military is in charge. We’ll do what we think best. Remember Lan II!”

  “Hold on now,” Danton said. “You’ve got this all wrong. There’s just me, no others, no reason to—”

  A bullet kicked sand near his left foot. He sprinted for the protection of the jungle. Another bullet whined close and a third cut a twig near his head as he plunged into the underbrush.

  “There!” he heard Simeon roar. “That ought to teach them a lesson!”

  Danton kept on running until he had put half a mile of jungle between himself and the pioneer ship.

  He ate a light supper of the local variety of bananas and breadfruit, and tried to figure out what was wrong with the Hutters. Were they insane? They had seen that he was an Earthman, alone and unarmed, obviously friendly. Yet they had fired at him—as an object lesson. A lesson for whom? For the dirty natives, whom they wanted to teach a lesson ...

  That was it! Danton nodded emphatically to himself. The Hutters must have thought he was a native, an aboriginal, and that his tribe was lurking in the bush, waiting for a chance to massacre the new arrivals! It wasn’t too rash an assumption, really. Here he was on a distant planet, without a spaceship, wearing only a loincloth and tanned a medium bronze. He was probably just what they thought a native should look like on a wilderness planet like this!

  “But where,” Danton asked himself, “do they think I learned English?”

  The whole thing was ridiculous. He started walking back to the ship, sure he could clear up the misunderstanding in a few minutes. But after a couple yards, he stopped.

  Evening was approaching. Behind him, the sky was banked in white and gray clouds. To seaward, a deep blue haze advanced steadily on the land. The jungle was filled with ominous noises, which Danton had long ago found to be harmless. But the new arrivals might not think so.

  These people were trigger-happy, he reminded himself. No sense barging in on them too fast and inviting a bullet.

  So he moved cautiously through the tangled jungle growth, a silent, tawny shape blending into the jungle browns and greens. When he reached the vicinity of the ship, he crawled through the dense undergrowth until he could peer down on the sloping beach.

  The pioneers had finally come out of their ship. There were several dozen men and women and a few children. All were dressed in heavy black cloth and perspiring in the heat. They had ignored his gift of local fruit. Instead, an aluminum table had been spread with the spaceship’s monotonous provisions.

  On the periphery of the crowd, Danton saw several men with rifles and ammunition belts. They were evidently on guard, keeping close watch on the jungle and glancing apprehensively overhead at the darkening sky.

  Simeon raised his hands. There was immediate silence.

  “Friends,” the military leader orated, “we have come at last to our long-awaited home! Behold, here is a land of milk and honey, a place of bounty and abundance. Was it not worth the long voyage, the constant danger, the endless search?”

  “Yes, brother!” the people responded.

  Simeon held up his hands again for silence. “No civilized man has settled upon this planet. We are the first, and therefore the place is ours. But there are perils, my friends! Who knows what strange monsters the jungle hides?”

  “Nothing larger than a chipmunk,” Danton muttered to himself. “Why don’t they ask me? I’d tell them.”

  “Who knows what leviathan swims in the deep?” Simeon continued. “We do know one thing: There is an aboriginal people here, naked and savage, undoubtedly cunning, ruthless, and amoral, as aboriginals always are. Of these we must beware. We will live in peace with them, if they will let us. We will bring to them the fruits of civilization and the flowers of culture. They may profess friendship, but always remember this, friends: No one can tell what goes on in a savage heart. Their standards are not ours; their morals are not ours. We cannot trust them; we must be forever on guard. And if in doubt, we must shoot first! Remember Lan II!”

  Everybody applauded, sang a hymn, and began their evening meal. As night fell, searchlights came on from the ship, making the beach bright as day. The sentries paced up and down, shoulders hunched nervously, rifles ready.

  Danton watched the settlers shake out their sleeping bags and retire under the bulge of the ship. Even their fear of sudden attack couldn’t force them to spend another night inside the ship, when there was fresh air to breathe outside.

  The great orange moon of New Tahiti was half-hidden by high-flying night clouds. The sentries paced and swore, and moved closer together for mutual comfort and protection. They began firing at the jungle sounds and blasting at shadows.

  Danton crept back into the jungle. He retired for the night behind a tree, where he would be safe from stray bullets. This evening had not seemed the time for straightening things out. The Hutters were too jumpy. It would be better, he decided, to handle the matter by daylight, in a simple, straightforward, reasonable fashion.

  The trouble was, the Hutters hardly seemed reasonable.

