All Judgment Fled

by James White

  "Probably booze or beauty cream," said Berryman as he wriggled out of an alien bed. He had been investigating the interiors of both hammocks. When his legs were clear he added, "They're almost comfortable if it wasn't for the dampness and smell. When you push against the inside, the padding secretes something which smells like -- like . . . It's a damp smell, not altogether unpleasant."

  McCullough investigated with eye and nose, finding that he had to push away several of the Threes to do so. But the animals were wriggling and flapping around only one of the hammocks. He was reminded suddenly of dogs excited by the scent of their master or by the clothing or personal possessions of their master. One of these beds had been occupied recently, he felt sure, or the Threes would not be so excited. He turned back to look again at the pictures.

  Most of them showed pallid, leafless vegetation set against a dark, mottled background or one that resembled rough-grained wood. While there was a definite feeling of depth to the pictures, there was no middle distance or horizon, and McCullough assumed that they were some kind of still-life studies. But there were two pictures which had everything -- size, perspective and almost photographic detail. One of them showed the plant or thing or whatever it was that they had at first mistaken for a multicolored pile of spaghetti, with trees in the foreground and clouds behind to give a true indication of its tremendous size. Another showed trees with strange leaves on them, thick, wiry undergrowth harboring a running Two and a dazzlingly bright sky. A great many questions regarding the Two life-form were answered by that picture.

  The e-t stag at bay, he thought drily.

  He could now tell General Brady that the Twos were, in fact, animals and not intelligent beings. While this knowledge would be a load off everyone's mind, it still meant that McCullough was faced with the problem of making contact with the intelligent extraterrestrial on the Ship, and all at once he was most horribly afraid and unsure of himself. He did not want the responsibility and he could not make the decision which was being forced on him -- at least, not right now.

  In a couple of hours, perhaps, or days . . .

  Right now he wanted to slap an indefinite Hold on everything. He wanted time to look at all the evidence old and new, and discuss it quietly and in the greatest possible detail. This time he could not afford to push the wrong psychological button, for he was now firmly convinced that there was only one intelligent extraterrestrial left in the Ship and that physically and emotionally it was not in good shape.

  It took a tremendous effort for him to make his voice sound firm and steady when he spoke.

  "Everybody out," he said. "We must report this to Brady and decide on our next move. This time we can't afford to make a mistake. Collect your Threes and let's go. Quickly!"

  But the Threes did not want to leave. It took more than ten minutes' coaxing and petting to make them leave the vicinity of that one cylindrical hammock. Meanwhile Drew reported Twos beginning to gather a little way along the corridor and asked permission to close the door, and Berryman, his Threes covering his body like a form-fitting fur coat, continued to look around.

  Suddenly he called, "Over here!"

  The pilot had opened what he thought was the door of a recessed cupboard -- there were a number of them in the room -- and found himself looking along a short stretch of corridor. There was another door containing a large transparent panel at the other end, and beyond that another room which was in darkness except for the myriads of indicator lights burning like regimented stars on the facing wall. As they watched, a black shadow began to occlude some of the stars.

  "Outside!" shouted McCullough again. "Quickly, and make sure the door is closed properly behind us!"

  "But there's dozens of them out here," said Drew angrily. "Something is biting them. I've never heard Twos make a noise like this before.

  "Get out of here!"

  When the entrance to the alien crew's compartment was safely closed behind him, McCullough tried to explain why he had insisted on them leaving a relatively safe position for their present highly dangerous one, but they were all too angry to talk and there were so many Twos in the corridor that they couldn't risk taking their eyes off them even to look at him. Probably they were hating him for being stupid or a coward, or both. But McCullough, while scared stiff of meeting the alien face to face, had been even more afraid of another possibility. He had suddenly thought of the animal enclosure with its half-eaten body of the other crew member, and he had had a picture of what the Twos would do if they broke into that last compartment.

  He wondered if the alien had considered his reaction cowardly, always supposing that the being was capable of reasoning at all. But even if grief over the loss of what was very probably its mate, and loneliness and fear inside this vast, Two-infested Ship -- and possibly physical injuries as well -- had driven it insane or close to insanity, a cowardly reaction might actually be reassuring to it. There was nobody who helped a coward like an even greater coward. But he could not cure the alien, or communicate with it, by running away all the time.

  On Earth, psychiatric treatment of seriously disturbed patients -- insane was not considered a nice word -- had had only limited success, so what chance had a doctor, who was not even a psychologist, of curing a patient whose archetypal images were out of this world, whose phallic symbols were unrecognizable, and whose culture contained in all probability a welter of psychological theories even more complex and mutally contradictory than those current on Earth? There might be some relatively simple form of therapy possible, of course. The e-t equivalent of the snake pit where the patient cured itself with just a little, unskilled help and a lot of sympathy.

