He heard the pounding feet of the Telians coming toward him and managed to climb on one knee.
Then somebody threw a club and it landed neatly on his forehead.
“Ar gwy dril?” a voice asked incomprehensibly from far off.
Bentley opened his eyes and saw Huascl bending over him. He was in a hut, back in the village. Several armed ghost doctors were at the doorway, watching.
“Ar dril?” Huascl asked again.
Bentley rolled over and saw, piled neatly beside him, his canteen, concentrated food, tools, radio, and linguascene. He took a deep drink of water, then turned on the linguascene.
“I asked if you felt all right,” Huascl said.
“Sure, fine,” Bentley grunted, feeling his head. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Over with?”
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? Well, let’s not make a production out of it.”
“But we didn’t want to destroy you,” Huascl said. “We knew you for a good man. It was the devil we wanted.”
“Eh?” asked Bentley in a blank, uncomprehending voice.
“Come, look.”
The ghost doctors helped Bentley to his feet and brought him outside. There, surrounded by lapping flames, was the glowing great black sphere of the Protec.
“You didn’t know, of course,” Huascl said, “but there was a devil riding upon your back.”
“Huh!” gasped Bentley.
“Yes, it is true. We tried to dispossess him by purification, but he was too strong. We had to force you, brother, to face that evil and throw it aside. We knew you would come through. And you did!”
“I see,” Bentley said. “A devil on my back. Yes, I guess so.”
That was exactly what the Protec would have to be, to them. A heavy, misshapen weight on his shoulders, hurling out a black sphere whenever they tried to purify it. What else could a religious people do but try to free him from its grasp?
He saw several women of the village bring up baskets of food and throw them into the fire in front of the sphere. He looked inquiringly at Huascl.
“We are propitiating it,” Huascl said, “for it is a very strong devil, undoubtedly a miracle-working one. Our village is proud to have such a devil in bondage.”
A ghost doctor from a neighboring village stepped up. “Are there more such devils in your homeland? Could you bring us one to worship?”
Several other ghost doctors pressed eagerly forward. Bentley nodded. “It can be arranged,” he said.
He knew that the Earth-Tels trade was now begun. And at last a suitable use had been found for Professor Sliggert’s Protec.
DISPOSAL SERVICE
The visitor shouldn’t have got past the reception desk, for Mr. Ferguson saw people by appointment only, unless they were very important. His time was worth money, and he had to protect it.
But his secretary, Miss Dale, was young and easily impressed; and the visitor was old, and he wore conservative English tweeds, carried a cane, and held an engraved business card. Miss Dale thought he was important, and ushered him directly into Mr. Ferguson’s office.
“Good morning, sir,” the visitor said as soon as Miss Dale had closed the door. “I am Mr. Esmond from the Disposal Service.” He handed Ferguson his card.
“I see,” Ferguson said, annoyed at Miss Dale’s lack of judgment. “Disposal Service? Sorry, I have nothing I wish disposed of.” He rose, to cut the interview short.
“Nothing whatsoever?” Mr. Esmond asked.
“Not a thing. Thank you for calling—”
“I take it, then, that you are content with the people around you?”
“What? How’s that any of your business?”
“Why, Mr. Ferguson, that is the function of the Disposal Service.”
“You’re kidding me,” Ferguson said.
“Not at all,” Mr. Esmond said, with some surprise.
“You mean,” Ferguson said, laughing, “you dispose of people?”
“Of course. I cannot produce any personal endorsements, for we are at some pains to avoid all advertising. But I can assure you we are an old and reliable firm.”
Ferguson stared at the neat, stiffly erect Esmond. He didn’t know how to take this. It was a joke, of course. Anyone could see that.
It had to be a joke.
“And what do you do with the people you dispose of?” Ferguson asked jovially.
“That,” Mr. Esmond said, “is our concern. To all intents and purposes, they disappear.”
Ferguson stood up. “All right, Mr. Esmond. What really is your business?”
