Callahan's Place 01 - Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (v5.0)

by Spider Robinson

  The fireman shook his head. "I don't buy it. That sounds like some crazy sci-fi notion. Conspiracy of aliens my foot, I don't believe in little..."

  "...green men?" Raksha finished. "The signs are everywhere around you, Jerry. But look beyond the physical evidence: do you believe it blind chance that physics has leaped vast spans while psychology muddled off into blind alleys? Do you really believe man is so incurious about himself that it has taken him thousands of years to even begin a science of sociology? Do you think it simply bad luck that the technology of your survival systems; of your food and water and power distribution networks, consistently fail to keep pace with population increase and are already strained to the failing point, even in the face of a technical revolution?

  "Does it make sense that after living side by side with natural drugs and hallucinogens of all types for millennia, men have suddenly become dependent on them? Has the worldwide depression, economic and spiritual, escaped you? Does it not surprise you that no language spoken by any people on Earth corresponds with observable reality? Did you think the simultaneous collapse of an ages-old ethical system and a two-century-old value system to be mere unfortunate happenstance? You Broodless fool, did you really think God died of natural causes?

  "No, my friend. Charles Fort was quite correct: you are property, and on the whole not very bright property. You follow your political and philosophical leaders blindly to the slaughter, grateful to be led, and one in a hundred of you is a Telasco or a McConnell, with the sense to pull out of the mad death-race. You must see it, man," he said to Telasco, "you rejected the world we Krundai made for you."

  "Jerry," I said, "one of my most precious possessions is a lapel button, white with black letters. It says 'Go Lemmings Go.' Raksha is telling the truth."

  The fireman shook his head like an enraged bull. "This is crazy," he insisted. "How can you be telling us all this? I mean, if you're right, what makes you think we won't tear you to pieces?"

  "This is Callahan's Place," the alien said simply. "I am here for absolution."

  That brought us all up short, even Jerry. He stiffened; his mouth opened but there were no words in it.

  "Why?" cried Doc Webster in agony. "How could a race so old and wise be so savage and murderous?"

  "We are not," Raksha returned, agony in his own voice. "You kill animals for food—we ourselves have never killed."

  "People are not animals," Tony said with quiet force.

  "To my people you are," insisted the green one. "You lack a... an attribute for which there are naturally no words in your tongue. That attribute is central to the Krundai; without it, even if you went to the Great Pouch at the end of your days, you could not suck. To us you are less-than-Krundai. The Sign of the Brood is not upon you: you are food. My people feel no more guilt over engineering your destruction than you would if you could talk a cow into butchering itself."

  "Why all this dancing around?" Callahan asked him. "Why not just wipe us out? Sounds to me like you've got the moxie."

  "I have told you," Raksha cried. "We abhor violence. The fact that you can be induced to inflict it upon yourselves, is, to us, proof that you are food, less-than-Krundai. If you and other races did not spare us the necessity, we should be forced to kill our own food like beasts. But the Great Brood saw our needs and fashioned the lesser races to breed and feast upon, without the need to nurture violence in our own hearts. First the winged, heat-seeking fleegh of Krundar, which fell from the skies into our fires; then the blue-skinned ones of our neighbor planet, who destroyed their atmosphere just before they developed interplanetary travel; then the Krill from a nearby solar system, who warred to extinction among themselves. It has always been so; it is unforgivably bad form to slay one's own meat oneself. It indicates that one is not in the favor of the Brood."

  "When did your people begin sort of... encouraging the food into the pot?" Callahan asked.

  "So long ago that it would be meaningless to you," Raksha told him. "We learned early that the gifts of the Brood are not free; we must labor for them, to earn a place in the Pouch."

  "I still don't see how you could have done it," Jerry said, baffled but obviously believing now, convinced by the pain in the furry alien's voice and the aura of shame around him.

