Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley

by Robert Sheckley

  “This is preposterous,” Danton protested. “What can I do to convince you? I’m an Earthman. I was born and raised—”

  “That’s enough,” Simeon cut in. “If there’s one thing we Hutters won’t stand for, it’s backtalk from natives. Out with it, Danta. Where are your people?”

  “There’s only me,” Danton insisted.

  “Tight-mouthed?” Jedekiah gritted. “Maybe a taste of the blacksnake whip—”

  “Later, later,” Simeon said. “His tribe’ll come around for handouts. Natives always do. In the meantime, Danta, you can join that work gang over there, unloading the supplies.”

  “No, thanks,” said Danton. “I’m going back to—”

  Jedekiah’s fist lashed out, catching Danton on the side of the jaw. He staggered, barely keeping his footing.

  “The chief said no backtalk!” Jedekiah roared. “Why are you natives always so bone-lazy? You’ll be paid as soon as we unload the beads and calico. Now get to work.”

  That seemed to be the last word on the subject. Dazed and unsure, much like millions of natives before him on a thousand different worlds. Danton joined the long line of colonists passing goods out of the ship.

  By late afternoon, the unloading was done and the settlers were relaxed on the beach. Danton sat apart from them, trying to think his situation through. He was deep in thought when Anita came to him with a canteen of water.

  “Do you think I’m a native?” he asked.

  She sat down beside him and said, “I really don’t see what else you could be. Everyone knows how fast a ship can travel and—”

  “Times have changed since your people left Earth. They weren’t in space all that time, were they?”

  “Of course not. The Hutter ship went to H’gastro I, but it wasn’t fertile enough, so the next generation moved to Ktedi. But the corn mutated and almost wiped them out, so they went to Lan II. They thought that would be a permanent home.”

  “What happened?”

  “The natives,” said Anita sadly. “I guess they were friendly enough, at first, and everyone thought the situation was well in hand. Then, one day, we were at war with the entire native population. They only had spears and things, but there were too many of them, so the ship left again and we came here.”

  “Hmm,” Danton said. “I see why you’re so nervous about aboriginals.”

  “Well, of course. While there’s any possibility of danger, we’re under military rule. That means my father and Jedekiah. But as soon as the emergency is past, our regular Hutter government takes over.”

  “Who runs that?”

  “A council of Elders,” Anita said, “men of good-will, who detest violence. If you and your people are really peaceable—”

  “I haven’t any people,” Danton said wearily.

  “—then you’ll have every opportunity to prosper under the rule of the Elders,” she finished.

  They sat together and watched the sunset. Danton noticed how the wind stirred her hair, blowing it silkily across her forehead, and how the afterglow of the sun outlined and illuminated the line of her cheek and lip. He shivered and told himself it was the sudden chill of evening. And Anita, who had been talking animatedly about her childhood, found difficulty in completing her sentences, or even keeping her train of thought.

  After a while, their hands strayed together. Their fingertips touched and clung. For a long time, they said nothing at all. And at last, gently and lingeringly, they kissed.

  “What the hell is going on here?” a loud voice demanded.

  Danton looked up and saw a burly man standing over him, his powerful head silhouetted black against the moon, his fists on his hips.

  “Please, Jedekiah,” Anita said. “Don’t make a scene.”

  “Get up,” Jedekiah ordered Danton, in an ominously quiet voice. “Get up on your feet.”

  Danton stood up, his hands half-clenched into fists, waiting.

  “You,” Jedekiah said to Anita, “are a disgrace to your race and to the whole Hutter people. Are you crazy? You can’t mess around with a dirty native and still keep any self-respect.” He turned to Danton. “And you gotta learn something and learn it good. Natives don’t fool with Hutter women! I’m going to impress that little lesson on you right here and now.”

  There was a brief scuffle and Jedekiah found himself sprawled on his back.

  “Hurry!” Jedekiah shouted. “The natives are revolting!”

  An alarm bell from the spaceship began to peal. Sirens wailed in the night. The women and children, long trained for such an emergency, trooped back into the spaceship. The men were issued rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades, and began to advance on Danton.

  “It’s just man to man,” Danton called out. “We had a disagreement, that’s all. There’s no natives or anything. Just me.”

  The foremost Hutter commanded, “Anita, quick, get back!”

  “I didn’t see any natives,” the girl said staunchly. “And it wasn’t really Danta’s fault—”

  “Get back!”

  She was pulled out of the way. Danton dived into the bushes before the machine guns opened up.

  He crawled on all fours for fifty yards, then broke into a dead run.

  Fortunately, the Hutters were not pursuing. They were interested only in guarding their ship and holding their beachhead and a narrow stretch of jungle. Danton heard gunfire throughout the night and loud shouts and frantic cries.

  “There goes one!”

  “Quick, turn the machine gun! They’re behind us!”

  “There! There! I got one!”

  “No, he got away There he goes ... But look, up in the tree!”

  “Fire, man, fire!”

  All night, Danton listened as the Hutters repulsed the attacks of imaginary savages.

  Toward dawn, the firing subsided. Danton estimated that a ton of lead had been expended, hundreds of trees decapitated, acres of grass trampled into mud. The jungle stank of cordite.

