Adventures on Other Planets Anthology

by Donald A Wollheim (ed)

  The girl Jan Casin told this to Stannard, keeping her hand close to the blaster he had returned to her after she'd failed to kill him. She listened intendy as she talked, but she was not so much afraid of Stannard, now. Among the retired criminals on Pasik there was one named Brent. He’d heard of her presence as a child. Of course. The Pasiki had an uncanny intelligence-system akin to telepathy, and everything that went on anywhere was known everywhere, at once. They told Brent of Jan, then merely a child. He went to see her, playing with dolls, and told her father amusedly that he would claim her when she grew old enough.

  “And he had Pasiki watching,” said Jan, uneasily. “When the Foundation ship came with supplies for us, he knew it first. He lured us away from home with a message, and he met the ship and told them that he was a planter and that Td died six months after landing and Father a little later. So the ship went away and never came back again.”

  She stopped and listened.

  “I think someone's coming, judging by the way the Pasiki sound talking to each other. Mr. Brent killed my father when I was sixteen. He meant to take me, but I managed to get away. I made the Pasiki help me, of course, but they wouldn't keep a secret from any human who ordered them to talk."

  “That made things difficult,” commented Stannard.

  He listened, too.

  “It did,” said Jan briefly. She looked at Stannard with level eyes. “But I managed. Pasiki are the slaves of any human being who gives them commands. So I used them. I had bearers. I had food. I even had watchmen to warn me. And they'll never harm a human, so I was safe from them. They wouldn’t try to catch me for their masters, because I could always order them to let me go. I could only be caught by a human being in person, and they—well, they get soft with slaves to wait on them all the time.”

  “I see,” said Stannard.

  “But I got tired of running awayl" said the girl fiercely. “And I had no more books to read. I came back to my fath-ers house to get books. Then my Pasiki warned me that you had come. They said a man-master was coming after me. I decided to come to you first. I rather expected to kill you. I was tired of running away!"

  “Natural enough," said Stannard. He cocked his ear, and thoughtfully drew one of his two blasters. He made a fine adjustment at its muzzle. He put it on the table before him. The girl watched, and he went on in a natural voice: “I think I know something about a criminal named Brent. Quite a spectacular case, nine or ten years ago. Piracy.”

  The picture of their progress was quite incredible. AH about was darkness—the darkness of pure jungle. On either side were the slender tree-trunks which were typical of the taller growths on Pasik. From time to time a thread of sky was visible overhead, thickly thronged with stars. Ahead there were torches. Little, glistening-bodied Pasiki ran on ahead, creating a shrill uproar to warn the carnivores of the jungle to draw aside. Behind them ran spear-bearing Pasiki, hating humans with all the passion a living creature can feel, yet prepared to battle to the death—against beasts only—in their defense. Then came the fitter. Pairs of thirty-foot, limber poles reached out before and behind, and fifty of the unhuman creatures trotted swiftly with their burden. Among so many, the weight was not great, and a minor horde of yet other Pasiki followed with various objects carried for the service of the humans, and there were extra bearers to relieve the litter-carriers from time to time.

  The litter itself was like a rather wide easy chair, in which the two people—Stannard and Jan—fitted not uncomfortably, though a definite physical contact could not be avoided. Because of the springiness of the carrying-poles, the feeling of motion was rather soothing than otherwise. Stannard smoked reflectively.

  “Somehow," he said, “I feel rather silly being carried like this. I don't like the idea of slaves or servants anyhow. And intelligent creatures shouldn't be beasts of burden."

  The girl, Jan, said restlessly, Tm used to it. I certainly wouldn't have kept away from Brent and the others on my own feet I”

  The litter went on and on. Presently Jan spoke again, and restlessly: “I want . . . ,” she said, “I—I want to know what you plan for—for always 1”

  He did not answer for a moment, and suddenly she put her hands before her face in the darkness. Then Stannard said gently, “You've been here ten years, since you were a child. Youve never really talked to another woman. You've never seen a man you weren't afraid of—and with reason. Now you aren't afraid of me. So naturally you want to be sure you won't be left alone to be afraid again. That's it, isn't it?"

