‘We’ll go into the vexed question of sick benefits later, if you don’t mind,’ said the hippo, adjusting his spectacles. ‘Meanwhile the workers have empowered me to demand immediate action in the shape of crossing yon river-bed and eating up all the blacks on the building site. I am further empowered to demand that you take the tigers along, so that no feeble excuses like failing appetite can deflect you from our allotted task. As for your liberal-lacky remark about that being just a few bricks over there, it looks to me more like a whole frigging new suburb of Nairobi!’
The animals muttered and mewed in approval.
‘This is entirely unconstitutional,’ said the lion. ‘If our nuclear commitment were up to strength, the situation might be different, but you opted for detente, remember. We must not offend the black men, or they will do us real harm, and then you workers will be the first to regret it. Don’t they depend entirely on us for hides, horns, souvenirs of the chase, feathers, ivory, handbags, and leopard-skin rugs? Supposing they refuse to trade? As it is, we’ve got an adverse balance of payments because they’re turning to plastic while we play hard to get. No, my friends, I know your business better than you do yourselves! Forget about that mangey scrap of ground, and let’s get back to the veldt.’
The animals all started milling about, undecided what to do. The hippos and rhinos conferred together, and Leopold said to the lion, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to face the fact that this may mean the workers will try to depose you as king of the beasts.’
‘Well, it’s a democratic age,’ said the lion weakly. ‘I have political common sense on my side. Look, if we did as the hippos say, it would only encourage the young tigers; they cause enough disturbance as it is. All that’s needed is a token gesture. Why don’t you nip over on your own and kick a few black arses, just to show willing?’
Before Leopold could reply, a shot rang out across the dried river-bed. The animals who were looking in that direction could clearly see a man in a bush-hat standing on a truck, firing a rifle with telescopic sights. In the silence which followed, the lion collapsed, as leonine blood gouted from a hole in his forehead.
‘A judgment from above!’ said the Rev. Dean William Pennyfever. ‘Let’s get back to the veldt before similar punishment strikes the entire congregation.’
‘Buzz off, you old fool!’ shouted a hot-headed young rhino. ‘Naked aggression! That just proves we were right. We’ve got to get those men before they get us. Let’s have a show of hooves in favour of an immediate stampede.’
‘Not so fast, not so fast!’ said the bespectacled hippo. ‘I’m in charge now. Let’s not be rash.’
‘But you were the one who suggested the charge in the first place,’ said the young rhino in amazement.
‘Circumstances alter cases. Pipe down - you’re too free with your comments. Now the lion’s dead, I’m managing things to see that we don’t get another boss over us, and what I say goes.’
‘But those men are building on our land.’
‘They’ve got rights, same as us. Look, I know how you feel, but this needs a constitutional approach. Let’s get back to the veldt and talk things over in the light of this new development. Perhaps we can barney the men into a compromise.’
Everyone started trotting back towards the deodars. Leopold called out angrily, ‘Are we going to forget our wise old leader just like that? Let’s at least give him a decent burial with a copy of “Digest of World Lion Problems” beside him.’
But nobody paid any heed. They left the lion where he had fallen. It was too hot to bother, and only the jackals and vultures stayed with the body for the last obsequies.
* * * *
Continuing on his travels, Gordon Ivon Jefffris visited representative planets all over the universe. A myriad viewpoints were presented to him for his consideration, all of which he sedulously reported back to Birth Star, the superputer. He found every sort of philosophy, every sort of government, anarchies, hive-worlds, individualisms, Utopias, some of which worked extremely well for a while but not for ever. He spoke to men of action and men of contemplation, women who laughed and women who cried, old people and young people. He was confronted by an astounding diversity.
Gradually, this diversity swallowed him up. He no longer sought for answers. His companions left him, yet he went blindly on, almost unaware of what he was or why he did what he did. He was open to the whole universe, and in consequence less and less able to reach any conclusion about it. There was always something new; that something was age-old, yet at the same time it was new.
Jefffris himself grew old, despite constant rejuvenation shots.
Finally, the Institution recalled him and he sat in a comfortable geriatric chair before Birth Star itself.
‘It is many years since you won the great competition. Have you reached any conclusions after your unique experiences?’ asked the superputer.
‘Experience ... how does anyone evaluate experience? I was born believing that humanity was a vital, not a freak, manifestation of the greater universe, and nothing I have experienced has altered that view.’
‘Have you reached any conclusions, then?’
‘No. I began to consider that the universe itself was all-important. Its mere size ... Then, after a long while, I came to consider that human beings were all-important. Perhaps nothing is all-important...
He sank into a long silence from which the superputer finally roused him.
‘Is that your conclusion?’
