Griswold spread his hands. 'It's a choice that isn't any choice,' he said. 'What else was there? So when they woke me--I was one of the first few hundred; now there must be tens of thousands--they learned, after we established communication, that I was a psychologist. It was exactly what they needed. They set me the problem of contriving an experimental colony
- a test farm, if you like, where the human animal could be kept in conditions as close to natural as possible.
'It was their ship, orbiting out there, that made me think of Mars--it does look like a second moon. Luna was no real problem. A simple post-hypnotic command and none of you could focus on it enough to recognize the features. But I couldn't erase knowledge of Mars, if it existed in any of you. There is no invention, of course, that causes partial--and selective--amnesia in criminals. That was a lie to make you accept this plateau as a penal colony on Mars.'
'But what in hell for? ' Hardee asked angrily.
'So nobody would try to escape. Thinking you were on Mars, you wouldn't hope to get to Earth. Knowing you were on Earth, you'd do anything to reach civilization--not realizing there wasn't any left. Skitterbugs wouldn't get harvested. Skulls would be killed. The colony would be trouble instead of useful--and it would then be wiped out.
'I wanted to keep as many people alive for as long as I could.' said Griswold. 'There was no other chance for humanity.'
'What do we do now?' Hardee grimly demanded.
Griswold hesitated. 'There are a few free humans,' he said reluctantly.
'Not many. They live in the woods in hiding, some of them in the cities themselves. Mostly they are ignored by the skulls--because there are so few. If there weren't, the skulls would take the easy way out. The Earth is their new home, you see, and they regard it as you would your house. You might tolerate a few vermin--but if there are too many, you'll call in the exterminators. But there are these few, and if we can somehow make our way to them, we might have a chance to--'
'Hush!' breathed Joan Bunnell.
She caught the boy to her, pointing. Out of the woods at the side of the field raced a posse of skitterbugs, each with its bronze death's-head rider.
Hardee tried to fight, though there were hundreds of the creatures. If Wakulla had not been so profligate with his bullets But he had been; and the single bullet in the gun was more frustrating than none at all.
'Too late,' groaned Griswold, his tortured face sagging with fear. 'Give up, Hardee! Otherwise they'll kill us right here!'
They were marched down a road and into the environs of a city, the skitterbugs with their bright bronze riders a disorderly rabble around them.
None of them recognized the city; it might have been anywhere. It was a silent city, a city of death. Even from the streets, they could see men and women who had been struck down in the middle of life. A mother with three children around her sprawled in a Laocoon down porch steps; a postman with his two-wheeled cart beside him, his letters long since blown away.
And there were living, waking humans too. Chuck shivered and caught his father's arm as they rounded a corner and saw a work gang--ten or twelve men, in rags of clothing, clearing rubble from a tumbled house that lay across a side street; they looked up as Hardee and the rest passed, but there was no emotion in their eyes, only weariness.
'Those others,' whispered Joan. 'Are they dead?'
'No,' said Tavares heavily, 'not if what Griswold tells us is true. But they might as well be. Unless--'
'Don't even think it!' begged Griswold. 'Some of the skulls can understand English!'
'Let them understand!' cried Hardee. He stopped and faced them.
'We'll fight you!' he shouted. 'You can't have our planet--not now or ever!
The human race isn't going to be taken over by a bunch of bugs from another planet!'
Incuriously, the blank-eyed bronze skulls stared at him; almost as incuriously, the ragged men looked on.
The skulls prodded Hardee on, and the ragged men went back to their work.
The prisoners were taken to a big building that bore on it a sign, Hotel Winchester. Once it had been a commercial hotel; now it seemed to be headquarters for the skitterbugs and the skulls that rode them.
Without a word, they were put in a room on a gallery that overlooked the lobby. The floor of the lobby was a seething mass of skitterbugs with their riders--and some skulls which had found a different sort of mount, for they perched on the shoulders of ragged men.
The door was closed, and they were left alone.
It was a partly glass door; Hardee peered out. 'They must have come from a light-gravity planet,' he guessed. 'They move badly without the skitterbugs. They can't be very strong.'