  There was a long pause, while the insect-like runners trotted swiftly through the darkness with a shrill and torch-lit clamor going on before. The flame-light glittered on the chitinous forms of the Pasiki.

  Jan gulped, and said in a muffled, unsteady voice, “Partly, that's it. . . . But I guess I don't know how to act like a girl.” She sobbed suddenly. “I just don't know howl I've read books about men and girls, and they were so different from here but I never could imagine myself acting that wayl” “I assure you,” said Stannard, amusedly, ‘"you’re acting as feminine as any woman in the Galaxy could do! Anyhow, here's part of what you want to know. First, I'm going to stay right with you. Yes. Second, I’m going to contrive a way for us to be reasonably safe without having to kill off all the other men on Pasik. I've a reason for that. And third, I'm going to try to get the two of us away from Pasik.” “Leave Pasik?” she asked unbelievingly. “How could we? Only one ship ever comes here, and it certainly wouldn't take us away! Why, if we got away and told about the men who hide here from the Space Patrol . .

  “Maybe,” said Stannard,” instead of having the ship take us, we'll take the ship. If—if you can draw a map for me of a few hundred miles round about—the sea-coast especially— and if it looks all right, and the Pasiki don't know much about boats, and if we have a little luck, I think we can get away.”

  “I've traveled more than anybody,” said Jan quickly. “I can draw you a mapl Surely! And the Pasiki don't make anything but rafts. They used to, but since they've been slaves they don't bother. I doubt they remember how.”

  “Then I can almost promise you to get you away from Pasik,” he told her. “I'll be pretty inefficient, with the training I've had, if I can't. And meanwhile don't you worry! I'll be right with you for just as long as you want me to be.” “That's—that will be for always,” she said with a little, quick indrawing of breath. “For always! You promise?”

  He nodded, but his thoughts were sardonic. He was the first man since her father had been murdered whom she hadn't feared. She had never talked to another woman. In the book-sense she was educated, but by ordinary standards she was utterly unsophisticated, and yet she had full awareness of the bestiality of which men are capable. But her feeling of security was so new and so overwhelming that there could be no limit to her confidence in him.

  It wouldn't be easy to justify that confidence, though. For a beginning, he'd have to rouse the men to whom Pasik was paradise, and make them desperate to destroy him. For another he'd have to take action the Pasiki could not know about nor understand, and he would need to create a complete surprise despite the Pasiki telepathy which spread news incredible distances in no time at all. And at the end he’d have to risk his life and Jan's on a throw of pitch and toss. It would be much easier to compromise and make a secure haven for Jan and himself, and live out the rest of his life with multitudes of abject slaves to serve them. Jan would think that only natural.

  But there was the job he had to do, which the wrecking of the Snark had interrupted.

  The fitter went swiftly along the trail. Something roared in the jungle to the right. Stannard hadn’t the faintest idea what it could be, but the Pasiki trotted on. Then Jan stirred, beside him.

  "In—in books,” she said rather breathlessly, "I’ve—read about people who were going to-be with each other always and—were very glad. M-may I ask you something?” “Why not?” asked Stannard.

  “W-would you say that we are-eng
aged?” asked Jan shakily.

  He marveled at the ways of woman, but he said gravely, “Why—we seem to be. If you wish. Yes.”

  “And—it's for always?”

  “Unless you want to break the engagement,” he said, amused.

  “I wouldn’t do thatl” she said quickly. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that! But—in the b-books I've read . . .” She stammered a little. “S-sometimes they called each other—darling, and they kissed each other. I—wondered—”

  He felt a little wrench at his heart. But he put his arm about her shoulders and bent over her upturned face. A moment later he said rather huskily, “Darling!”