  "In the same way that a statesman can be induced to do what he knows is insane," Raksha explained, "by appealing subtly to his own self-interest. We ran a continuous and subtle propaganda campaign, took away any valid reason for living other than personal enrichment and comfort, and then saw to it that the immediate personal interest of millions of people served our ends. One of the simplest methods was to install in an enormous number of people the compulsion to amass more money than they could possibly use: enough were successful to leech national economies into anemia. Another was to whip up an intense interest in sex, far beyond the demands of nature, to keep population-growth beyond your capacity to adapt. Much work was required to squelch interest in space-programs before they could provide an escape valve. You humans are so short-sighted, your lives themselves so short. It is easy to manipulate you."

  "So what changed your mind?" Callahan asked. "You personally, I mean. If we ain't fit for this here Pouch, why are you spilling the beans?"

  "I… I…" he stammered.

  "We're nothing but dumb animals, right? Well, Colonel Sanders doesn't apologize to the chickens—why are you here?"

  The green man groped for words, his pointed ears waving nervously.

  "I… I don't know," he said at last. "I cannot satisfactorily explain it to myself. There is a climate of belief which runs all through your thought and literature, a conviction that you humans have a higher destiny. This idea has been of use to the Krundai many times, but we did not plant it; it was there when we came. It may be that it is contagious. I do not know; there is something about you humans, a… a curious dignity that upsets my heart and troubles my nights."

  Finn spoke up, startling me. "I think I know what you mean, friend Raksha," he said in that flat voice of his. "Michael," he went on, turning to Callahan, "do not be so certain that Colonel Sanders does not apologize to his chickens, as you put it. I have myself brought about the extermination of several races, in the days when I served the Masters, and yet last week when I slaughtered my pigs, I grieved for them. They were stupid and dirty and mute—but even a pig may have dignity.

  "They did not, could not, comprehend why they died—and yet in an irrational way I wished I could explain it to them." He turned, spoke again to the furry Krundai. "I believe I understand your motivation," he said. "I felt it too, once, and forebore to destroy this world. It seemed a planet of madmen—although much of that appears to be the doing of you and yours. But I knew that not, for you were well-hidden.

  "Yet still I stayed the hands of my Masters, betrayed my purpose, because I learned here in this room that men have love."

  "That is the quality I selected for in a human audience," Raksha admitted. "The thing you call love we Krundai had always found to be a symptom of the attribute I spoke of earlier. That humans possess the symptom without the attribute is one of the great anomalies that complicated my thought and delayed my confession until now."

  "This propaganda stuff you talked about," Callahan persisted. "I still want to know how you put it across. Whisper in the Wright Brothers' ear? Write newspaper editorials? Spead rumors?"

  "Sometimes," Raksha said, and hesitated. His features assumed a deeper green. "And sometimes," he went on with obvious reluctance, "by direct intervention."

  "Disguised as humans, you mean? Fifth column and that?" The big Irishman seemed to be prompting, seeking something from Raksha that I couldn't figure out.

  "All the Krundai on your world have, at one time or another, impersonated humans for varying reasons. One of us was Saul of Tarsus, another Torquemada, another Thomas Edison. Otto Hahn was yet another."

  "And you," Callahan bored on implacably. "Who were you?"

  I remembered suddenly how lon
g ago Raksha had said he began to regret his job, and my blood went cold as ice.

  "I..." he said, biting the words off with an effort, "I was known to men as Adolph Hitler."

  The silence was a living thing that gnawed at our reason, paralyzed our thought. All around us a Halloween party continued insanely, heedless men laughing and dancing, the four gorillas in the corner playing poker. There was not a damn thing any of us could say, and after a time Raksha went on listlessly, "It was an easy role to play. It took no significant fraction of the training I had received in crowd control. It was so easy that I had time to think, to observe, to learn firsthand what I was doing.

  "Perhaps it was because I was born here, and have seen Krundar only once. For whatever reason, I began to doubt; subconscious uncertainty spoiled my work. The major purpose of that campaign was to prolong hostilities long enough to force the development of atomic weapons, and I nearly succeeded in aborting the mission by folding too quickly. But my colleagues were able to redeem my error by drawing out the Pacific conflict just long enough. I told myself my depression was the stigma of personal failure, but I knew in my heart that it was in fact the repair of my mistakes that unsettled me. I have thought on it long and hard since, and now I am here and I have spoken."