'They don't need to be,' said Griswold somberly. 'Not with their weapons.'
'What about at night?' asked Hardee. 'Surely the skitterbugs can't operate very well without light. Can't we--'
But Griswold was shaking his head. 'They keep all the areas of the city where they move about well lighted. No, Hardee. The skulls are way ahead of you.' He sat down and sighed. 'I think they'll kill us,' he said without emotion. 'It's either that or the labour gangs.'
Old man Tavares said something incandescent in Spanish. 'You may die, Griswold, but I'll fight. Look, why can we not get away? Soon it will be dark, as Hardee says, and it is then only a matter of getting away from the lighted areas. Why not?'
'Wait,' Hardee interrupted, staring out the glass of the door.
'Someone's coming.'
They crowded around.
Down the long gallery that surrounded the lobby, a tall man with angry eyes approached.
Hope surged--a human, and free!
But then they saw that on his shoulder rode one of the bronze skulls, motionless, the hollow eyes emptily staring.
'He is probably our executioner,' said Griswold, as though announcing the time of day.
'Not without a fight,' said Hardee tensely. 'Tavares, you stand over here. I'll wait on the other side. Joan, you take Chuck to the far side of the room. See if you can make the skull look at you! And Griswold--'
'It won't work,' said Griswold stubbornly, but he went with Joan and the boy.
The door opened.
As soon as the man and his rider were inside, Hardee lunged against the door, slammed it shut. 'Now!' he shouted, and leaped towards the pair.
The angry eyes of the man opened wide in astonishment. Hastily he stepped back. 'Wait!' he cried, stumbling-And the bronze skull toppled from his shoulder.
It rolled across the room and lay motionless on the floor.
Hardee jumped for it as though it were a hand grenade, fallen back into his own rifle pit; but the new man with the angry eyes yelled: 'Don't waste your time! That one's dead--I killed it myself!'
Hardee stopped short, gaping.
The man grinned tightly. 'It keeps the others from bothering me,' he explained. 'Don't mess it up--we'll need it to get out of here. Come on!'
'Where?' asked Hardee, trying to take it in. It was hope, it was rescue
- when they had expected it least.
'Down the end of the gallery,' said the man, 'there's a linen closet. In it is a laundry chute. It goes down to the cellar. The skulls don't go there much--the lights are bad; we keep them that way. And there are sewers and passages. If we reach the chute, we're safe.'
He opened the door, peered out. 'You go ahead, all of you. I'll follow, as though I'm taking you somewhere.' He closed the door and bent down to recover his skull. 'Mustn't forget Oscar,' he said. 'He's our passport.'
He opened a leather strap that passed around his neck and shoulder, bound it around the dead skull, buckled it again. Experimentally he bowed slightly from the waist. The skull wobbled but stayed on.
'Don't jar me,' he said, and crossed his fingers. He opened the door a crack, looked down the corridor and nodded.
'Let's go!' he said, and flung it wide.
The procession moved down the gallery. Dust was thick on the leather set
tees that lined it; the skulls had no need for them, and no human without a skull possessing it had passed that way in five years. There were skitterbugs with skulls upon them at the end of the gallery, but they didn't seem to notice anything. Down in the lobby, a few of the men with skull riders glanced up, but no one challenged.
It was twenty yards to the door of the linen closet.
Fifteen yards were easy.
Then, out of a ballroom that was now a pen for the human slaves of the skulls, two skitterbugs with skulls upon them came out. They paused and then one of them opened its queerly articulated transverse mouth and made a sound, a chanting metallic whine--speaking to the skull on the shoulder of their rescuer.
Hardee caught Joan's arm, took a tighter grip on the hand of the boy by his side, lengthening his stride. So near! And then--
Quick as lightning, the skitterbug with the skull on it leaped forward and clutched at the legs of the man who was shepherding them.
He kicked it away. 'Run!' he yelled.
The skull on his shoulder fell free and bumped lifelessly away. Three more skulls, riding skitterbugs, popped out of the ballroom. Down on the lobby floor there was a stirring and a whining commotion.