  The odd thing was that he meant it.

  A long time later Jan sighed a little, looking wide-eyed at the stars.

  “I like being engaged. It's nice!”

  “And how many hours ago was it that you had a blaster at the back of my neck?” asked Stannard drily. “In fact, if you remember, you pulled the trigger.”

  Jan said ruefully, “Wasn't I silly, darling! I was too stupid for words 1”

  But Stannard reflected that he wasn’t at all sure.

  They followed almost a ritual in their flight. The trails of the Pasiki were numerous and well-traveled, with many branchings. But in three days and nights of journeying not one dwelling and certainly no village or city of the stick-men became visible. Before nightfall, each night, Stannard summoned the special Pasiki who invariably trotted beside the Utter, and as invariably was capable of human speech.

  “We will want bearers to carry us through the night,” he commanded. “Send messengers that they meet us.”

  “Yes, masterl” chirped the stick-man as if in ecstasy. “Much gladness for Pasiki to serve man-master!”

  Then glistening-skinned figures darted on ahead and were lost to sight in the winding jungle trail. And presently there was a restless, glittering small horde of Pasiki waiting, and the bearers who had brought the litter so far surrendered it, and the new bearers went on.

  Jan pointed out sagely that it was not only merciful but wise, because no bearers grew exhausted, and greater speed was possible. Three times, in the past, close pursuit by Brent or his fellows had failed because she commanded fresh bearers to carry her on, while the men had ceased to think of their slaves as requiring even the consideration of lower animals. Brent, once, had driven a party of worn-out Pasiki until half of them died of exhaustion. But they did not revolt.

  “On the other hand,” said Stannard grimly, “I doubt that they feel grateful to us for acting differently/1

  He did not like the Pasiki. Their abasement, their servility, their shrill cries of adulation—when he knew that they hated him and all his kind—alone would have made him dislike them. But he could not help despising them for the fact that they had kept their race alive, as slaves,- rather than die as free creatures. It was that personal dislike which made him able to make use of them as he needed to.

  Riding in the litter was wearing. For the first twenty-four hours they went on without a pause. Their route was roughly due north. The second twenty-four they alighted, from time time, to stretch their legs and to eat. They began to veer to eastward. In between they talked—and Stannard absorbed from Jan every item of information she possessed about the planet and its products and its people and its geography —and in the night-time Jan dozed in the half-reclining seat with her head on Stannard’s shoulder, while he watched. And then he dozed as well as he could while she stayed awake. He made sure that they traveled close to the shore of a great bay she had sketched on a map she drew for him. Once he waked to find her holding his head tenderly in her arms while she smiled down at him. He flushed, and she said defensively, “Were engaged, aren't we?”

  She had acquired an absolute, unquestioning confidence in him. When, his plans mature, he began to demand metal objects from the Pasiki, she phrased the commands for him so they would be best understood. Once he took a copper pan and cut an elaborate form from it with the heat-unit. in his belt. He commanded that fifty duplicates of the arbitrary form be made and sent after them. Then he made other and smaller items—bits of some cryptic devise that no Pasiki could understand, but which they could make the separate parts for. He demanded samples of Pasiki iron pots, and chose a special shape and size and commanded fifty specimens to be sent after him. And Pasiki in the hidden cities and workshops which they prayed no human would ever enter, labored to produce the parts he required.

  On the fifth day, Stannard called a halt to journeying. Their flight had been around the head of a great bay and down its eastern shore until they were almost opposite their starting-point. But they were nearly a thousand miles by land-travel from anyone who could wish to injure them, and the Pasiki would warn them of any planned expedition against them. Stannard chose a home-site overlooking the waters of the bay whose farther shore was below the horizon. He commanded a cottage to be built. No palace, but a tiny place of two rooms, barely thirty feet from end to end. All this, he knew, the Pasiki would duly tell to the other men a thousand miles away by land. But Stannard was very particular about the roof of his house. It was round and flat and pointed at both ends, and very strongely built. The house had an awning before it, under which he and Jan dined in state, and there was a flagstaff on which a flag would doubtless be flown at some future date.

