Alien Harvest (a)

by Robert Sheckley

  “Tell me your idea,” he said.

  Julie reached into a small purse she carried, took out a package, and handed it to him.

  Stan looked at her questioningly.

  “Do you know what this is? Open it and find out.”

  The package was wrapped in thick manila paper and was held together with tape. He tried to pull the paper off, but there was no place for his fingers to take hold. He went to his desk and found the paper knife, and managed to saw through the tape. Then he slit the paper carefully and opened the package. Within was a plastic box. Inside it, padded with foam rubber, was a stoppered test tube.

  Stan held it up to the light. It was a heavy viscous liquid, with bluish lights in it. He unstopped the tube and sniffed. The aroma was unmistakable.

  “Royal jelly,” he said.

  She nodded. “Do you know what this stuff is worth?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. It is one of the most valuable substances in the galaxy.”

  She nodded. “And the stuff is in even shorter supply now that we've got the aliens on the run. That's part of what makes it so expensive. And it's a monopoly.

  The big bionational research companies have it all tied up. They've got places out on other planets where they get the stuff from the aliens. It's all a closed transaction.”

  “Which is all well-known,” Stan said. “Tell me something new.”

  “Suppose I tell you that I know where we can lay our hands on an entire shipload of the stuff. At least a hundred tons. What about that?”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “Whoever gets it.”

  “Who did it used to belong to?”

  “A freelance honey-collecting expedition. But it came up lost, and has never been heard of again.”

  “So what makes you think they struck it rich?”

  “Before vanishing, they sent out one signal by subspace radio. It was intercepted by a certain Bio-Pharm official. He never got around to using it. I guess he was going to take it to the grave with him, but I persuaded him otherwise.”

  Stan didn't ask her how she had managed this. At that moment her face looked quite sinister. But it was no less beautiful because of that. “So you know where it is?”

  “I know approximately.”

  Stan studied her for a while and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Then he said, “And you think it's as simple as walking in and taking it?”

  “Flying in,” she corrected.

  “There might be objections to our appropriating this cargo,” Stan said.

  “So what? It's not illegal. Salvage rights belong to whoever gets them. The stuff's ours if we can get it.”

  “And we're dead if we don't.”

  Julie shrugged. “It's a lot of money, so there's going to be a lot of risk. I don't know about you, Stan, but I'm tired of being small-time. Just once I want to go for all the marbles. Don't you feel that way sometimes?”

  Stan could feel the pains of his condition eating away at him through the haze of the medication. He knew he was sick as hell.

  But he also knew he was still alive.

  “I think I'm ready for a big one, too,” he said slowly. “But there's still a difficulty. Where there's royal jelly, there'll be aliens. How are we going to get through them?”

  “The same way your ant, Ari, got through the enemy ant nest, Stan. That's how.”

  Stan stared at her. “You know about Ari?”

  “Of course. I told you I researched you. And I read Cyberantics.”

  “You think I could make a cybernetic or robotic alien and he could get through an alien ant nest?”

  “I know you've been working on such a robot,” Julie said. “Why don't we find out if it works?”

  She looked at him challengingly, and Stan felt his heart lift. At last something was happening to him, an adventure with a beautiful woman.

  “Then there's the question of a ship,” he said.

  “You have one.”

  “Had. The government just seized it.”

  She looked at him levelly. “Let's worry about getting the ship later. What we need even worse is a spaceship pilot who's willing to do something illegal.”

  “I can think of one man….”

  “Who's that?”

  “Just someone I know. Julie, you flatter me by coming to me with this partnership offer. But evidently you don't know my full situation.”

  “I don't? Tell me, then.”

  “Julie, I used to be quite a wealthy man. One of the youngest millionaires on the Forbes list. I have several key patents in bioengineering, and the plans for my cybernetic ant, Ari, are a standard for the field of medical miniaturization.”

  “I know all this, Stan.”

  “Sure. But did you also know that all that has changed? Did you know the government has put a lien on my assets? It seems that Bio-Pharm, one of the biggest of the international pharmaceutical houses, has filed suit against me for patent infringement. What a laugh. They stole most of their processes from me! But it's not easy to prove, and in the meantime they've got me on the run. I don't own a damned thing anymore — nothing except this house and Ari.” He lifted up the cybernetic ant to show to Julie. “I even have to beg my grocer to extend me credit so I can go on eating!”

  Julie looked at him without sympathy. “I know all that, Stan. It's tough, isn't it?”

  He thought he detected a tone of irony in her voice. “You're damned right it's tough!”

  “Granted. But so what?”

  He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Did you actually come here to insult me?”

  “There's nothing insulting in what I'm saying. I came here to make a deal with you. What I find is you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. I'm offering you something you can do about it.”

  “It's not just that I'm broke,” Stan said. “There's also … my condition.”

  “Tell me about it,” Julie said.

  Stan shrugged. “There's not much to say. Melanoma. I've got six months. Maybe a little longer if I want to lie in a hospital bed and breath pure oxygen.”