'Run!' he yelled again, and shoved them powerfully forward to the linen closet.
They made the door, just in time. It was the size of a small room, and they all crammed inside.
Hardee slammed the door and held it. 'Jump! I'll stay here and keep them out.'
The boy cried out once, then was silent. He glanced at his father as Tavares and the other man lifted him into the chute; but he didn't say a word when they let go and he slid out of sight.
'Go ahead, Joan!' barked Hardee.
Restless scratchings outside told him the skitterbugs were there.
Then he could feel the door pressing against him. He cursed the clever, economical designers of the building, who had known better than to put a lock on the inside of a linen closet. If there had been one, they could all escape. But since there was not--
Griswold glanced at the chute, looked at Hardee, and nervously tongued his dry lips.
Tavares was in the chute now; he waved, and dropped out of sight.
Griswold turned his back on the chute.
He walked over to Hardee. 'I've got a broken arm,' he said, 'and, you know, I'm not sure the free humans would welcome me. You go, Hardee.'
'But-'
'Go ahead!' Griswold thrust him away. There was more strength than Hardee had expected in the worn, injured body. 'I doubt I could make it anyway, with this arm--but I can hold them for a minute!'
Already the other man was gone; it was only Griswold and Hardee there, and the scratching and shoving were growing more insistent.
'All right,' said Hardee at last. 'Griswold--'
But he didn't know what it was, exactly, that he wanted to say; and besides, there was no time.
Griswold, sweat pouring into his eyes, chuckled faintly for the first time since Hardee had known him.
'Hurry!' he said, and looked embarrassed as he held up two fingers in a shaky V. But he looked embarrassed only for an instant. The fingers firmed into a spiky, humanly stubborn, defiant sign of victory. 'Save the children,' Griswold said. 'I couldn't get the skulls to let many into the colony
- a waste, they told me, because kids can't work. Save the children!'
Hardee turned away--towards the laundry chute, and towards a new life.
The Haunted Corpse
Well, we moved in pretty promptly. This Van Pelt turned up at the Pentagon on a Thursday, and by the following Monday I had a task force of a hundred and thirty-five men with full supply bivouacked around the old man's establishment.
He didn't like it. I rather expected he wouldn't. He came storming out of the big house as the trucks came in. 'Get out of here! Go on, get out!
This is a private property and you're trespassing. I won't have it, do you hear me? Get out!'
I stepped out of the jeep and gave him a soft salute. 'Colonel Windermere, sir. My orders are to establish a security cordon around your laboratories. Here you are, sir, your copy of the orders.'
He scowled and fussed and finally snatched the orders out of my hand. Well, they were signed by General Follansbee himself, so there wasn't much argument. I stood by politely, prepared to make matters as painless for him as I could. I don't hold with antagonizing civilians unnecessarily. But he evidently didn't want it to be painless. 'Van Pelt!' he bellowed. 'Why, that rotten, decrepit, back-stabbing monster of a--'
I listened attentively. He was very good. What he was saying, in essence, was that he felt his former associate, Van Pelt, had had no right to report to the Pentagon that there was potential military applicability in the Horn Effect. Of course, it was the trimmings with which he stated his case that made it so effective.
I finally interrupted him. 'Dr. Horn,' I said, 'the general asked me to give you his personal assurance that we will not in any way interfere with your work here. It is only a matter of security. I'm sure you'll understand the importance of security, sir.'
' Security! Now listen here, Lieutenant, I--'
'Colonel, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Windermere.'
'Colonel, General, Lieutenant, what the hell do I care? Listen to me!
The Horn Effect is my personal property, not yours, not Van Pelt's, and not the government's. I was working in personality dissociation before you were born, and--'
'Security, sir!' I made it crackle. He looked at me pop-eyed and I nodded to my driver. 'He isn't cleared. Dr. Horn,' I explained. 'All right, O'Hare. You're dismissed.' Sergeant O'Hare saluted from behind the wheel and took off.