‘What? No, certainly not. It is an error in logic to believe that nothing is all-important. That would only be possible in a universe of nothingness. At last I have come to believe that ideas, like the universe, like man, have their own validity, that they have a genetic structure of their own, that they are the link - no, not the link, the very medium, in which both universe and man’s consciousness exist. I’m tired..
‘Go on, Gordan Ivon,’ said the superputer. It played him reviving colours.
‘Yes, ideas have a seminal fluid. They co-exist from the beginning of everything to the end of everything. They contain everything; that is why they appear to us, whatever we think of, to be at once fresh yet, on examination, very ancient. Such concepts carry us far beyond notions of pessimism or optimism; they carry us right to the heart of existence. And of course we have always been at the very heart of existence without knowing it. Whatever we are, whoever we are, whether young or old...’
The superputer let him ramble on, and said finally, ‘So you have reached a conclusion.’
‘No. Or Yes.’ He drew himself up. ‘The human soul has a dark corner, the universe, which is its reflection. But I don’t think I want to talk about it, thanks.’
<
* * * *
RANDOM SAMPLE
E. C. Tubb
When Starship Prometheus came out of ftl her crew could fairly consider their next task the exploration of this new solar system and their settlement upon the finest of the new worlds. But it wasn’t as easy as that. Doctor Chappell faced the hard reality of unpleasant alternatives in a situation where the wrong choice would bring death.
* * * *
ChapPel noisily turned the latch on the door and paused before entering the compartment. It was one of the mores which had become second nature on the Prometheus, a consideration of the privacy of others in a vessel in which privacy was at a premium. He needn’t have bothered. The couple within had made no attempt to break apart. Lesley Judd sat with his arm snugly around Linda Parkinson and it was obvious from their expressions that each considered their search was over.
Chappell was glad to see it. He had worried a little about Linda, wondering, at times, if the selection board back on Earth had made a mistake. She had been too highly-strung, too much the extrovert, changing partners as if she had been a child in a toy shop eager to try everything before making up her mind. Over-compensation, he decided, the delusive atmosphere of social freedom on board the Prometheus coupled with the fear of making a wrong decision.
If they found a habitable planet, of course. If the ship could re-enter normal space without destroying itself. If no one or no thing objected violently to their presence. A lot of ‘ifs’, he thought tiredly. But what other way was there to do it?
He moved deeper into the compartment as Judd lifted his free hand.
‘Hi, Doc! Looking for someone?’
‘Rodgers.’ It was a lie and they probably both knew it. The ship was too small and the crew too intimate for his main function to have remained a secret, yet the excuse served to mask his professional interest in the couple and so avoid embarrassment. ‘We were to have played chess. Have you seen him?’
Linda stirred in the shelter of Lesley’s arm. ‘No, Ian, he hasn’t been here.’
‘He won’t have time for chess,’ said Judd emphatically. ‘Not now and not for some time. He’s busy,’ he explained. ‘On duty - all the ship-operating personnel are.’ He smiled at Chappell’s expression. ‘Didn’t they tell you that the trip is almost over?’
* * * *
As colony-doctor Chappell had no real crew-status but now, for the first time, he realized just how great was the resentment he had generated against himself. It was a danger he had foreseen and had tried to avoid but, in the tiny universe of the Prometheus, that had been impossible.
No man likes to be told that he is unsuited to any woman. No woman likes to be ordered to behave herself. Of the sixty-seven people on the ship forty-nine would form the colony, twenty-four couples with himself as initial doctor and director. The essential operating crew of the vessel numbered six. Which left twelve people, six couples who would return to Earth and, no matter what was said, they would be considered as the rejects.
And he had been the one to make the decision as to who should stay and who should return.
Rodgers turned as he entered the control room. The First Officer was a thick-set, burly man who would have seemed more at home on the bridge of a whaling ship of the early part of the preceding century if it had not been for his hands, slender and delicate and his eyes, blue and compassionate. Like the captain, the chief engineer and Chappell himself, he was in late middle-age, too old to be a colonist and therefore with no reason to resent the visitor.
‘Hello, Ian, come to see the fun?’
‘If I’m permitted.’
‘Hell, yes, why not?’ Rodgers glanced at the panels, the men busy before them. ‘I expected you before this. Why the delay?’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Chappell. ‘No one told me.’
‘Or everyone thought that someone else had,’ said Rodgers, grasping the implication and trying to negate it. ‘Well, you’re here now, that’s all that matters. You know what’s going on?’
‘You’re breaking out of FTL drive. Right?’
‘Smack on target. To travel faster than light we had to go somewhere where it could be done. Another dimension, if you like. Now we’ve got to get back into our own universe. According to the math we’ve reached about where we wanted to go. The Vegian system, twenty-six light years from good old Sol. A hell of a jump but the area should be lousy with planets. The trick is to break out close enough to reach them but not too close to get trapped in a gravity well.’ He nodded to where the captain sat at a console. ‘That’s the Old Man’s decision and he’s welcome to it.’
