06-Known Space
Page 21
The Grog was psychic or something similar. It could control minds, even minds as insignificant as a sand rat's.
That was the purpose of the Grog's large brain. Its intelligence was a side effect of its power. For aeons the Grogs had called their food to them. They did not hunt after childhood. Once the brain had developed, they never needed to move again.
They didn't need eyes; they had little need of other sensory perceptions. They used the senses of other animals.
They directed the scavengers who cleaned their rocks, and their pelts too, when necessary. Their mind control brought meat animals to their presessile female young, directed their breeding habits, and guided them to proper anchor rocks.
They were now feeding information directly into my brain.
I said, "But why me?"
I knew, with a crystalline certainty I was learning to recognize. The Grogs were aware of what they were missing. They had read the minds of passers-by: first Kzinti warriors, then human miners, explorers, sightseers. And my business was the Handicapped. They had learned of the Dolphin's Hands, They had primed Jilson and others to know, without evidence, that the Grogs were sentient, and to say so when the right person should appear.
Without evidence: that was important. They had to know what they were getting into before they committed themselves. Men like Dr. Fuller could investigate if they liked; it would look suspicious if they were prevented. But something kept them from noticing the handlike appearance of those tiny forepaws, the lack of biological wastes around a wild Grog.
Could I help them?
The question was suddenly an obsession. I shook my head to fight it off. "I don't know. Why did you wait so long to show yourselves?"
Fear.
"Why? Are we that terrifying?"
I waited for an answer. None came. There was no sudden, utterly convincing bit of information in my brain.
Then they feared even me. Me, helpless before a flicking tongue and an iron mind. Why?
I was sure that the Grogs had devolved from some higher, bipedal form of life. The tiny hands, like mechanical grabs, were characteristic. As was that eerie mental control...
I tried to stand up, to run. My legs wouldn't lift me. I tried to blank my thoughts, to hide what I'd guessed, but that was useless. They could read my mind. They knew.
"It's the Slaver power. Your ancestors were Slavers." And here I sat, with-my mind wide open and helpless.
Soothingly, with characteristic crystal certainty, I realized:
That the Grogs knew nothing of Slavers. That as far as they knew, they had been there forever.
That the Grogs couldn't be idiot enough to try for a takeover bid. They were sessile. They couldn't move. Their leftover Slaver power could reach less than halfway around the world, with all the Grog individuals working together. How could they dream of attacking a species who controlled all space in a thirty-light-year-diameter sphere? Fear alone had kept them from letting mankind know what they were-fear of extermination.
"You could be lying about how far you can reach. I'd never know."
Nothing. Nothing touched my mind. I stood up. Jilson watched me, then got up and mechanically brushed himself off. He looked at the Grog, opened his mouth, closed it, gulped, and said, "Garvey! What did it do to us?"
"Didn't it tell you?" In the same moment I was certain it hadn't.
"It made me sit down; it put on a show with sand rats ... you saw it too, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Then it left us sitting awhile. You talked to it. Then suddenly we could get up."
"That's right. But it talked to me, too."
"I told you it was intelligent!"
"Jilson, can you find your way back here in the morning?'
"Absolutely not. But I'll set your skycycle to record your course so you can get back. If you're sure you want to."
"I'm not. But I want the choice."
The sun was a smoky red glow in the west, fading over a blue-black horizon.
I'd laughed.
The hotel rooms didn't have sleeping plates. If you slept at all, you slept on a flat, cushiony surface, and liked it. I'd slept all right last night, until the Grog's call came to wake me in the small hours. But how could I sleep now?
Unbeknownst to yours truly, Sharon and Lois had been expecting us for dinner. Jilson had phoned them before we set out for the zoo. Tonight we'd eaten some kind of small bird, one each. Delicious. You didn't dare touch anything afterward, not until you'd wiped your hands on hot towels.
And we'd talked about the Grogs. The cone had left Jilson's mind practically untouched, so that he'd have something like an unbiased opinion. His unbiased opinion was that he wasn't going back there for anything, and I shouldn't either. The girls agreed.
I'd laughed at the Grog. Who wouldn't?
