From the mouth of the cave, he could see his ship, perched on a level plain of scorched ground. He was in no rush to get back to it. In six days the inscription was done, cut deeply and eternally into the rock.
The thought that had been bothering him as he stared at the gray granite finally came to the surface. The only people who would come to read it would be visitors from the stars. How would they decipher it? He stared at the inscription angrily. He should have written it in symbols. But what kind of symbols? Mathematics? Of course, but what would that tell them about Man? And what made him think they would discover the cave anyway? There was no use for an inscription when Man’s entire history was written over the face of the planet, scorched into the crust for anyone to see. He cursed his stupidity for wasting six days working at the useless inscription. He was about to uncreate it when he turned his head, hearing footsteps at the mouth of the cave.
He almost fell off the chair getting to his feet.
A girl was standing there. He blinked rapidly, and she was still there, a tall, dark-haired girl dressed in a torn, dirty one-piece coverall.
“Hi,” she said, and walked into the cave. “I heard your hammer from the valley.”
Automatically, he offered her his chair and created another for himself. She tested it gingerly before she sat down.
“I saw you do it,” she said, “but I still don’t believe it. Mirrors?”
“No,” he muttered uncertainly. “I create. That is, I have the power to—wait a minute! How did you get here?” While he was demanding to know, he was considering and rejecting possibilities. Hidden in a cave? On a mountaintop? No, there would be only one possible way…
“I was in your ship, pal.” She leaned back in the chair and clasped her hands around one knee. “When you loaded up that cruiser, I figured you were going to beat it. I was getting tired of setting fuses eighteen hours a day, so I stowed away. Anybody else alive?”
“No. Why didn’t I see you, then?” He stared at the ragged, beautiful girl, and a vague thought crossed his mind. He reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t draw back, but her pretty face grew annoyed.
“I’m real,” she said bluntly. “You must have seen me at the Base. Remember?”
He tried to think back to the time when there had been a Base—centuries ago, it seemed. There had been a dark-haired girl there, one who had never given him a tumble.
“I think I froze to death,” she was saying. “Or into coma, anyhow, a few hours after your ship took off. Lousy heating system you have in that crate!” She shivered reminiscently.
“Would have used up too much oxygen,” he explained. “Just kept the pilot’s compartment heated and aired. Used a suit to drag supplies forward when I needed them.”
“I’m glad you didn’t see me,” she laughed. “I must have looked like the devil, all covered with frost and killed, I bet. Some sleeping beauty I probably made! Well, I froze. When you opened all the compartments, I revived. That’s the whole story. Guess it took a few days. How come you didn’t see me?”
“I suppose I never looked back there,” he admitted. “Quick enough, I found I didn’t need supplies. Funny, I thought I opened all the compartments, but I don’t really remember—”
She looked at the inscription on the wall. “What’s that?”
“I thought I’d leave a sort of monument—”
“Who’s going to read it?” she asked practically.
“No one probably. It was just a foolish idea.” He concentrated on it. In a few moments the granite wall was bare. “I still don’t understand how you could be alive now,” he said, puzzled.
“But I am. I don’t see how you do that”—she gestured at the chair and the wall—”but I’ll accept the fact that you can. Why don’t you accept the fact that I’m alive?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” the man said. “I want company very much, especially female company. It’s just—turn your back.”
She complied with a questioning look. Quickly he destroyed the stubble on his face and created a clean pair of pressed trousers and a shirt. Stepping out of his tattered uniform, he put on the new clothes, destroyed the rags, and, on an afterthought, created a comb and straightened his tangled brown hair.
“All right,” he said. “You can turn back now.”
“Not bad,” she smiled, looking him over. “Let me use that comb—and would you please make me a dress? Size twelve, but see that the weight goes in the right places.”
On the third attempt he had the thing right—he had never realized how deceptive the shapes of women could be—and then he made a pair of gold sandals with high heels for her.
“A little tight,” she said, putting them on, “and not too practical without sidewalks. But thanks very much. This trick of yours really solves the Christmas-present problem, doesn’t it?” Her dark hair was shiny in the noon sun, and she looked very lovely and warm and human.
“See if you can create,” he urged, anxious to share his startling new ability with her.
“I’ve already tried,” she said. “No go. Still a man’s world.”
He frowned. “How can I be absolutely sure you’re real?”
“That again? Do you remember creating me, master?” she asked mockingly, bending to loosen the strap on one shoe.
“I had been thinking—about women,” he said grimly. “I might have created you while I was asleep. Why shouldn’t my subconscious mind have as much power as my conscious mind? I would have equipped you with a memory, given you a background. You would have been extremely plausible. And if my subconscious mind did create you, then it would make certain that my conscious mind would never know.”
“You’re ridiculous!”
“Because if my conscious mind knew,” he went on relentlessly, “it would reject your existence. Your entire function, as a creation of my subconscious, would be to keep me from knowing. To prove, by any means in your power, by any logic, that you were—”
“Let’s see you make a woman, then, if your mind is so good!” She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair, giving a single sharp nod.
