Pilgrimage to Earth

by Robert Sheckley

  “You’ll have to spin ship to give them some gravity,” Arnold said.

  Gregor did some quick mental multiplication. “That’ll use up a lot of power.”

  “Then the book says you can push the food down their throats by hand. You roll it up in a moist ball and reach in as far as the elbow and—”

  Gregor signed off and activated the side jets. His feet settled to the floor and he waited anxiously.

  The Queels began to feed with an abandon that would have done a Queel-farmer’s heart good.

  He would have to refuel at the Vermoine II space warehouse and that would bring up their operating expenses, for fuel was expensive in newly colonized systems. Still, there would be a good margin of profit left over.

  He returned to normal ship’s duties. The spaceship crawled through the immensity of space.

  Feeding time came again. Gregor fed the Queels and went on to the Smag compartment. He opened the door and called out, “Come and get it!”

  Nothing came.

  The compartment was empty.

  Gregor felt a curious sensation in his stomach. It was impossible. The Smags couldn’t be gone. They were playing a joke on him, hiding somewhere.

  But there was no place in the compartment for five large Smags to hide.

  The trembling sensation was turning into a full-grown quiver. Gregor remembered the forfeiture clauses in event of loss, damage, etcetera, etcetera.

  “Here, Smag! Here Smag!” he shouted. There was no answer.

  He inspected the walls, ceiling, door, and ventilators, on the chance that the Smags had somehow bored through.

  There were no marks.

  Then he heard a faint noise near his feet. Looking down, he saw something scuttle past him.

  It was one of his Smags, shrunken to about two inches in length. He found the others hiding in a corner, all just as small.

  What had the Trigale official said? “When you travel with Smags, don’t forget your magnifying glass.”

  There was no time for a good, satisfying shock reaction. Gregor closed the door carefully and sprinted to the radio.

  “Very odd,” Arnold said, after radio contact had been made. “Shrunken, you say? I’m looking it up right now. Hmm...You didn’t produce artificial gravity, did you?”

  “Of course. To let the Queels feed.”

  “Shouldn’t have done that,” Arnold said. “Smags are light-gravity creatures.”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “When they’re subjected to an unusual—for them—gravity, they shrink down to microscopic size, lose consciousness and die.”

  “But you told me to produce artificial gravity.”

  “Oh, no! I simply mentioned, in passing, that that was one way of making Queels feed. I suggested hand-feeding.”

  Gregor resisted an almost overpowering urge to rip the radio out of the wall. He said, “Arnold, the Smags are light-gravity animals. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the Queels are heavy-gravity. Did you know that when you signed the contract?”

  Arnold gulped for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Well, that did seem to make it a bit more difficult. But it pays very well.”

  “Sure, if you can get away with it. What do I do now?”

  “Lower the temperature,” Arnold replied confidently. “Smags stabilize at the freezing point.”

  “Humans freeze at the freezing point,” Gregor said. “All right, signing off.”

  Gregor put on all the extra clothes he could find and turned up the ship’s refrigeration system. Within an hour, the Smags had returned to their normal size.

  So far, so good. He checked the Queels. The cold seemed to stimulate them. They were livelier than ever and bleated for more food. He fed them.

  After eating a ham and wool sandwich, Gregor turned in.

  The next day’s inspection revealed that there were now fifteen Queels on board. The ten original adults had given birth to five young. All were hungry.

  Gregor fed them. He set it down as a normal hazard of transporting mixed groups of livestock. They should have anticipated this and segregated the beasts by sexes as well as species.

  When he looked in on the Queels again, their number had increased to thirty-eight.

  “Reproduced, did they?” Arnold asked via radio, his voice concerned.

  “Yes. And they show no signs of stopping.”

  “Well, we should have expected it.”

  “Why?” Gregor demanded baffledly.

  “I told you. Queels reproduce feemishly.”

  “I thought that’s what you said. What does it mean?”

  “Just what it sounds like,” said Arnold, irritated. “How did you ever get through school? It’s freezing-point parthenogenesis.”