Dolphins, bandersnatchi, Grogs - you laugh at them, the Handicapped. You laugh with a dolphin, really; he's the greatest clown in known space. You laugh the first time you see a bandersnatch. He looks like something God forgot to finish; there's no detail, just that white shape. But you're laughing partly out of nervousness, because that moving white mound would no more notice you than a land tank would notice a snail under its treads. And you laugh at a Grog. No nervousness there. A Grog is a cartoon.
Like a doctor using a stomach pump in reverse, the Grog had shoved its information down my throat. I could feel the bits of cold certainty floating in my mind like icebergs in dark water.
I could doubt what I had been told. I could doubt, for instance, that all the Grogs on Down could not reach out to twist the minds of humans on, say, Jinx. I could doubt their terror, their utter helplessness, their need for my help. But I had to keep remembering to doubt. Otherwise the doubt would go, and the cold bits of certainty remained.
Not funny.
We ought to exterminate them. Now. Get all men off Down, then do something to the sun. Or bring in an old STL ramscoop-fusion ship and land it somewhere, leave the ramscoop running, twist every vertebrate on the planet inside out.
But: They had come to me. To me!
They were so secretive, so mortally afraid of being treated like savage, resurrected Slavers. Dr. Fuller could have been told half the truth, and he would have stopped his experimenting; or he could have been stopped in his tracks by the reaching Grog minds. But, no; they preferred to starve, to keep their secrets.
Yet they'd come to me at the first opportunity.
The Grogs were eager. Man, what a chance they'd taken! But they needed - something. Something only mankind could provide. I wasn't sure what, but of one thing I was sure: It was a seller's market. They wanted to do business. It was no guarantee of their good faith; but if I could think of such guarantees, I could force them through.
Then I felt those crystalline certainties again, floating in my mind. I didn't want any more of those.
I got up and ordered a peanut-butter, bacon, tomato, and lettuce sandwich. It arrived without mayonnaise. I tried to order mayonnaise, but the kitchen dispenser had never heard of it.
A good thing the Grogs hadn't revealed themselves to the Kzinti, back when they owned the planet. The Kzinti would have wiped them out or, worse, used them as allies against human space. Had the Kzinti used Grogs for food? If they had, then... But no. The Grogs would make poor prey. They couldn't run.
My eyes were still seeing red light, so that the stars beyond the porch seemed blue and bright above a black plain. I thought of going down to the port and renting a room on some grounded ship, so that at least I could float between sleeping plates. Nuts.
I could not face a Grog. Not when it had to talk to me by --
That was at least part of the answer. I phoned the desk computer and told it what I wanted.
By and by other parts of the answer came. There was a mutated alfalfa grass which would grow under red sunlight; the seeds had been in the cargo hold of the ship that brought me. It was part of Down's agricultural program. Well...
VI
The Grog was there. Or I'd found another by accident. I couldn't tell, and it didn't matter. I grounded the skycycle and got off, tensing for the feel of little tendrils probing at my mind. There was nothing. I was sure it was reading my mind, but I couldn't feel it.
With crystalline certainty there came the knowledge that I was welcome. I said, "Get out of there. Get out and stay out."
The Grog did nothing. Like the knowledge I'd gained yesterday afternoon, the conviction stayed: I was welcome, welcome, welcome. Great.
I dug in my saddlebags and pulled out a heavy oblong. "I had a lot of trouble finding this," I told the Grog. "It's a museum piece. If Downers weren't so hell-bent on doing everything with their hands, I'd never have found one at all."
I opened it a few feet from the Grog's mouth, inserted a piece of paper in the rollers, and plugged the cord into a hand battery. "My mind will tell you how to work this. Let's see how good your tongue is." I looked for a good seat, finally settling my back against the Grog, under its mouth. I could read the print from there. There was no feeling of lese majesty. If the Grog wanted me, I was doomed -period.
The tongue lashed out, invisibly fast. PLEASE KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE TYPEWRITER, it printed. 0THERWISE I CANNOT SEE IT. WOULD YOU MOVE THE MACHINE FARTHER AWAY.
I did. "How's that?"
GOOD ENOUGH. YOU ARE OVERCONCERNED WITH PRIVACY.