“All right.” He stared at the cave wall and a woman started to appear. It took shape sloppily, one arm too short, legs too long. Concentrating harder, he was able to make its proportions fairly true. But its eyes were set at an odd angle; its shoulders and back were sloped and twisted. He had created a shell without brains or internal organs, and automaton. He commanded it to speak, but only gulps came from the shapeless mouth; he hadn’t given it any vocal apparatus. Shuddering, he destroyed the nightmare figure.
“I’m not a sculptor,” he said. “Nor am I God.”
“I’m glad you finally realize that.”
“That still doesn’t prove,” he continued stubbornly, “that you’re real. I don’t know what my subconscious mind is capable of.”
“Make something for me,” she said abruptly. “I’m tired of listening to this nonsense.”
I’ve hurt her feelings, he thought. The only other human on Earth and I’ve hurt her. He nodded, took her by the hand, and led her out of the cave. On the flat plain below he created a city. He had experimented with it a few days back, and it was much easier this time. Patterned after pictures and childhood dreams of the Thousand and One Nights, it towered black and white and rose. The walls were gleaming ruby, and the gates were of silver-stained ebony. The towers were red-gold, and sapphires glittered in them. A great staircase of milky ivory climbed to the highest opal spire, set with thousands of steps of veined marble. There were lagoons of blue water, and little birds fluttered above them, and silver and gold fish darted through the still depths.
They walked through the city, and he created roses for her, white and yellow and red, and gardens of strange blossoms. Between two domed and spired buildings he created a vast pool of water; on it he put a purple-canopied pleasure barge, loading it with every kind of food and drink he could remember.
They floated across the lagoon, fanned by the
soft breeze he had created.
“And all this is false,” he reminded her after a little while.
She smiled. “No, it’s not. You can touch it. It’s real.”
“Will it be here after I die?”
“Who cares? Besides, if you can do all this, you can cure any sickness. Perhaps you can even cure old age and death.” She plucked a blossom from an overhanging bough and sniffed its fragrance. “You could keep this from fading and dying. You could probably do the same for us, so where’s the problem?”
“Would you like to go away?” he said, puffing on a newly created cigarette. “Would you like to find a new planet, untouched by war? Would you like to start over?”
“Start over? You mean.. .Later perhaps. Now I don’t even want to go near the ship. It reminds me of the war.”
They floated on a little way.
“Are you sure now that I’m real?” she asked.
“If you want me to be honest, no,” he replied. “But I want very much to believe it.”
“Then listen to me,” she said, leaning toward him. “I’m real.” She slipped her arms around his neck. “I’ve always been real. I always will be real. You want proof? Well, I know I’m real. So do you. What more can you ask?”
He stared at her for a long moment, felt her warm arms around his neck, listened to her breathing. He could smell the fragrance of
her skin and hair, the unique essence of an individual.
Slowly he said, “I believe you. I love you. What—what is your name?”
She thought for a moment. “Joan.”
“Strange,” he said. “I always dreamed of a girl named Joan. What’s your last name?”
She kissed him.
Overhead, the swallows he had created—his swallows—wheeled in wide circles above the lagoon, his fish darted aimlessly to and fro, his city stretched, proud and beautiful, to the edge of the twisted lava mountains.
“You didn’t tell me your last name,” he said.
“Oh, that. A girl’s maiden name never matters—she always takes her husband’s.”
“That’s an evasion!”
She smiled. “It is, isn’t it?”
THE LAXIAN KEY
Richard Gregor was at his desk in the dusty office of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service. It was almost noon, but Arnold, his partner, hadn’t showed up yet. Gregor was just laying out an unusually complicated game of solitaire. Then he heard a loud crash in the hall.
The door of AAA Ace opened, and Arnold stuck his head in.
“Banker’s hours?” Gregor asked.
“I have just made our fortunes,” Arnold said. He threw the door fully open and beckoned dramatically. “Bring it in, boys.”
Four sweating workmen lugged in a square black machine the size of a baby elephant.
“There it is,” Arnold said proudly. He paid the workmen, and stood, hands clasped behind his back, eyes half shut, surveying the machine.
Gregor put his cards away with the slow, weary motions of a man who has seen everything. He stood up and walked around the machine. “All right, I give up. What is it?”
“It’s a million bucks, right in our fists,” Arnold said.
“Of course. But what is it?”
“It’s a Free Producer,” Arnold said. He smiled proudly. “I was walking past Joe’s Interstellar Junkyard this morning, and there it was, sitting in the window. I picked it up for next to nothing. Joe didn’t even know what it was.”
“I don’t either,” Gregor said. “Do you?”
Arnold was on his hands and knees, trying to read the instructions engraved on the front of the machine. Without looking up, he said, “You’ve heard of the planet Meldge, haven’t you?”
Gregor nodded. Meldge was a third-rate little planet on the northern periphery of the galaxy, some distance from the trade routes. At one time, Meldge had possessed an extremely advanced civilization, made possible by the so-called Meldgen Old Science. The Old Science techniques had been lost ages ago, although an occasional artifact still turned up here and there.
“And this is a product of the Old Science?” Gregor asked.