  When the house was finished—and he had had the roof made completely strong and water-tight—he began the assembly of the devices whose component parts he had commanded to be made. He assembled them in secret, with none of the Pasiki able to examine any one. As he finished them, he welded their covers tight with the heat-unit from his belt. And Jan, now, gravely kept herself informed of all the telepathic information their Pasiki could give them of the doings of the men they had left behind.

  Stannard had not expected action so soon, but it was only twelve days after Jan’s first encounter with Stannard, and only fifteen after his arrival on Pasik that important information arrived. Jan went wide-eyed to Stannard. A space-ship was expected. The sheds in which dhassa-nuts—a source of organic oils used in perfume synthesis—were stored against the coming of the trading-ship were nearly full. The landing-field which served as space-port had been ordered cleared of new growth. The one ship trading to Pasik was expected to land within days.

  At that moment, obviously. Stannard and Jan were as helpless against the contented inhabitants of Pasik as those men were against them. They were separated by nearly a thousand miles by land, for security, round a great bay. They could not return without full warning of their coming by the Pasiki’s telepathic intelligence system. They could do nothing if they returned. Ten men against Stannard—all warned and eager to burn him down for the seizure of Jan— would be only part of the odds. There would also be the crew of the trader, as definitely Stannard's enemies and Jan’s pursuers as anybody else. There was absolutely nothing that they could do without the Pasiki knowing all about it, and everything the Pasiki knew, their enemies knew. They were plainly helpless.

  But, on the very day that the trading-ship landed, Stannard fined up fifty of the Pasiki in a row. He had them come one by one to the house with the curiously-shaped roof. He gave each one a single metal pot and specific instructions. Each was to take the pot to a certain especial place, dig a hole, and bury it, leaving an attached cord out. When he had concealed the burial-place so that even he would have trouble finding it again, he was to pull out the cord and bring it piously back to Stannard.

  Each of the Pasiki had the same orders, but each had a separate place to go to. They departed, running. They might hate Stannard utterly, and surely their tasks were meaningless, but they would obey.

  Stannard waited. One day. Two days. Three and four and five. The trading-ship should be grounded for not less than ten days. Stann »rd waite d out five of them. Then he smiled grimly at Jan. His task from before his shipwreck fitted in nicely with his immediate plans. He summoned all the Pasiki within miles. He had them remove the roof of his house in
one piece—it was coated inside and out with foam-flex—and turn it upside down. Jan, like the Pasiki, did not understand at all. They obeyed because Stannard commanded it. Jan watched absorbedly, blindly confident in Stannard’s wisdom. Hundreds of the black, shiny, articulated creatures struggled to carry the upturned roof down to the water. At Stannard’s further command they brought the flagstaff and fitted it upright in holes which surprisingly seemed to have been made for it. They brought the awning, and ropes which Stannard had ordered them to make, and provisions and water. He shipped a rudder and they gazed in absolute uncomprehen-sion at a moderately seaworthy sailboat which was an artifact lost from their traditions. They did not even begin to grasp the idea until the boat was launched and Jan and Stannard were in it. Then they stared, by hundreds.

  “I give commands,” said Stannard sternly, regarding the horde of glistening black creatures on the shore. “We go to meet other man-masters we shall summon from the sky. I have made machines, fifty of them, which send messages to other worlds. I made so many lest any one of them fail to reach its destined world with its message. I sent them away to be buried and to begin their message-sending. Even now, the fifty machines send word through the skies to tell other man-masters to come and be served by the Pasiki, who wish no greater gladness than to serve the man-masters. I command that the machines be left untouched by all the Pasiki until the other man-masters come. And now this woman-master and myself go to meet the other man-masters when they come down from the sky.”