"Maybe. This seems to work. Now, before we begin, would you read my mind about ramscoop motors?"
I SEE. CONSIDER THE POINT MADE.
"Then I will. What can you offer us in trade?
JUST WHAT YOU THINK. WE WILL HERD YOUR CATTLE. IN TIME THERE MAY BE OTHER THINGS WE CAN DO. WE COULD MONITOR THE HEALTH OF ZOO ANIMALS AND BE EXHIBITS AT THE SAME TIME. WE CAN DO POLICE WORK. WE WILL GUARD DOWN. AN ENEMY COULD DESTROY DOWN, BUT NO ENEMY COULD INVADE DOWN.
Despite the speed of its flicking tongue, the Grog typed as slowly as a one-finger typer.
"Okay. You wouldn't object to our seeding your property with mutated grass?'
NO, NOR TO YOUR MOVING CATTLE INTO OUR TERRITORY. WE WILL NEED SOME OF THE CATTLE FOR FOOD, AND WE WOULD PREFER THAT THE PRESENT DESERT ANIMALS REMAIN. WE DO NOT WISH TO LOSE ANY OF OUR PRESENT TERRITORY.
"Will you need new land?"
NO. PLANNED PARENTHOOD IS EASY FOR US, WE NEED ONLY RESTRICT THE PRESESSILES.
"We don't trust you, you know. We'll be taking steps to see that you don't control human minds. I'm going to get myself checked over very carefully when I go home."
NATURALLY. YOU WILL BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT WE CANNOT LEAVE THIS WORLD WITHOUT SPECIAL PROTECTION. ULTRAVIOLET WOULD KILL US. IF YOU WISH A GROG IN THE ZOO OF EARTH.
"We can take care of that. It's a good idea, too. Now, what can we do for you? How about some modified Dolphin's Hands?"
NO, THANK YOU. A DESERT ANIMAL WITH SOMETHING LIKE HANDS WOULD BE BETTER. WHAT WE REQUIRE IS KNOWLEDGE. A TAPE ENCYCLOPEDIA, ACCESS TO HUMAN LIBRARIES. BETTER YET, HUMAN GUEST LECTURERS WHO DO NOT MIND HAVING THEIR MINDS READ.
"Guest lecturers. That'll be expensive."
HOW EXPENSIVE? HOW MUCH ARE OUR SERVICES WORTH AS HERDERS?
"Good point." I settled myself more comfortably against the Grog's hairy side. "Okay. Let's talk business."
It was a year before I touched Down again. By then, Garvey Limited was almost ready to show a profit.
I'd driven through the roughest deal I could think of. As far as the planet Down was concerned, Garvey Limited had a monopoly on Grogs. They couldn't have bought a pack of tabac sticks except through us. We paid fat taxes to the Downer human government, but that expense was almost minor.
We'd had major expenses.
The worst was publicity. I hadn't tried to keep the secret of the Grog power. That would have been futile. And that power was scary. Our only defense against a panic that could have covered human space like a blanket was the Grogs themselves.
Grogs were funny.
I'd kept pushing, pushing, pushing pictures: Grogs operating typewriters, Grogs guiding Down's expanding herds of cattle, Grogs in a spacecraft cabin, a Grog standing by during a tricky operation on a sick Kodiak bear. The Grog always looked just the same. To see one was to laugh, and never to fear ... unless there were unnatural crystalline certainties poking into the crevices of your brain.
The really important jobs for Grogs were just coming into existence. Already Wunderland had changed its laws to allow Grogs to testify in a courtroom, as expert lie-detectors. A Grog would be present at the next summit meeting between human and Kzinti space. Ships venturing into unknown space would probably carry Grogs, in case they met aliens and needed a translator.
Fuzzy Grog dolls were being sold in the toy stores. We didn't make a dime on that.
I took a day to rest up after landing, to say Hi to Jilson and Sharon and Lois. Next morning I flew out into the desert. Now there was grass covering a lot of what had been barren land. I found a circle of white far below, and on a hunch, I dropped.
The white was a flock of sheep. In the center of the circle nestled a Grog. She boomed up at me in all amplified voice: "Welcome, Garvey."