  “You look like you're moving around pretty good just now,” Julie said.

  “Oh yeah, sure. But that's just now. This stuff is the only thing that keeps me going.” He took out a vial of Xeno-Zip and showed it to her.

  “I know all about that stuff,” Julie said. “It's my job to keep track of precious substances that come in small packages. And this is the only stuff that does you any good?”

  “That's right,” Stan said. “It's expensive even for a rich man. For someone whose assets have been seized … Well, I'll run out soon, and I don't know what happens then.”

  “Tough,” Julie said, with no pity in her voice. “So this stuff won't cure you?”

  Stan shook his head. “Some doctors have theorized that if I could obtain absolute unadulterated royal jelly fresh from an alien hive, before any by-products were added, and before it had time to lose any of its potency, it might buy me more time. But it's impossible to get.”

  “Except by going to the source,” Julie said.

  “Yes, that's right,” Stan repeated slowly. “Except by going to the source. To a place where the Aliens actually produce it.”

  “That's the sort of place I had in mind for us to go,” Julie said. “Like I told you, I know where there's a shipload of the stuff.”

  He stared at her, his eyebrows raised. Then his head slumped and he looked sad and worn. “No, no. It's quite impossible. Even if you knew of such a place —“

  “That's exactly what I do know,” Julie said.

  “You know a place where an alien queen produces royal jelly?”

  She patted the sleek leather pouch that she carried at her side. “I've got the coordinates right in here, Stan. They're a part of my contribution to this venture.”

  “Where'd you get that information?”

  She smiled. She was so lovely when she smiled. “Like I told you, I was good friends with a Bio-Pharm executive
. We were a little more than good friends, actually. Well, when he died — he was quite old, you understand — when he died, he decided that that particular secret shouldn't go to the grave with him.”

  “So what is your idea?” Stan asked. “Do you think we can just go there and get it?”

  “That's about what I had in mind,” Julie said.

  “The Bio-Pharm people might have something to say about it.”

  “I figured we could sneak in, grab the shipload, and get out before they spotted us.”

  “You think it would be as easy as that?”

  She shook her head. “I never said it would be easy.”

  “Or within the law.”

  She shrugged impatiently. “There's nothing illegal about salvage. Why don't you think of it as your counterclaim to their lawsuit?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They're suing you for patent infringement. Wrongly, you say. Well, prove you mean it. Go in there and take what is yours — then take them to court the way they're taking you.”

  Stan thought for a long while, then he began to smile. “You know, I think I'd like that.”

  “Now you're talking!”

  “But wait a minute, there are still a lot of problems. We don't have a ship. My alien robot has never had a field test. And I don't have any money.”

  “We can do something about all that,” Julie said. “But there really isn't much time. Not for you and not for me. If we're going to do this, we'll have to start real soon. And once we begin, there's no turning back.”

  “I understand,” Stan said.

  Julie leaned forward and took Stan's face in her cool hands. He felt something like an electric shock pass through him. Looking at her, he thought he'd never seen anyone so beautiful and so brave. Yes, and maybe a little crazy, too, but what did that matter?

  “I want you to think about it, Stan,” Julie said. “Give me your answer tomorrow night over dinner. If you don't want to do it, fine, no hard feelings. But if you do — listen to me carefully.”

  “I'm listening,” Stan said. In fact, he was barely breathing.

  “If you do decide to do it, then no more crap about something being difficult or you being sick or any of that. If you're going to do it, simply decide to do it, and we'll go on from there.”

  “That sounds pretty good to me,” Stan said. “Julie, where'd you learn all this stuff?”

  “From my teacher, Shen Hui.”

  “He must have been a pretty wise old egg.”

  “It didn't prevent him from dying,” Julie said. “But while he lived, he really lived. Till tomorrow, Stan.”

  “Where are you going?” Stan said in alarm as she stood up.

  “I'm sure you've got a spare bedroom here,” Julie said. “I'm going to take a shower and change, and then look over your library and lab. Then I want to get some sleep.”

  “Oh, fine. I was afraid you were leaving.”

  She shook her head. “Play your cards right and I'll never leave again.”

  3

  Julie had always been unusual. She'd never known her parents. Her earliest memories were of an international orphanage in Shanghai. This was the place from which Shen Hui bought her, when she was still a very little girl. He had been very good to her, treating her like a favored child rather than a slave. But she was still a slave and she knew it, and it rankled. Shen Hui taught her independence of spirit as well as how to be a good thief. It was inevitable that she would try out her need for liberty on him, the one who was holding her.

  She was devious about it, just as he had taught her. She put aside money from jobs she did for him. And she studied and learned so she would know all she needed when she was ready to cut loose from him. And then came the question of finding the right time. It seemed to take forever, and the right moment never seemed to come.

  At last they traveled together to Europe. Shen Hui had it in mind to relieve some of the largest art galleries on the continent of some of their smaller and most prized possessions: miniature paintings, small sculpture, carved objects. They went to Zurich first.