“I’ve told you,” Esmond said.
“Come now. You weren’t serious...If I thought you were serious, I’d call the police.”
Mr. Esmond sighed and stood up. “I take it, then, you have no need of our services. You are entirely satisfied with your friends, relatives, wife.”
“My wife? What do you know about my wife?”
“Nothing, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Have you been talking to our neighbors? Those quarrels mean nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“I have no information about your marital state, Mr. Ferguson,” Esmond said, sitting down again.
“Then why did you ask about my wife?”
“We have found that marriages are our chief source of revenue.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with my marriage. My wife and I get along very well.”
“Then you don’t need the Disposal Service,” Mr. Esmond said, tucking his cane under his arm.
“Just a moment.” Ferguson began to pace the floor, hands clasped behind his back. “I don’t believe a word of this, you understand. Not a word. But assuming, for a moment, that you were serious. Merely assuming, mind you—what would the procedure be if I—if I wanted—”
“Just your verbal consent,” Mr. Esmond said.
“Payment”
“After disposal, not before.”
“Not that I care,” Ferguson said hastily. “I’m just curious.” He hesitated. “Is it painful?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Ferguson continued to pace. “My wife and I get along very well,” he said. “We have been married for seventeen years. Of course, people always have difficulties living together. It’s to be expected.”
Mr. Esmond’s face was expressionless.
“One learns to compromise,” Ferguson said. “And I have passed the age when a passing fancy would cause me to—to—”
“I quite understand,” Mr. Esmond said.
“I mean to say,” Ferguson said, “my wife can, of course, be difficult. Vituperative. Nagging. I suppose you have information on that’“
“None,” Mr. Esmond said.
“You must have! You must have had a particular reason for looking me up!”
Mr. Esmond shrugged his shoulders.
“Anyhow,” Ferguson said heavily, “I’m past the age when a new arrangement is desirable. Suppose I had no wife? Suppose I could establish a liaison with, say, Miss Dale. It would be pleasant, I suppose.”
“Merely pleasant,” Mr. Esmond said.
“Yes. It would have no lasting value. It would lack the firm moral underpinning upon which any successful enterprise must be based.”
“It would be merely pleasant,” Mr. Esmond said.
“That’s right. Enjoyable, of course. Miss Dale is an attractive woman. No one would deny that. She has an even temper, an agreeable nature, a desire to please. I’ll grant all that.”
Mr. Esmond smiled politely, stood up and started to the door.
“Could I let you know?” Ferguson asked suddenly.
“You have my card. I can be reached at that number until five o’clock. But you must decide by then. Time is money, and our schedule must be kept up.”
“Of course,” Ferguson said. He laughed hollowly. “I still don’t believe a word of this. I don’t even know your terms.”
“Moderate, I assure you, for a man in your circumstance
s.”
“And I would disclaim all knowledge of ever having met you, talked with you, anything.”
“Naturally.”
“And you will be at this number?”
“Until five o’clock. Good day, Mr. Ferguson.”
After Esmond left, Ferguson found that his hands were shaking. The talk had disturbed him, and he determined to put it out of his mind at once.
But it wasn’t that easy. Although he bent earnestly over his papers, forcing his pen to take notes, he was remembering everything Esmond had said.
The Disposal Service had found out, somehow, about his wife’s shortcomings. Esmond had said she was argumentative, vituperative, nagging. He was forced to recognize those truths, unpalatable though they might be. It took a stranger to look at things with a clear, unprejudiced eye.
He returned to his work. But Miss Dale came in with the morning mail, and Mr. Ferguson was forced to agree that she was extremely attractive.
“Will there be anything else, Mr. Ferguson?” she asked.
“What? Oh, not at the moment,” Ferguson said. He stared at the door for a long time after she left.
Further work was impossible. He decided to go home at once.
“Miss Dale,” he said, slipping on his topcoat, “I’m called away. I’m afraid a lot of work is piling up. Would it be possible for you to work with me an evening or two this week?”