  But that was asking for too much. Right now McCullough needed specialist advice and assistance, from Earth.

  "Back to the hull lock chamber," he said. "We have to contact Walters, and Brady. Hurry it up!"

  The Twos attacked while he was speaking, filling the corridor with colliding, cartwheeling bodies and slashing, horn-tipped tentacles. In the confusion Drew and Hollis got three of them and Berryman one before they were able to pull clear of the mêlée. McCullough seriously wounded a couple of them and lost contact with his Three after the furry creature had started to strangle another Two which had been trying to swarm onto his back. But suddenly it was with him again, flapping along behind him as they retreated along the corridor. He reached back, caught it and pulled it onto his shoulders like a great, furry cape.

  Suddenly they were trapped. Another group of Twos came boiling out of an intersection ahead of them, bouncing off the wall netting and each other like outsize, tentacled molecules illustrating the Brownian movement of gases. Obviously the humans had not reduced the number of Twos as efficiently as they had hoped.

  Berryman shouted, "In here!"

  He was holding open the sliding door into a large dormitory compartment and they went through it backward, spears jabbing at full extension, fighting off Twos. Seconds after they had slid it shut, the door bulged alarmingly as several Twos charged it together, but it did not come off its runners. Drew and Berryman were able to get their spears through the warped outsides of the door and stab attacking Twos with comparative safety and they killed four of the animals without, however, seriously discouraging the attack. Hollis and McCullough, meanwhile, made a quick check of the compartment. Their most important discoveries were another exit and, floating in one of the corners, a thick, illustrated magazine.

  The color reproduction and values were strange and the printed characters even stranger, not to mention the raised, embossed pattern on the bottom outside corner of each page, which allowed them to be turned by alien digits terminating in osseous material, but somehow it still managed to look like a copy of an illustrated magazine that might have been picked up anywhere on Earth. McCullough longed for time to examine it and discuss it at length with the others. He wanted to photograph it page by page and have Walters transmit the pictures to Earth and have everyone there discuss it and offer specialist ad
vice.

  But behind him the Twos were battering their way through the warped sliding door. McCullough folded the magazine carefully and wedged it between his air tanks and his back, then led the way out of the other exit and along the corridor.

  They continued to duck in and out of compartments, some of which were large, interconnected dormitories with several exits, and for several minutes they completely lost the Twos. By then they were completely lost themselves.

  "Berryman," said McCullough, steadying himself against a hammock as he tried to catch his mental and physical breath. "Check the plumbing with a view to contacting Walters. Hollis, help him. While you're doing so, try to think of a quick way of repairing the sabotaged generator. Drew, stay by the door. To save time I'll begin taping a report for the general while you two try to contact P-One."

  But the Twos battered down the door a few minutes later and they were forced to move again.

  Drew swore horribly and said that he did not know what had got into them. Normally ferocious and blindly antagonistic, they were now literally killing themselves, cracking open their bony carapaces against the metal doors and running into each others' horns in their attempts to get at the humans. It was as if some dreadful hysteria had them in its grip and the grip was tightening by the minute.

  Some very special kind of killing instinct was being aroused, McCullough told himself as the men were forced to flee once again. It had to be a very deep-rooted instinct because these Twos were almost certainly second or third generation.

  The report was finally completed during a lull while the Twos, who were still in the grip of the conditioning which made them visit the food dispensers at mealtimes, were absent. Berryman identified a section of plumbing belonging to the hydraulic systern actuating the hull cargo locks and said that it should make a very good link with their ship. The pilot quickly connected his suit radio antenna, said that someone was already talking at the other end, and turned up the volume.

  Tinny, distorted and furiously angry, Brady's voice rattled out at them.

  ". . . What you said was bad enough. Thoughtless, irresponsible, downright criminal considering the political situation here -- and I'm disregarding the tone, which was insubordinate to the point of mutiny! But those pictures, that cold-blooded slaughter of what are almost certainly intelligent beings -- you've been secretive, McCullough is afraid even to talk to me, and no wonder! Killing Twos has been reduced to a fine art, and judging by those pictures . . ."

  "Walters -- " began McCullough.

  ". . . enjoying practicing that art! You act like barbarians instead of so-called reasoning beings! And you can't even claim the excuse of honest insanity, because your actions are too cold-blooded and carefully thought out. Moral cowardice, which is not an excuse, and megalomania is what ails you all -- you made a mistake, McCullough made a mistake with the Twos at the onset and will slaughter every last one of them rather than admit it! I want to talk to you, Doctor. I know you're afraid to listen but . . ."

  "Turn him down, Walters, I want to talk to you . . ."