Chappell nodded, looking with interest at the banks of meters, the columns of coloured light. Aside from small noises the control room was silent, heavy with tension as men scanned their instruments. A bell chimed from a panel, the sound augmented by a glare of red light.
‘Mass on sector three, sir,’ reported the operator. ‘About Luna size and approximately ten light minutes—’
Captain Foreman lifted his head. ‘Be more precise,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want guesses!’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Mass located at...’
Rodgers grunted as the man droned his revised information. Leaving Chappell he crossed the room to the panels and busied himself checking data. It was, Chappell knew, a thankless task. From the dimension in which they travelled instruments gathered a skein of information as to electromagnetic phenomena, radiation, local strains and distortions. From it had to be gathered usable knowledge. A local disturbance could be the location of a planetary mass or an electronic storm - FTL flight was still too recent for anyone to be wholly sure, and navigation was a matter of inspired guesswork and dead reckoning. If either were wrong the best they could hope for was the tedious business of re-establishing the drive - the worst would be utter and complete destruction as they tried to fill a space already occupied.
‘Stand by for Breakout!’ Captain Foreman lifted his head. ‘All stations secure. Sound alarm.’
A low moaning echoed through the fabric of the vessel as the alarm signalled all personnel to fasten down. Chappell found himself sweating and looked down at his hands. The first and second fingers of both hands were firmly crossed.
‘Now!’
There was a twisting, an indefinable sensation which utterly confused the senses so that the air was filled with lances of dazzling colour and shrieking noise. A sudden nausea which passed as quickly as it had come. And then the control room was normal again, the great vision screens bright with a glitter of stars, the swollen balloon of a sun. And something else.
* * * *
‘A ship,’ said Chappell. ‘Of tremendous size and totally unfamiliar design; but it could have been nothing else.’
‘Are you sure?’ Legrain had a logical mind. ‘I mean, did it speed up or slow down? Manoeuvre? Did it have a drive mechanism?’
‘No.’
‘Then how can you be positive it was a ship? It could have been anything, a small planetoid, a rogue asteroid or—’
‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ Walsh was a big man, as he clenched his fists muscles bulged on shoulders and arms. ‘I think the doc is right. It was an alien vessel and it attacked us on sight. They didn’t give us a chance.’
‘They didn’t kill us, though.’ Sears turned from where he examined one of the walls. ‘How come - if they wanted to wipe us out?’
‘How do I know?’ Walsh glared his anger. ‘Maybe they saved us to put in a zoo. Or keeping us for later vivisection. Pets, maybe. Who can tell?’
Chappell sighed. He sat on the floor, his back against a wall, his legs stretched before him. Like the others he was completely nude. The room was about twelve feet square, a featureless cube lit by a soft glow from the ceiling. The walls, as far as they could tell, were completely unbroken. It was hot, the temperature, he guessed, well above body-heat, and the air was so dry that sweat evaporated as soon as it was formed.
Sears turned from his examination of the wall and sat beside him. ‘Why?’ he demanded of no one in particular. ‘Why?”
‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ said Chappell quietly. ‘How did we get here? I think we know that. A ship approached us and used some device which immediately rendered us unconscious. Blacked us out, if you like. When we regained awareness we were in this room. I can’t be certain where it is but my guess is that it’s within the alien vessel. It certainly isn’t a part of the Prometheus. I don’t feel hungry and I don’t need a shave so not much time could have passed. So we must be on the mysterious vessel I saw. Has anyone any objection to that assumption?’ He waited but there were no objections. ‘So far so good. Now to extrapolate. Our captors must be of a high order of intelligence and have a very sophisticated technology. They matched our speed and course, made contact and effected our transfer. And it is obvious that they are our superiors in spacial navigation.’
/>
‘I don’t follow,’ objected Legrain. ‘How can you be so sure they are more advanced than we are? Their presence could have been due to simple chance.’
‘True,’ admitted Chappell. ‘But the fact that they immediately used their blackout device shows they were expecting us.’ He wiped his face and began to wish for a drink. ‘I think the most important facet of the incident is the proof that they have a very good knowledge of the human body and mind.’
Walsh frowned. ‘Hold on a minute, Doc. You’re going too fast. Nothing we have learned justifies such an assumption.’
‘Wrong,’ said Sears quickly. ‘I begin to get the drift of what the Doc is getting at. These birds are clever and, to them, we aren’t strangers.’
‘They know us?’ Legrain was incredulous. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘Then you’d better start trying!’ Sears was sharp, his tone betraying his rising irritation. ‘For any one species to be able to knock out a member of any other species by means of radiation, vibration or paralysing beam, pre-supposes that they have studied that race. Even back home we still can’t develop a beam that will do more than disorganize nervous responses and we’ve grown up together.’
New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology] Page 10