  He fell into a fitful slumber.

  At midday, he awakened and heard someone moving through the underbrush. He retreated into the jungle and made a meal for himself out of a local variety of bananas and mangoes. Then he decided to think things over.

  But no thoughts came. His mind was filled with Anita and with grief over her loss.

  All that day, he wandered disconsolately through the jungle, and in the late afternoon heard again the sound of someone moving through the underbrush.

  He turned to go deeper into the island. Then he heard someone calling his name.

  “Danta! Danta! Wait!”

  It was Anita. Danton hesitated, not sure what to do. She might have decided to leave her people, to live in the green jungle with him. But more realistically, she might have been sent out as a decoy, leading a party of men to destroy him. How could he know where her loyalties lay?

  “Danta! Where are you?”

  Danton reminded himself that there could never be anything between them. Her people had shown what they thought of natives. They would always distrust him, forever try to kill him ...

  “Please, Danta!”

  Danton shrugged his shoulders and walked toward her voice.

  They met in a little clearing. Anita’s hair was disheveled and her khakis were torn by the jungle briars, but for Danton there could never be a lovelier woman. For an instant, he believed that she had come to join him, flee with him.

  Then he saw armed men fifty yards behind her.

  “It’s all right,” Anita said. “They’re not going to kill you. They just came along to guard me.”

  “Guard you? From me?” Danton laughed hollowly.

  “They don’t know you as I do,” Anita said. “At the Council meeting today, I told them the truth.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course. That fight wasn’t your fault, and I told everybody so. I told them you fought only to defend yourself. And Jedekiah lied. No pack of natives attacked him. There was only you, and I told them this.
”

  “Good girl,” Danton said fervently. “Did they believe you?”

  “I think so. I explained that the native attack came later.”

  Danton groaned. “Look, how could there be a native attack when there aren’t any natives?”

  “But there are,” Anita said. “I heard them shouting.”

  “Those were your own people.” Danton tried to think of something that would convince her. If he couldn’t convince this one girl, how could he possibly convince the rest of the Hutters?

  And then he had it. It was a very simple proof, but its effect would have to be overwhelming.

  “You actually believe there was a full-scale native attack,” Danton stated.

  “Of course.”

  “How many natives?”

  “I heard you outnumbered us by at least ten to one.”

  “And we were armed?”

  “You certainly were.”

  “Then how,” Danton asked triumphantly, “do you account for the fact that not a single Hutter was wounded!”

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “But, Danta dear, many of the Hutters were wounded, some seriously. It’s a wonder no one was killed in all that fighting!”

  Danton felt as though the ground had been kicked out from under him. For a terrifying minute, he believed her. The Hutters were so certain! Perhaps he did have a tribe, after all, hundreds of bronzed savages like himself, hidden in the jungle, waiting ...

  “That trader who taught you English,” Anita said, “must have been a very unscrupulous character. It’s against interstellar law, you know, to sell firearms to natives. Someday he’ll be caught and—”

  “Firearms?”

  “Certainly. You couldn’t use them very accurately, of course. But Simeon said that sheer firepower—”

  “I suppose all your casualties were from gunshot wounds.”

  “Yes. The men didn’t let you get close enough to use knives and spears.”

  “I see,” Danton said. His proof was utterly demolished. But he felt enormously relieved at having regained his sanity. The disorganized Hutter soldiery had ranged around the jungle, firing at everything that moved—each other. Of course they had gotten into trouble. It was more than a wonder that some of them hadn’t been killed. It was a miracle.

  “But I explained that they couldn’t blame you,” said Anita. “You were attacked first, and your own people must have thought you were in danger. The Elders thought this was probable.”

  “Nice of them,” Danton said.

  “They want to be reasonable. After all, they realize that natives are human beings just like ourselves.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Danton asked, with feeble irony.

  “Of course. So the Elders held a big meeting on native policy and decided it once and for all. We’re setting aside a thousand acres as a reservation for you and your people. That should be plenty of room, shouldn’t it? The men are putting up the boundary posts now. You’ll live peacefully in your reservation and we’ll live in our own part of the island.”

  “What?” Danton said.

  “And to seal the pledge,” Anita continued, “the Elders asked you to accept this.” She handed him a roll of parchment.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a peace treaty, declaring the end of the Hutter–New Tahitian war, and pledging our respective peoples to eternal amity.”

  Numbly, Danton accepted the parchment. He saw that the men who had accompanied Anita were setting red and black striped posts into the ground. They sang as they worked, happy to have reached a solution for the native problem so quickly and easily.

  “But don’t you think,” Danton asked, “that perhaps—ah—assimilation might be a better solution?”

  “I suggested it,” Anita said, blushing.

  “You did? You mean that you would—”

  “Of course I would,” said Anita, not looking at him. “I think the amalgamation of two strong races would be a fine and wonderful thing. And, Danta, what wonderful stories and legends you could have told the children!”

  “I could have showed them how to fish and hunt,” Danton said, “and which plants are edible, and things like that.”

  “And all your colorful tribal songs and dances.” Anita sighed. “It would have been wonderful. I’m sorry, Danta.”