  ". . . All things being equal, the simple rather than the complicated explanation is usually the true one! Try THIS theory, Doctor. It was evolved by people here who know their stuff, and it also fits the facts. The Ship dormitory accommodation was meant for its large complement of Twos -- it may have been a colonization project, a troop transport, or it may simply have needed a very large crew. A couple of Twos could squeeze into those hammocks, you know -- have you considered that? Then something happened during the early part of the trip, after the course had already been set for this solar system. Whatever catastrophe occurred, it was almost certainly nonphysical. The end result was a process of cultural devolution which brought the crew close to the level of animals. They broke into, not out of, the animal cages in search of food and eventually sank to practicing cannibalism. But they did not forget all their early training -- or their ancestors' early training -- beca1use they reacted violently toward anyone who appeared to threaten their Ship.

  I can even make a prediction based on this theory, McCullough. It is this. The closer you approach the Ship's control center -- which the Twos must regard as some sort of mystic shrine or taboo area by now, since they know it is vital to the Ship without understanding why -- their antagonism toward you will increase . . ."

  Berryman, Hollis and Drew were staring at him, faces chalk-white and reflecting the same horrible fear and guilt and confusion that was gripping McCullough. He couldn't be so wrong, he told himself desperately. He didn't have to listen to this . . .

  ". . . Beyond appeals to reason. The world is judging us, your country and everyone in it, by your actions. But you don't care about that, do you? Well, we don't care about you! Believe me, if we directed the two remaining supply rockets off course, we would not be too strongly criticized for doing so. We're ashamed of you, McCullough, and the rest of your murdering pack -- you're little more than mad dogs! You sicken and disgust us . . ."

  Brady's voice began to fade as Walters on P-One reduced the volume. But not soon enough.

  ". . . Nobody here wants you, d'you understand that? We don't want to see you back!"

  chapter twenty-one

  Mental anguish could take many forms, McCullough thought sickly, ranging from simple worry over a possible future unpleasantness to the deep grief at the loss of a dear one. But those were clean, uncomplicated emotions whatever their degree of intensity -- this was the twisting, almost physical pain of betrayal by a trusted friend who turns suddenly into an enemy and raised to the nth power. For it was not only their personal friends at Prometheus who had betrayed and rejected them, it was their whole lousy race!

  From the shocked, angry faces all around him, McCullough knew that only two reactions were possible. Anger and counterattack or extreme, soul-destroying guilt and despair. But they had come through too much together on the Ship, they had overcome too many purely physical dangers for them to die of a collective broken heart. He told himself that this was so, but he was not sure that he could believe himself. He could not be sure of anything any more.

  A metallic crash from the door told of the Twos, even angrier probably because the food dispensers were no longer giving food, beginning to return from lunch. He wondered suddenly if intelligent beings could sink so low as to eat animal food, and thought they might if something had happened to the crew water and food supply. But Brady's theory was too simple, surely. There were facts that it did not explain, and one fact in particular was deafeningly obvious.

  "I'm not a psychologist," said McCullough quietly, trying to control his relief and excitement, "but it seems to me that the last thing an intelligent person would forget is how to open and close a door." He turned to the radio and went on quickly, "So you showed him pictures of us dumping Twos into space, but I can guess at some of the things he said to make you do it, so don't worry. Just link me with the transmitter, Walters, there is something I want to say to him . . ."

  He had begun by speaking quietly to the pilot, and his voice was still soft. But the anger that crept into it when he spoke to the general made it unrecognizable even to himself.

  "We feel sorry for you, General Brady," be said, "we feel sorry for all you people. It would be a lie to say that we don't feel angry and disgusted with you as well, but we do feel sorry. The harsh facts of contact with an extraterrestrial culture are being brought home to you, to all of you. And you are all frightened. The implications are only now beginning to dawn on you and you feel guilty and ashamed because things may not have been handled right. It is a very uncomfortable time for all of you, and your feelings and qualms of conscience do you credit. But you, General, and all of you, are so uncomfortable that you want to avoid both the responsibility and the guilt by passing it onto us. Then, presumably, you will bury and forget the whole thing by disowning us!

  "There is nothing original about this course," McCullough went on. "It is a clear case of your eyes and your hands scandalizing you, a
nd you then quote the highest possible Authority regarding your subsequent action in the matter. If your right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out. If your right hand scandalize thee, cut it ofl and cast it from thee, and so on. But if you were thinking straight, you would realize that this is not a true analogy. We are not just your hands and eyes, we are a cross-section of all the people of Earth. That is what's really bothering you, and you know it! What we feel toward the aliens is what you would feel in the same circumstances, our thoughts would be your thoughts, our actions and reactions yours as well. You know this is true but you don't want to face up to it. Instead you are making us the scapegoat.