“Right. It’s a Meldgen Free Producer. I doubt if there are more than four or five of them in the entire universe. They’re unduplicatable.”
“What does it produce?” Gregor asked.
“How should I know?” Arnold said. “Hand me the Meldge-English dictionary, will you?”
Keeping a stern rein on his patience, Gregor walked to the bookshelf. “You don’t know what it produces—”
“Dictionary. Thank you. What does it matter what it produces? It’s free! This machine grabs energy out of the air, out of space, the sun, anywhere. You don’t have to plug it in, fuel or service. It runs indefinitely.”
Arnold opened the dictionary and started to look up the words on the front of the Producer.
“Free energy—”
“Those scientists were no fools,” Arnold said, jotting down his translation on a pocket pad. “The Producer just grabs energy out of the air. So it really doesn’t matter what it turns out. We can always sell it, and anything we get will be pure profit.”
Gregor stared at his dapper little partner, and his long, unhappy face became sadder than ever.
“Arnold,” he said, “I’d like to remind you of something. First of all, you are a chemist. I am an ecologist. We know nothing about machinery and less than nothing about complicated alien machinery.”
Arnold nodded absently and turned a dial. The Producer gave a dry gurgle.
“What’s more,” Gregor said, retreating a few steps, “we are planetary decontaminationists. Remember? We have no reason to—”
The Producer began to cough unevenly.
“Got it now,” Arnold said. “It says, ‘The Meldge Free-Producer, another triumph of Glotten Laboratories. This Producer is warranted
Indestructible, Unbreakable, and Free of All Defects. No Power Hook-Up is Required. To Start, Press Button One. To Stop, Use Laxian Key. Your Meldge Free Producer Comes With an Eternal Guarantee against Malfunction. If Defective in Any Way, Please Return at Once to Glotten Laboratories.’“
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” Gregor said. “We are planetary—”
“Don’t be stodgy,” Arnold said. “Once we get this thing working, we can retire. Here’s Button One.”
The machine began to clank ominously, then shifted to a steady purr. For long minutes, nothing happened.
“Needs warming up,” Arnold said anxiously.
Then, out of an opening at the base of the machine, a gray powder began to pour.
“Probably a waste product,” Gregor muttered. But the powder continued to stream over the floor for fifteen minutes.
“Success!” Arnold shouted.
“What is it?” Gregor asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ll have to run some tests.”
Grinning triumphantly, Arnold scooped some powder into a test tube and hurried over to his desk.
Gregor stood in front of the Producer, watching the gray powder stream out. Finally he said, “Shouldn’t we turn it off until we find out what it is?”
“Of course not,” Arnold said. “Whatever it is, it must be worth money.” He lighted his bunsen burner, filled a test tube with distilled water, and went to work.
Gregor shrugged his shoulders. He was used to Arnold’s harebrained schemes. Ever since they had formed AAA Ace, Arnold had been looking for a quick road to wealth. His shortcuts usually resulted in more work than plain old-fashioned labor, but Arnold was quick to forget that.
Well, Gregor thought, at least it kept things lively. He sat down at his desk and dealt out a complex solitaire.
There was silence in the office for the next few hours. Arnold worked steadily, adding chemicals, pouring off precipitates, checking the results in several large books he kept on his desk. Gregor brought in sandwiches and coffee. After eating, he paced up and down and watched the gray pow
der tumble steadily out of the machine.
The purr of the Producer grew steadily louder, and the powder flowed in a thick stream.
An hour after lunch Arnold stood up. “We are in!” he stated.
“What is that stuff?” Gregor asked, wondering if, for once, Arnold had hit upon something.
“That stuff,” Arnold said, “is Tangreese.” He looked expectantly at Gregor.
“Tangreese, eh?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then would you kindly tell me what Tangreese is?” Gregor shouted.
“I thought you knew. Tangreese is the basic food of the Meldgen people. An adult Meldgen consumes several tons a year.”
“Food, eh?” Gregor looked at the thick gray powder with new respect. A machine which turned out food steadily, twenty-four hours a day, might be a very good money-maker. Especially if the machine never needed servicing, and cost nothing to run.
Arnold already had the telephone book open. “Here we are.” He dialed a number. “Hello, Interstellar Food Corporation? Let me speak to the president. What? Fie isn’t? The vice-president, then. This is important…Channels, eh? All right, here’s the story. I am in a position to supply you with an almost unlimited quantity of Tangreese, the basic food of the Meldgen people. That’s right. I knew you’d be interested. Yes, of course I’ll hold on.”
He turned to Gregor. “These corporations think they can push—yes?.. .Yes sir, that’s right, sir. You do handle Tangreese, eh?.. .Fine, splendid!”
Gregor moved closer, trying to hear what was being said on the other end. Arnold pushed him away.
“Price? Well, what is the fair market price?.. .Oh. Well, five dollars a ton isn’t much, but I suppose—what? Five cents a ton? You’re kidding! Let’s be serious now.”
Gregor walked away from the telephone and sank wearily into a chair. Apathetically he listened to Arnold saying, “Yes, yes. Well, I didn’t know that…I see. Thank you.”
The People Trap Page 13