  “But something must be possible! Can’t I talk to the Elders? Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  “Nothing,” Anita said. “I’d run away with you, Danta, but they’d track us down, no matter how long it took.”

  “They’d never find us,” Danton promised.

  “Perhaps. I’d be willing to take the chance.”

  “Darling!”

  “But I can’t. Your poor people, Danta! The Hutters would take hostages, kill them if I weren’t returned.”

  “I don’t have any people! I don’t, damn it!”

  “It’s sweet of you to say that,” Anita said tenderly. “But lives cannot be sacrificed just for the love of two individuals. You must tell your people not to cross the boundary lines, Danta. They’ll be shot. Good-by, and remember, it is best to live in the path of peace.”

  She hurried away from him. Danton watched her go, angry at her noble sentiments which separated them for no reason at all, yet loving her for the love she showed his people. That his people were imaginary didn’t count. It was the thought that mattered.

  At last he turned and walked deep into the jungle.

  He stopped by a still pool of black water, overhung with giant trees and bordered by flowering ferns, and here he tried to plan the rest of his life. Anita was gone; all commerce with human beings was gone. He didn’t need any of them, he told himself. He had his reservation. He could replant his vegetable garden, carve more statues, compose more sonatas, start another journal ...

  “To hell with that!” he shouted to the trees. He didn’t want to sublimate any longer. He wanted Anita, and he wanted to live with humans. He was tired of being alone.

  What could he do about it?

  There didn’t seem to be anything. He leaned back against a tree and stared at New Tahiti’s impossibly blue sky. If only the Hutters weren’t so superstitious, so afraid of natives, so ...

  And then it came to him, a plan so absurd, so dangerous ...

  “It’s worth a try,” Danton said to himself, “even if they kill me.”

  He trotted off toward the Hutter boundary line.

  A sentry saw him as he neared the vicinity of the spaceship and leveled his rifle. Danton raised both arms.

  “Don’t fire! I have to speak with your leaders!”

  “Get back on your reservation,” the sentry warned. “Get back or I’ll shoot.”

  “I have to speak to Simeon,” Danton stated, holding his ground.

  “Orders is orders,” said the sentry, taking aim.

  “Just a minute.” Simeon stepped out of the ship, frowning deeply. “What is all this?”

  “That native came back,” the sentry said. “Shall I pop him, sir?”

  “What do you want?” Simeon asked Danton.

  “I have come here to bring you,” Danton roared, “a declaration of war!”

  That woke up the Hutter camp. In a few minutes, every man, woman, and child had gathered near the spaceship. The Elders, a council of old men distinguished by their long white beards, were standing to one side.

  “You accepted the peace treaty,” Simeon pointed out.

  “I had a talk with the other chiefs of the island,” Danton said, stepping forward. “We feel the treaty is not fair. New Tahiti is ours. It belonged to our fathers and to our fathers’ fathers. Here we have raised our children, sown our corn, and reaped the breadfruit. We will not live on the reservation!”

  “Oh, Danta!” Anita cried, appearing from the spaceship. “I asked you to bring peace to your people!”

  “They wouldn’t listen,” Danton said. “All the tribes are gathering. Not only my own people, the Cynochi, but the Drovati, the Lorog
nasti, the Retellsmbroichi, and the Vitelli. Plus, naturally, their sub-tribes and dependencies.”

  “How many are you?” Simeon asked.

  “Fifty or sixty thousand. Of course, we don’t all have rifles. Most of us will have to rely on more primitive weapons, such as poisoned arrows and darts.”

  A nervous murmur arose from the crowd.

  “Many of us will be killed,” Danton said stonily. “We do not care. Every New Tahitian will fight like a lion. We are a thousand to your one. We have cousins on the other islands who will join us. No matter what the cost in human life and misery, we will drive you into the sea. I have spoken.”

  He turned and started back into the jungle, walking with stiff dignity.

  “Shall I pop him now, sir?” the sentry begged.

  “Put down that rifle, you fool!” Simeon snapped. “Wait, Danta! Surely we can come to terms. Bloodshed is senseless.”

  “I agree,” Danton said soberly.

  “What do you want?”

  “Equal rights!”

  The Elders went into an immediate conference. Simeon listened to them, then turned to Danton.

  “That may be possible. Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing,” Danton said. “Except, naturally, an alliance between the ruling clan of the Hutters and the ruling clan of the New Tahitians, to seal the bargain. Marriage would be best.”

  After going into conference again, the Elders gave their instructions to Simeon. The military chief was obviously disturbed. The cords stood out on his neck, but with an effort he controlled himself, bowed his agreement to the Elders, and marched up to Danton.

  “The Elders have authorized me,” he said, “to offer you an alliance of blood brotherhood. You and I, representing the leading clans of our peoples, will mingle our blood together in a beautiful and highly symbolic ceremony, then break bread, take salt—”

  “Sorry,” Danton said. “We New Tahitians don’t hold with that sort of thing. It has to be marriage.”

  “But damn it all, man—”

  “That is my last word.”

  “We’ll never accept! Never!”

  “Then it’s war,” Danton declared and walked into the jungle.