  Doc Webster produced a hip flask from somewhere on the south slope of his belly, upended it, and slapped it down empty. On all sides of us, people drank and chattered and laughed, oblivious to the drama in their midst.

  The Doc found his voice someplace; it sounded rusty.

  "What do you want from us?" he croaked. "Absolution."

  I looked at Tony and Jerry and Finn, winced as I thought for the first time in months of my dead wife and child, killed years ago in a crash when the brakes I installed myself to save a buck failed in traffic. This was the place for absolution, all right—it was Callahan's stock in trade. And this seemed like our greatest challenge.

  The brawny Irishman's voice shocked me when he spoke: it was as cold and hard as an axe-handle in February. "That word has another word in it," he said. "Solution. First let's find a solution, and then absolution will take care of itself. How can you stop this pogrom?"

  Raksha's fur bristled; he looked flustered. "I cannot," he wailed.

  "Can't you talk your people out of this?" Sam Thayer asked. "Won't they listen to you?"

  "Impossible," the alien said flatly. "They could not conceivably understand my words... I am not sure I do myself. Have vegetarians made any real impact on your planet?"

  "They have wherever they could convince folks that a cow might have a soul," the Doc asserted.

  "But you do not have the attribute," Raksha insisted.

  "I don't know what the hell this 'attribute' is," Callahan growled, "but I get the idea we have the potential for it; the symptoms, I believe you said. Could it be we never developed it because our people have been under the... protection of yours since our infancy?"

  "No Krundai would believe that," Raksha replied. "If I voiced such an opinion, I would be judged insane and induced to suicide."

  "Can you sabotage the campaign?" Telasco asked. "Join our side and do the guerrilla? With you to help we might..."

  "No," Raksha said violently. "I cannot betray my people. It is unthinkable."

  "It was unthinkable for me once," Tony persisted. "But when I saw what I had become, I repudiated what my people were doing, worked to stop it."

  "Me too," Jerry chimed in.

  "You do not understand," Raksha hissed. "You are not Krundai—and this Finn may belong to a powerful, warlike race for all I know. I have committed an unthinkable crime by relying on your discretion and telling you all this—I can do no more."

  Tony had a soldier's tactical mind. "Can you tell us where and how to locate your people? We'll stop them."

  Finn spoke up before Raksha could answer. "That is not..."

  "Possible," Callahan finished quickly, and I got the funny idea he'd kicked Finn's shin under the table. "If these boys led us by the hand to the atom bomb, there ain't a lot we can do to stop 'em, Tony."

  "But... ouch," said Finn, and shut up.

  "No," Callahan went on, "if anyone can help us, Raksha, it's you. Or did you just fall by to make a headsman's apology?"

  "I can do nothing for you," Raksha said miserably. "I seek only absolution."

  "Brother," I said sympathetically, "you're caught between a falling rock and a hard place." Sam and the Doc also began to make noises of commiseration, and Bill Gerrity started to ask Raksha what he was drinking. Just the men of Callahan's, offering understanding and help, as always.

  But Callahan raised a hand. "No," he said quietly.

  We stared at him, stunned. Callahan withholding absolution?

  "You can't drink in my bar, brother," he said, staring Raksha in the eye, "and you can't have our forgiveness. There's a price for absolution on this planet, and it's called penance. Tony here gets arrested for joining demonstrations; Jerry has chucked away a potful of money he was making in real estate and started lobbying for greenbelts and cluster housing; Finn here exiled himself among a lot of obnoxious, smelly humans for the sake of the ones worth saving. Buddhist monks who couldn't influence their governments any other way set themselves on fire, by Christ, and for their souls I pray on Sunday. What do you figure to do for atonement?"

  Raksha closed his eyes—they were double-nictitating—and knotted his brow. He was silent for a long time.

  "There is nothing I can do," he said at last, his voice hollow and bleak.

  "Then there is no absolution for you," Callahan said flatly, "here or anywhere. Get out o' my joint and don't come back."