“Of course, Mr. Ferguson,” she said.
“I won’t be interfering with your social life?” Ferguson asked, trying to laugh.
“Not at all, sir.”
“I’ll—I’ll try to make it up to you. Business. Good day.”
He hurried out of the office, his cheeks burning.
At home, his wife was just finishing the wash. Mrs. Ferguson was a small, plain woman with little nervous lines around her eyes. She was surprised to see him.
“You’re home early,” she said.
“Is there anything wrong with that?” Ferguson asked, with an energy that surprised him.
“Of course not—”
“What do you want? Should I kill myself in that office?” he snapped.
“When did I say—”
“Kindly don’t argue with me,” Ferguson said. “Don’t nag.”
“I wasn’t nagging!” his wife shouted.
“I’m going to lie down,” Ferguson said.
He went upstairs and stood in front of the telephone. There was no doubt of it, everything Esmond had said was true.
He glanced at his watch, and was surprised to find that it was a quarter to five.
Ferguson began to pace in front of the telephone. He stared at Esmond’s card, and a vision of the trim, attractive Miss Dale floated through his mind.
He lunged at the telephone.
“Disposal Service, Mr. Esmond speaking.”
“This is Mr. Ferguson.”
“Yes, sir. What have you decided?”
“I’ve decided...” Ferguson clenched the telephone tightly. He had a perfect right to do this, he told himself.
And yet, they had been married for seventeen years. Seventeen years! There had been good times, as well as bad. Was it fair, was it really fair?
“What have you decided, Mr. Ferguson?” Esmond repeated.
“I—I—no! I don’t want the service!” Ferguson shouted.
“Are you certain, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Yes, absolutely. You should be behind bars! Good day, sir!”
He hung up, and immediately felt an enormous weight leave his mind. He hurried downstairs.
His wife was cooking short ribs of beef, a dish he had never liked. But it didn’t matter. He was prepared to overlook petty annoyances.
The doorbell rang.
“Oh, it must be the laundry,” Mrs. Ferguson said, trying simultaneously to toss a salad and stir the soup. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all.” Glowing in his newfound self-righteousness, Ferguson opened the door. Two uniformed men were standing outside, carrying a large canvas bag.
“Laundry?” Ferguson asked.
“Disposal Service,” one of the men said.
“But I told you I didn’t—”
The two men seized him, and, with the dexterity of long practice, stuffed him into the bag.
“You can’t do this!” Ferguson shrieked.
The bag closed over him, and he felt himself carried down his walk. A car door creaked open, and he was laid carefully on the floor.
“Is everything all right?” he heard his wife ask.
“Yes, madam. There was a change in the schedule. We are able to fit you in after all.”
“I’m so glad,” he heard her say. “It was such a pleasure talking to your Mr. French this afternoon. Now excuse me. Dinner is almost ready, and I must make a phone call.”
The car began to move. Ferguson tried to scream, but the canvas pressed tightly against his face.
He asked himself desperately, who could she be calling? Why didn’t I suspect?
HUMAN MAN’S BURDEN
Edward Flaswell bought his planetoid, sight unseen, at the Interstellar Land Office on Earth. He selected it on the basis of a photograph, which showed little more than a range of picturesque mountains. But Flaswell loved mountains and as he remarked to the Claims Clerk, “Might be gold in them thar hills, mightn’t thar, pardner?”
“Sure, pal, sure,” the clerk responded, wondering what man in his right mind would put himself several light-years from the nearest woman of any description whatsoever. No man in his right mind would, the clerk decided, and gave Flaswell a searching look.
But Flaswell was perfectly sane. He just hadn’t stopped to consider the problem.
Accordingly, Flaswell put down a small sum in credits and made a large promise to improve his land every year. As soon as the ink was dry upon his deed, he purchased passage aboard a second- class drone freighter, loaded it with an assortment of secondhand equipment and set out for his holdings.