  “That does it,” Gregor said grimly. “I’m turning this ship around.”

  “You can’t! We’ll be wiped out!”

  “At the rate those Queels are reproducing, there won’t be room for me if I keep going. A Queel will have to pilot this ship.”

  “Gregor, don’t get panicky. There’s a perfectly simple answer.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Increase the air pressure and moisture content. That’ll stop them.”

  “Sure. And it’ll probably turn the Smags into butterflies.”

  “There won’t be any other effects.”

  Turning back was no solution, anyhow. The ship was near the halfway mark. Now he could get rid of the beasts just as quickly by delivering them.

  Unless he dumped them all into space. It was a tempting though impractical thought.

  With increased air pressure and moisture content, the Queels stopped reproducing. They numbered forty-seven now and Gregor had to spend most of his time clearing the ventilators of wool. A slow-motion, surrealistic snowstorm raged in the corridors and engine room, in the water tanks and under his shirt.

  Gregor ate tasteless meals of food and wool, with pie and wool for dessert.

  He was beginning to feel like a Queel.

  But then a bright spot approached on his horizon. The Vermoine sun began glowing on his forward screen. In another day, he would arrive, deliver his cargo and be free to go home to his dusty office, his bills and his solitaire game.

  That night, he opened a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of the trip. It helped get the taste of wool out of his mouth and he fell into bed, mildly and pleasantly tipsy.

  But he couldn’t sleep. The temperature was still dropping. Beads of moisture on the walls of the ship were solidifying into ice.

  He had to have heat.

  Let’s see—if he turned on the heaters, the Smags would shrink. Unless he stopped the gravity. In which case, the forty-seven Queels wouldn’t eat.

  To hell with the Queels. He was getting too cold to operate the ship.

  He brought the vessel out of its spin and turned on the heaters. For an hour, he waited, shivering and stamping his feet. The heaters merrily drained fuel from the engines, but produced no heat.

  That was ridiculous. He turned them on full blast.

  In another hour, the temperature had sunk below zero. Although Vermoine was now visible, Gregor didn’t know if he could even control the ship for a landing.

  He had just finished building a small fire on the cabin floor, using the ship’s more combustible furnishings as fuel, when the radio spluttered into life.

  “I was just thinking,” Arnold said. “I hope you haven’t been changing gravity and pressure too abruptly.”

  “What difference does it make?” Gregor asked distractedly.

  “You might unstabilize the Firgels. Rapid temperature and pressure changes could take them out of their dormant state. You’d better check.”

  Gregor hurried off. He opened the door to the Firgel compartment, peered in and shuddered.

  The Firgels were awake and croaking. The big lizards were floating around their compartment, covered with frost. A blast of sub-zero air roared into th
e passageway. Gregor slammed the door and hurried back to the radio.

  “Of course they’re covered with frost,” Arnold said. “Those Firgels are going to Vermoine I. Hot place, Vermoine I right near the sun. The Firgels are cold-fixers—best portable air-conditioners in the Universe.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Gregor demanded.

  “It would have upset you. Besides, they would have stayed dormant if you hadn’t started fooling with gravity and pressure.”

  “The Firgels are going to Vermoine I. What about the Smags?”

  “Vermoine II. Tiny planet, not much gravity.”

  “And the Queels?”

  “Vermoine III, of course.”

  “You idiot!” Gregor shouted. “You give me a cargo like that and expect me to balance it?” If Arnold had been in the ship at that moment, Gregor would have strangled him. “Arnold,” he said, very slowly, “no more schemes, no more ideas, promise?”

  “Oh, all right,” Arnold agreed. “No need to get peevish about it.”

  Gregor signed off and went to work, trying to warm the ship. He succeeded in boosting it to twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit before the overworked heaters gave up.

  By then, Vermoine II was dead ahead.

  Gregor knocked on a piece of wood he hadn’t burned and set the tape. He was punching a course for the Main Warehouse, in orbit around Vermoine II, when he heard an ominous grumbling noise. At the same time, half a dozen dials on the control panel flopped over to zero.