  The first night Julie excused herself in the lobby of the Grand Basle Hotel, went to the ladies' room, and never returned.

  She had planned well. From the powder room, with a small fortune and a forged passport secreted on her person, she made her way to the airport, and then to Madrid, Lisbon, and London. She made the trail difficult for Shen Hui to follow. And she prepared something else.

  He came after her, as she had known he would. He wasn't going to let her get away that easily. He had invested a lot of money in her, and besides, his feelings were hurt. He had thought she loved him. He had forgotten his own advice — never trust a slave. His love was replaced by hatred, all the more powerful because it was based on his own guilt and ignorance in being duped by the illusion he had created and named Julie.

  They met up almost a year later. He came upon her in one of the public squares in Paris, near the Seine. Julie was wearing a black sealskin coat and a chinchilla hat.

  Shen Hui noted sardonically that it hadn't taken her long to outfit herself. He added that she had been silly to expose herself to him in this way.

  “What do you mean?” she'd asked.

  “I mean if you had any brains, you wouldn't have let me catch up with you. Do you realize how easily I could kill you? And you could do nothing about it, not even with all the skills I taught you.”

  “I know that,” Julie said. “And I wasn't careless. I chose to let you find me.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “I don't choose to spend my life running,” Julie said. “I am extremely grateful to you, Shen Hui. You have taught me respect for the deeper law that underlies appearances. I appeal to that law now. Although you legally own me, your investment has been repaid many times and it is time that I went free. I served you well and you know it. I would like to shake hands and have us part friends.”

  Shen Hui stared at her. His skin had aged incredibly, with a yellow cast to it like parchment that has been dried too long in the sun. She had never seen him looking so old. Even his thin mustache, which dropped down on either side of his face, seemed lifeless.

  And his eyes were brown and opaque.

  She wasn't sure what he would say. She knew that her life hung in the balance. Old as he was, and apparently unarmed, she had no doubt he could kill her anytime he chose.

  “You are my greatest creation,” he said at last. “How could I kill you? Who would I have left to hate?”

  Her life had really begun at that point. She spent several years on her own, accomplishing unbelievable feats of thievery in Europe and America. She made money easily, and spent it easily. Her life was rich and pleasurable, but she began to sense a loss of purpose, a slackness that was beginning to alarm her. It was a question of motivation. Shen Hui had taught her too well for her to be content with mediocre motives. Why was she doing what she was doing? What was she living for?

  The only thing she could think to do with her life was to get rich. It wasn't enough, she knew, but it was a start. After she accomplished that, she'd take the next step.

  For the present she was here with Stan, and Stan was as good as hooked, if she had any knowledge of men.

  For dinner that night Stan had ordered a special Moroccan feast catered by a North African couple he knew. Although it was short notice, he had told them to go all out, and he served the meal himself using his best china and silverware. There were game birds roasted on spits, half a sheep braised in many exotic spices and served with rough tasty Arab bread, platters of fruits and vegetables, several different wines. The Moroccan couple followed instructions, delivering the feast and then leaving. Stan paid for it with almost the last of the cash he had on hand. One way or another, no matter what decision he made tonight, it was going to be a new life for him tomorrow.

  Stan hadn't thought about what he was going to say. He didn't need to. He was suffused with a knowledge that he couldn't articula
te yet. That would have to come later. For now it was enough to sit across the table from Julie while the strains of a Monteverdi madrigal tinkled in the background.

  Julie had found an old ballroom dress upstairs, one of his grandmother's, neatly folded in a fragrant cedar drawer. It fit perfectly, and she had worn it down to dinner with a set of large pearl earrings that had once belonged to Stan's mother.

  Stan, noting her preparations, had taken out the tuxedo he had worn to his recent college reunion. He put in the cat's-eye opal cuff links and the diamond pin in the buttonhole. He felt tall and graceful in this outfit, and a little ironic. It was playacting, of course, and he knew that; but it was also in some strange sense real. And Stan knew that there were many costumes he could have worn that night. He wouldn't have felt out of place in the golden mantle of Alexander the Great. Because just like the famous Macedonian, he was on the verge of new worlds to conquer. He was also up against a sea of trouble and pain, and he suspected he was doomed to die gloriously and young as well.

  At dinner that evening Julie was radiant in the antique gown, Stan looking handsome in his tuxedo. He had saved a bottle of wine for a long time, waiting for an occasion like this. The bottle had been handed down to him by his parents — a rare St-Emilion, the great vintage of thirty-seven years earlier. Stan had taken good care of the bottle, storing it on its side in the temperature-controlled basement, making sure the cork was properly intact. He brought it up now and opened it with care, pouring a little into a fluted glass and tasting it.

  “Just on the verge of turning,” he said. “But still superb. We've caught the St-Emilion at its peak, Julie. This is probably the last bottle of this stuff in the world.”

  She tasted the ruby-red liquid he had poured for her. “It's marvelous, Stan. But what are we celebrating?”

  “Need you ask?”

  “I think not,” she said, “but I would like to hear it anyhow.”