I said soothingly, 'Now, Dr. Horn, I want you to know that I'm here to help you. If there's anything you want, just ask; I'll get it. Even if you want to go into town, that can be arranged--of course, you'd better give us twenty-four hours notice so we can arrange a route and--'
He said briefly, 'Young man, go to the devil.' And he turned and stalked into the big house. I watched him, and I remember thinking that for a lean old goat of eighty or eighty-five he had a lot of spirit.
I went about my business, and Dr. Horn picked up the phone in his house and demanded the Pentagon, to complain about our being there.
When he finally realized he was talking to our intercept monitor, and that no calls would go out on his line without authorization from me, he yelled up another storm.
But that wasn't going to get him anywhere, of course. Not when General Follansbee himself had signed the orders.
• • • •
About oh-eight-hundred the next morning I ran a surprise fullscale inspection and simulated infiltration to keep the detachment on its toes. It all checked out perfectly. I had detailed Sergeant O'Hare to try to sneak in from the marshland south of the old man's place, and he was spotted fifty yards from the perimeter. When he reported to me he was covered with mud and shaking. 'Those trigger-happy ba--Those guards, sir, nearly blew my head off. If the officer of the day hadn't happened by I think they would have done it, only he recognized me.'
'All right, Sergeant.' I dismissed him and went in to breakfast. The wire-stringing detail had worked all night, and we were now surrounded with triple-strand electrified barbwire, with an outer line of barbwire chevaux-de-frise. There were guard-towers every fifty yards and at the corners, and a construction detail was clearing the brush for an additional twenty yards outside the wire. I thought briefly of bulldozing a jeep path in the cleared area for permanent rotating patrols, but it didn't really seem necessary.
I was rather hungry, and a little sleepy--that wire-stringing detail had made quite a lot of noise. But on the whole I was pleased, if a little irritable.
The O.D. phoned in for instructions while I was breakfasting; Van Pelt had arrived from town and the O.D. wouldn't let him in without my approval. I authorized it, and in a moment Van Pelt turned up in my private mess, looking simultaneously worried and jubilant. 'How'd he take it, Colonel?'
he asked. 'Is he--I mean, is he sore?'
'Very.'
'Oh.' Van Pelt shook slightly, then shrugged. 'Well, you're here. I guess he won't try anything.' He looked hungrily at my buckwheat cakes and sausages. 'I, uh, I didn't get a chance to have breakfast on the way down--'
'Be my guest, Dr. Van Pelt.' I ordered another place set, and extra portions of everything. He ate it all, God knows how. Looking at him, you'd think he could march two hundred miles on the stored fat he already had.
He wasn't much over five-six, perhaps five-seven, and I'd guess two hundred and eighty pounds at the least. He was about as unlike Dr. Horn as you could imagine. I wondered how they had got along, working together--
but of course I knew the answer. They got along badly. Else Van Pelt never would have gone running to the Pentagon. I tried to keep an open mind about that, of course. I mean, General Follansbee thought it was important to national defence, and so on--But I couldn't help thinking how I would feel if some junior went over my head in that way. Of course, military discipline is one thing, and civilian affairs, as I understand it, ere something else. But all the same...
Anyway, he had done it; and here we were. Not much like a fighting command for me. But orders are orders.
• • • •
At fourteen hundred I paid a call on Dr. Horn.
He looked up as the clerk-typist corporal and I came in. He didn't say anything, just stood up and pointed to the door.
I said, 'Good afternoon, Dr. Horn. If this is an inconvenient time for you to make your daily progress report, just say the word. I'm here to help you, you know. Would from twelve to thirteen hundred hours every day be more satisfactory? Or in the morning? Or--'
'Every day?'
'That's right, sir. Perhaps you didn't notice Paragraph Eight of my orders. General Follansbee's orders were to--'
He interrupted me with an irrelevant comment on General Follansbee, but I pretended not to hear. Besides, he might have been right. I said, 'As a starter, sir, perhaps you'll be good enough to show us around the laboratories. I think that you'll find that Corporal McCabe will be able to take your words down at normal speed.'
The Frederick Pohl Omnibus (1966) SSC Page 20