  Wearily, he floated back to the engine room. His main drive was dead and it didn’t take any special mechanical aptitude to figure out why.

  Queel wool floated in the engine room’s still air. Queel wool was in the bearings and in the lubricating system, clogging the cooling fans.

  The metallic wool made an ideal abrasive for highly polished engine parts. It was a wonder the drive had held up this long.

  He returned to the control room. He couldn’t land the ship without the main drive. Repairs would have to be made in space, eating into their profits. Fortunately, the ship steered by rocket side jets. With no mechanical system to break down, he could still maneuver.

  It would be close, but he could still make contact with the artificial satellite that served as the Vermoine warehouse.

  “This is AAA Ace,” he announced as he squeezed the ship into an orbit around the satellite. “Request permission to land.”

  There was a crackle of static. “Satellite speaking,” a voice answered. “Identify yourself, please.”

  “This is the AAA Ace ship, bound to Vermoine II from Trigale Central Warehouse,” Gregor elaborated. “My papers are in order.” He repeated the routine request for landing privilege and leaned back in his chair.

  It had been a struggle, but all his animals were alive, intact, healthy, happy, etcetera, etcetera. AAA Ace had made a nice little profit. But all he wanted now was to get out of this ship and into a hot bath. He wanted to spend the rest of his life as far from Queels, Smags, and Firgels as possible. He wanted....

  “Landing permission refused.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, but we’re full up at present. If you want to hold your present orbit, I believe we can accommodate you in about three months.”

  “Hold on!” Gregor yelped. “You can’t do this! I’m almost out of food, my main drive is shot and I can’t stand these animals much longer!”

  “Sorry.”

  “You can’t turn me away,” Gregor said hoarsely. “This is a public warehouse. You have to—”

  “Public? I beg your pardon, sir. This warehouse is owned and operated by the Trigale Combine.”

  The radio went dead. Gregor stared at it for several minutes.

  Trigale!

  Of course they hadn’t bothered him at their Central Warehouse. They had him by simply refusing landing privileges at their Vermoine warehouse.

  And the hell of it was, they were probably within their rights.

  He couldn’t land on the planet. Bringing the ship down without a main drive would be suicide. And there was no other space warehouse in the Vermoine solar system.

  Well, he had brought the animals almost to the warehouse. Certainly Mr. Vens would understand the circumstances and judge his intentions.

  He contacted Vens on Vermoine II and explained the situation.

  “Not at the warehouse?” Vens asked.

  “Well, within fifty miles of the warehouse,” Gregor said.

  “That really won’t do. I’ll take the animals, of course. They’re mine. But there are forfeiture clauses in the event of incomplete delivery.”

  “You wouldn’t invoke them, would you?” Gregor pleaded. “My intentions—”

  “They don’t interest me,” Vens said. “Margin of profit and all that. We colonists need every little bit.” He signed off.

  Perspiring in the cold room, Gregor called Arnold and told him the news.

  “It’s unethical!” Arnold declared in outrage.

  “But legal.”

  “I know, damn it. I have to have time to think.”

  “You’d better find something good,” Gregor said.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  Gregor spent the next few hours feeding his animals, picking the Queel wool out of his hair and burning more furniture on the deck of the ship. When the radio buzzed, he crossed his fingers before answering it.

  “Arnold?”

  “No, this is Vens.”

  “Listen, Mr. Vens,” Gregor said, “if you’d just give us a little more time, we could work out this thing amicably. I’m sure—”

  “Oh, you’ve got me over a barrel, all right,” Vens snapped. “It’s perfectly legal, too. I checked. Shrewd operation, sir, very shrewd operation. I’m sending a tug for the animals.”

  “But the forfeiture clause—”

  “Naturally, I cannot invoke it.” Vens signed off.

  Gregor stared at the radio. Shrewd operation? What had Arnold done?

  He called Arnold’s office.

  “This is Mr. Arnold’s secretary,” a young feminine voice answered. “Mr. Arnold has left for the day.”