  In the morning, though, everything looked more promising. Danton waited until the Hutters had finished their breakfast, then strolled into view at the edge of the beach.

  “Halt!” every one of the sentries barked.

  “That savage is back!” called a settler.

  “Mummy,” cried a little boy, “don’t let the nasty bad man eat me!”

  “Don’t worry, dear,” the boy’s mother said. “Your father has a rifle for shooting savages.”

  Simeon rushed out of the spaceship and glared at Danton. “All right, you! Come forward!”

  Danton stepped gingerly across the beach, his skin tingling with nervous expectation. He walked to Simeon, keeping his empty hands in sight.

  “I am the leader of these people,” Simeon said, speaking very slowly, as if to a child. “I the big chief fella. You big fella chief your people?”

  “There’s no need to talk that way,” Danton said. “I can hardly understand you. I told you yesterday that I haven’t any people. There’s just me.”

  Simeon’s hard face grew white with anger. “Unless you’re honest with me, you’re going to regret it. Now—where is your tribe?”

  “I’m an Earthman,” Danton yelled. “Are you deaf? Can’t you hear how I talk?”

  A stooped little man with white hair and great horn-rimmed glasses came over with Jedekiah. “Simeon,” the little man said, “I don’t believe I have met our guest.”

  “Professor Baker,” said Simeon, “this savage here claims he’s an Earthman, and he says his name is Edward Danton.”

  The professor glanced at Danton’s pareu, his tanned skin and calloused feet. “You are an Earthman?” he asked Danton.

  “Of course.”

  “Who carved those stone statues up the beach?”

  “I did,” Danton said, “but it was just therapy. You see—”

  “Obviously primitive work. That stylization, those noses—”

  “It was accidental, then. Look, a few months ago I left Earth in a spaceship—”

  “How was it powered?” Professor Baker asked.

  “By a GM subspatial torque converter.” Baker nodded, and Danton went on. “Well, I wasn’t interested in places like Korani or Heil V, and Hedonia seemed too rich for my blood. I passed up the Mining Worlds and the Farming Worlds, and had the government ship drop me here. The planet’s registered as New Tahiti, in my name. But I was getting pretty lonely, so I’m glad you folks came.”

  “Well, Professor?” Simeon said. “What do you think?”

  “Amazing,” Baker murmured, “truly amazing. His grasp of colloquial English bespeaks a fairly high level of intelligence, which points up a phenomenon frequently met with in savage societies,
namely, an unusually well-developed power of mimicry. Our friend Danta (as his original, uncorrupted name must have been) will probably be able to tell us many tribal legends, myths, songs, dances—”

  “But I’m an Earthman!”

  “No, my poor friend,” the professor corrected gently, “you are not. Obviously you have met an Earthman. Some trader, I daresay, stopping for repairs.”

  Jedekiah said, “There’s evidence that a spaceship once landed here briefly.”

  “Ah,” said Professor Baker, beaming. “Confirmation of my hypothesis.”

  “That was the government ship,” Danton explained. “It dropped me off here.”

  “It is interesting to note,” said Professor Baker in his lecturing voice, “how his almost-plausible story lapses into myth at various crucial points. He claims that the ship was powered by a ‘GM subspatial torque converter’—which is nonsense syllabification, since the only deep-space drive is the Mikkelsen. He claims that the journey from Earth was made in a matter of months (since his untutored mind cannot conceive of a journey lasting years), although we know that no space drive, even theoretically, can achieve that.”

  “It was probably developed after you people left Earth,” Danton said. “How long have you been gone?”

  “The Hutter spaceship left Earth one hundred and twenty years ago,” Baker replied condescendingly. “We are mostly fourth and fifth generation. Note also,” Baker said to Simeon and Jedekiah, “his attempt to think up plausible place-names. Words such as Korani, Heil, Hedonia appeal to his sense of onomatopoeia. That there are no such places doesn’t disturb him.”

  “There are!” Danton said indignantly.

  “Where?” Jedekiah challenged. “Give me the co-ordinates.”

  “How should I know? I’m no navigator. I think Heil was near Boötes, or maybe it was Cassiopeia. No, I’m pretty sure it was Boötes—”

  “I’m sorry, friend,” said Jedekiah. “It may interest you to know that I’m the ship’s navigator. I can show you the star atlases and charts. Those places aren’t on them.”

  “Your charts are a hundred years out of date!”

  “Then so are the stars,” Simeon said. “Now, Danta, where is your tribe? Why do they hide from us? What are they planning?”