Most novice pioneers find they have purchased a sizable chunk of naked rock. Flaswell was lucky. His planetoid, which he named Chance, had a minimal manufactured atmosphere that he could boost to breathable status. There was water, which his well-digging equipment tapped on the twenty-third attempt. He found no gold in them thar hills, but there was some exportable thorium. And best of all, much of the soil was suitable for the cultivation of dir, olge, smis, and other luxury fruits.
As Flaswell kept telling his robot foreman, “This place is going to make me rich!”
“Sure, Boss, sure,” the robot always responded.
The planetoid had undeniable promise. Its development was an enormous task for one man, but Flaswell was only twenty-seven years old, strongly built and of a determined frame of mind. Beneath his hand, the planetoid flourished. Months passed and Flaswell planted his fields, mined his picturesque mountains and shipped his goods out by the infrequent drone freighter that passed his way.
One day, his robot foreman said to him, “Boss Man, sir, you don’t look too good, Mr. Flaswell, sir.”
Flaswell frowned at this speech. The man he had bought his robots from had been a Human Supremacist of the most rabid sort, who had coded the robots’ responses according to his own ideas of the respect due Human People. Flaswell found this annoying, but he couldn’t afford new response tapes. And where else could he have picked up robots for so little money?
“Nothing wrong with me, Gunga-Sam,” Flaswell replied.
“Ah! 1 beg pardon! But this is not so, Mr. Flaswell, Boss. You have been talking to yourself in the fields, you should excuse my saying it.”
“Aw, it’s nothing.”
“And you have the beginning of a tic in your left eye, sahib. And your fingers are trembling. And you are drinking too much. And—”
“That’s enough, Gunga-Sam. A robot should know his place,” Flaswell said. He saw the hurt expression that the robot’s metal face somehow managed to convey. He sighed and said, “You’re right, of course. You�
�re always right, old friend. What’s the matter with me?”
“You are bearing too much of the Human Man’s Burden.”
“Don’t I know it!” Flaswell ran a hand through his unruly black hair. “Sometimes I envy you robots. Always laughing, carefree, happy—”
“It is because we have no souls.”
“Unfortunately I do. What do you suggest’“
“Take a vacation, Mr. Flaswell, Boss,” Gunga-Sam suggested, and wisely withdrew to let his master think.
Flaswell appreciated his servitor’s kindly suggestion, but a vacation was difficult. His planetoid, Chance, was in the Throcian System, which was about as isolated as one could get in this day and age. True, he was only a fifteen-day flight from the tawdry amusements of Cythera III and not much farther from Nagondicon, where considerable fun could be obtained for the strong in stomach. But distance is money, and money was the very thing Flaswell was trying to make on Chance.
He planted more crops, dug more thorium and began to grow a beard. He continued to mumble to himself in the fields and to drink heavily in the evenings. Some of the simple farm robots grew alarmed when Flaswell lurched past and they began praying to the outlawed Combustion God. But loyal Gunga-Sam soon put a stop to this ominous turn of events.
“Ignorant mechanicals!” he told them. “The Boss Human, he all right. Him strong, him good! Believe me, brothers, it is even as I say!”
But the murmurings did not cease, for robots look to Humans to set an example. The situation might have gotten out of hand if Flaswell had not received, along with his next shipment of food, a shiny new Roebuck-Ward catalog.
Lovingly he spread it open upon his crude plastic table and, by the glow of a simple cold-light bulb, began to pore over its contents. What wonders there were for the isolated pioneer! Home distilling plants, and moon makers, and portable solidovision, and—
Flaswell turned a page, read it, gulped and read it again. It said:
MAIL ORDER BRIDES!
Pioneers, why suffer the curse of loneliness alone? Why bear the Hu-Man’s Burden singly? Roebuck-Ward in now offering, for the first time, a limited selection of Brides for the Frontiersman!
Pilgrimage to Earth Page 7