  Raksha's face fell, and for a timeless moment I thought he was going to cry, or whatever Krundai do that's like crying. But he got a hold of himself, nodded once, rose and left the bar, shouldering party-people aside as he went.

  There was another silence when he had gone, and we all looked at Callahan. His jaw was set, and his eyes flashed, challenging us to criticize his judgment.

  "Were... weren't you a little harsh on the guy, Mike?" Doc Webster asked after a while.

  "Hell, Doc," Callahan exploded, "that clown was Adolph Hitler! You want me to pat him on the head and say it's all right, you were only following orders? Christ on a minibike, if it wasn't for him and his kind, I might not have to run this goddamned bar. And my bunions give me the dickens."

  "I grieve for him," Finn said tonelessly. "I too was once in a similar position."

  "Save your grief, Finn," Callahan spat. "You had the same choice, but you followed through. And you weren't gutless—you were counterprogrammed. If you could figure out a way around the sheer physical limitations of your machinery, why the hell couldn't he overcome his conditioning? Conditioning isn't an excuse, for Krundai any more than for humans—it's an explanation. Thanks to you and the work you're doing, the Gaspe Peninsula may be prosperous farmland some day. You're still paying your dues. But that guy didn't want to atone, just apologize. He and his kind made this sorry old world what it is today, and maybe I could forgive that. But I don't give absolution free. It costs, costs you right in the old will power, and he wasn't willing to ante up. Fuck him, and the horse he rode in on."

  "I still think we should have jollied him along and tried to pump him, Mike," Tony said insistently. "How are we going to find them to stop them now?"

  Callahan looked tired. "As Finn started to say before I tromped on his toes, that ain't necessary. Now Finn knows they're here, he can find 'em for us as easy as you could spot a wolf in a chicken coop. That wasn't the prob—"

  There came a shattering roar from outside. The building rocked; glass sprayed inward from the windows and bottles danced behind the bar. Everyone began to shout at once, and most of the boys made a beeline for the door.

  Only Callahan of all of us failed to jump. "Like I said, no guts," he said softly.

  He rose quietly, walked through the suddenly uncrowded bar to the chalk line before the fireplace, p
icking up someone's drink as he went. He looked surreally absurd in that damned bear suit he still had on, balding red head sticking out the top like a partially digested meal. He stood gazing into the flames for a moment, gulped the raw liquor and spoke in a clear, resonant baritone.

  "To cowardice," he said, and flung the empty glass against the back wall of the fireplace with a savageness I had never seen in him before.

  Fast Eddie stuck his head in the door. "Jeezis Christ, boss, de whole unprintable parkin' lot blew up."

  "I know, Eddie," Callahan said gently. "Thanks. Anybody hurt?"

  Eddie scratched his head. "I don't t'ink so," he allowed, "but dere's a lotta dead cars."

  "Least of my worries," Callahan assured him. "Call the cops, will you? Tell 'em whatever you like." Eddie got busy on the phone.

  Callahan came back to our table, stood over Finn. "Well, buddy, what do you say? Can you take 'em?"

  Finn looked up at him for a while, figuring some things.

  "That blast was powerful, Michael. They must have strong defenses."

  "That's why I stepped on your toes and let that joker go, Mickey. If you two tangled in here, we'd have lost a lot more'n a few cars we can't gas anyway. But you heard what he said about violence."

  "They abhor it," Finn agreed. "Even if they will employ it in self-defense, they are unused to it. Michael, I can take them. I will."

  He rose and left the bar.

  "Thanks, Mickey," Callahan called after him. "I reckon your dues are paid in full."

  There's been a lot of noise in the papers lately about the series of seismic shocks that have been recorded over the past few weeks in the unlikeliest places. An unpredicted miniquake every day or two for three weeks, culminating in a blockbuster where no quake had a right to be, is bound to cause talk.

  The seismologists confess themselves baffled. Some note that none of the quakes took place in a densely populated area, and are reassured. Some note the uniquely powerful though strictly local intensity of the shocks, and are perturbed. Some note the utter inability of their science to explain the quakes even after the fact, and fear the end of the world is at hand.