"Thanks," I said, not trying to shout. She would be reading my mind, and answering through the nerve-implanted vocal equipment we'd started manufacturing in quantity two months ago. That had been another major expense, and a necessary one.
"What's all this about dolls?"
"We can't make any money on that. It's not as if there was a copyright on the Grog form." I circled the skycycle, landed, and got off.
We talked of things other than business. She wanted a Grog doll, for instance, and I promised her one. We went through a list of "lecturers," arranging them in order of priority. Getting them here would involve nothing more than paying their way and paying them for their time. None of them would have to make any kind of speech.
Neither one of us mentioned the ramscoop.
It was not on Down. Put a weapon on Down and the Grogs could simply have made it their own; it would be no defense. We'd put it in close orbit around the Downer sun, closer than Mercury would have been. If the Grogs ever became a threat, the electromagnetic ramscoop-field would go on, and Down's sun would begin behaving very strangely.
Neither of us mentioned it. What for? She knew my reasons.
It was not that I feared the Grogs. I feared myself. The ramscoop was there to prove that I had been allowed to act against the Grogs' best interests, that I was my own man.
And I still wasn't sure. Could the last man aboard have sabotaged the motor? Could the Grogs reach that far? There was no way to find out. If it was true, then anyone who boarded the old ship would report that it was A-okay, ready to fire, don't worry about it, Garvey. Forget it. Sleep easy.
Maybe I will. It's easy enough to believe that the Grogs are innocuous, helpful, desperate for friendship.
I wonder what we'll meet next.
The Soft Weapon
Logically Jason Papandreou should have taken the Court Jester straight home to Jinx. But...
He'd seen a queer star once.
He'd been single then, a gunner volunteer on one of Earth's warships during the last stages of the last Kzinti war. The war had been highly unequal in Earth's favor. Kzinti fight gallantly, ferociously, and with no concept of mercy; and they always take on several times as much as they can handle.
Earth's ships had pushed the Kzinti back out of human space, then pushed a little farther, annexing two Kzinti worlds for punitive damages. The fleets had turned for home. But Jason's captain had altered course to give his crew what might be their last chance to see Beta Lyrae.
Now, decades later, Jason, his wife, and their single alien passenger were rattling around in a ship built for ten times their number. Anne-Marie's curiosity was driving her up the walls with the frustration of not being able to open
the stasis box in the forward locker. Nessus, the mad puppeteer, had taken to spending all his time in his room, hovering motionless and morose between the sleeping plates. Jinx was still weeks away.
Clearly a diversion was in order.
Beta Lyrae. A six-degree shift in course would do it.
Anne-Marie glared at the locker containing the stasis box. "Isn't there any way to open it?"
Jason didn't answer. His whole attention was on the mass indicator, the transparent ball in which a green radial line was growing toward the surface, growing and splitting in two.
"Jay?"
"We can't open it, Anne. We don't have the equipment to break a stasis field. It's illegal anyway."
Almost time. The radial double-line must not grow too long. When a working hyperdrive gets too deep into a gravity well, it disappears.
"Think they'll tell us what's inside?"
"Sure, unless it's a new weapon."
"With our luck it will be. Jay, nobody's ever found a stasis box that shape before. It's bound to be something new. The Institute is likely to sit on it for years and years.
"Whup! Jay, what are you doing?"
"Dropping out of hyperspace."
"You might warn a lady." She wrapped both arms around her midsection, apparently making sure everything was still there.
"Lady, why don't you have a look out that side window?"
"What for?"
Jason merely looked smug. His wife, knowing she would get no other answer, got up and undogged the cover. It was not unusual for a pilot to drop out in the depths of interstellar space. Weeks of looking at the blind-spot appearance of hyperspace could wear on the best of nerves.
She stood at the window, a tall, slender brunette in a glowing-green falling jumper. A Wunderlander she had been, of the willowy low-gravity type rather than the fat, balloonlike low-gravity type, until Jason Papandreou had dropped out of the sky to add her to his collection of girls in every port. It hadn't worked out that way. In the first year of marriage she had learned space and the Court Jester inside out, until she was doubly indispensable. Jay, Anne, Jester, all one independent organism.