  “Left? Secretary? Is this the Arnold of AAA Ace? I’ve got the wrong Arnold, haven’t 1?”

  “No, sir, this is Mr. Arnold’s office, of the AAA Ace Planetary Warehouse Service. Did you wish to place an order? We have a first-class warehouse in the Vermoine system, in an orbit near Vermoine II. We handle light, medium, and heavy gravity products. Personal supervision by our Mr. Gregor. And I think you’ll find our rates are quite attractive.”

  So that was what Arnold had done—he had turned their ship into a warehouse! On paper, at least. And their contract did give them the option of supplying their own warehouse. Clever!

  But that nuisance Arnold could never leave well enough alone. Now he wanted to go into the warehouse business!

  “What did you say, sir?”

  “I said this is the warehouse speaking. I want to leave a message for Mr. Arnold.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tell Mr. Arnold to cancel all orders,” Gregor said grimly. “His warehouse is coming home as fast as it can hobble.”

  THE LIFEBOAT MUTINY

  “Tell me the truth. Did you ever see sweeter engines?” Joe, the Interstellar Junkman asked. “And look at those servos!”

  “Hmm,” Gregor said judiciously.

  “That hull,” Joe said softly. “I bet it’s five hundred years old, and not a spot of corrosion on it.” He patted the burnished side of the boat affectionately. What luck, the pat seemed to say, that this paragon among vessels should be here just when AAA Ace needs a lifeboat.

  “She certainly does seem rather nice,” Arnold said, with the studied air of a man who has fallen in love and is trying hard not to show it. “What do you think, Dick?”

  Richard Gregor didn’t answer. The boat was handsome, and she looked perfect for ocean survey work on Trident. But you had to be careful about Joe’s merchandise
.

  “They just don’t build ‘em this way anymore,” Joe sighed. “Look at the propulsion unit. Couldn’t dent it with a triphammer. Note the capacity of the cooling system. Examine—”

  “It looks good,” Gregor said slowly. The AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service had dealt with Joe in the past, and had learned caution. Not that Joe was dishonest; far from it. The flotsam he collected from anywhere in the inhabited Universe worked. But the ancient machines often had their own ideas of how a job should be done. They tended to grow peevish when forced into another routine.

  “I don’t care if it’s beautiful, fast, durable, or even comfortable,” Gregor said definitely. “I just want to be absolutely sure it’s safe.”

  Joe nodded. “That’s the important thing, of course. Step inside.”

  They entered the cabin of the boat. Joe stepped up to the instrument panel, smiled mysteriously, and pressed a button.

  Immediately Gregor heard a voice which seemed to originate in his head, saying, “I am Lifeboat 324-A. My purpose—”

  “Telepathy?” Gregor interrupted.

  “Direct sense recording,” Joe said, smiling proudly. “No language barriers that way. I told you, they just don’t build ‘em this way anymore.”

  “I am Lifeboat 324-A,” the boat esped again. “My primary purpose is to preserve those within me from peril, and to maintain them in good health. At present, I am only partially activated.”

  “Could anything be safer?” Joe cried. “This is no senseless hunk of metal. This boat will look after you. This boat cares!”

  Gregor was impressed, even though the idea of an emotional boat was somehow distasteful. But then, paternalistic gadgets had always irritated him.

  Arnold had no such feelings. “We’ll take it!”

  “You won’t be sorry,” Joe said, in the frank and open tones that had helped make him a millionaire several times over.

  Gregor hoped not.

  The next day, Lifeboat 324-A was loaded aboard their spaceship and they blasted off for Trident.

  This planet, in the heart of the East Star Valley, had recently been bought by a real-estate speculator. He’d found her nearly perfect for colonization. Trident was the size of Mars, but with a far better climate. There was no indigenous native population to contend with, no poisonous plants, no germ-borne diseases. And, unlike so many worlds, Trident had no predatory animals. Indeed, she had no animals at all. Apart from one small island and a polar cap, the entire planet was covered with water.