(3/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume III: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

Whenever possible during the lunch-hour rush, Jane stopped to smile and talk to the child. Once she asked, "Don't you know where your mama and daddy are?"

  He just stared at her, unblinking, his big eyes soft and sad-looking.

  The girl studied him for a moment, then she picked up a cookie and gave it to him. "Can you tell me your name?" she asked hopefully.

  His lips parted. Cookie crumbs fell off his chin and from the corners of his mouth, but he spoke no words.

  She sighed, turned, and went out to the clattering throng with laden plates of food.

  For a while Jane was so busy she almost forgot the young one. But finally people began to linger more over their food, the clinking of dishes grew quieter and Pete took time for a cup of coffee. His sweating face was haggard. He stared sullenly at the little boy and shook his head.

  "Shouldn't be such things as kids," he muttered. "Nothing but a pain in the neck!"

  Jane came through the door. "It gets worse all the time," she groaned. She turned to the little boy. "Did you have something to eat?"

  "I didn't know what to fix for him," Pete said. "How about some beef stew? Do you think he'd go for that?"

  Jane hesitated. "I--I don't know. Try it."

  Pete ladled up a bowl of steaming stew. Jane took it and put it on the table. She took a bit on a spoon, blew on it, then held it out. The child opened his mouth. She smiled and slowly fed him the stew.

  "How old do you think he is?" Pete asked.

  The girl hesitated, opened her mouth, but said nothing.

  "About two and a half, I'd guess," Pete answered himself. "Maybe three." Jane nodded and he turned back to cleaning the stove.

  "Don't you want some more stew?" Jane asked as she offered the small one another spoonful.

  The little mouth didn't open.

  "Guess you've had enough," she said, smiling.

  Pete glanced up. "Why don't you leave now, Jane. You're going to have to see the Patrol about that kid. I can take care of things here."

  She stood thinking for a moment. "Can I use an extra respirator?"

  "You can't take him out without one!" Pete replied. He opened a locker and pulled out a transparent facepiece. "I think this'll tighten down enough to fit his face."

  She took it and walked over to the youngster. His large eyes had followed all her movements and he drew back slightly as she held out the respirator. "It won't hurt," she coaxed. "You have to wear it. The air outside stings."

  The little face remained steady but the eyes were fearful as Jane slid the transparent mask over his head and tightened the elastic. It pulsed slightly with his breathing.

  "Better wrap him in this," Pete suggested, pulling a duroplast jacket out of the locker. "Air's tough on skin."

  The girl nodded, pulling on her own respirator. She stepped quickly into her duroplast suit and tied it. "Thanks a lot, Pete," she said, her voice slightly muffled. "See you tomorrow."

  Pete grunted as he watched her wrap the tiny form in the jacket, lift it gently in her arms, then push through the door.

  The girl walked swiftly up the street. It was quieter now, but in a short time the noise and stench and garishness of New Reno would begin rising to another cacophonous climax.

  The strange pair reached a wretched metal structure with an askew sign reading, "El Grande Hotel." Jane hurried through the double portals, the swish of air flapping her outer garments as the air conditioning unit fought savagely to keep out the rival atmosphere of the planet.

  There was no one at the desk and no one in the lobby. It was a forlorn place, musty and damp. Venus humidity seemed to eat through everything, even metal, leaving it limp, faded, and stinking.

  She hesitated, looked at the visiphone, then impulsively pulled a chair over out of the line of sight of the viewing plate and gently set the little boy on it. She pulled the respirator from her face, pressed the button under the blank visiphone disk. The plate lit up and hummed faintly.

  "Patrol Office," Jane said.

  There was a click and a middle-aged, square-faced man with blue-coated shoulders appeared. "Patrol Office," he repeated.

  "This is Jane Grant. I work at the Elite Cafe. Has anyone lost a little boy?"

  The patrolman's eyebrows raised slightly. "Little boy? Did you find one?"

  "Well--I--I saw one earlier this evening," she faltered. "He was sitting at the edge of the street and I took him into the cafe and fed him."

  "Well, there aren't many children in town," he replied. "Let's see." He glanced at a record sheet. "No, none's reported missing. He with you now?"

  "Ah--no."

  He shook his head again, still looking downward. He said slowly, "His parents must have found him. If he was wandering we'd have picked him up. There is a family that live around there who have a ten-year-old kid who wanders off once in a while. Blond, stutters a little. Was it him?"

  "Well, I--" she began. She paused, said firmly, "No."

  "Well, we don't have any reports on lost children. Haven't had for some time. If the boy was lost his parents must have found him. Thank you for calling." He broke the connection.

  Jane stood staring at the blank plate. No one had reported a little boy missing. In all the maddening confusion that was New Reno, no one had missed a little boy.

  She looked at the small bundle, walked over and slipped off his respirator. "I should have told the truth," she murmured to him softly. "But you're so tiny and helpless. Poor little thing!"

  He looked up at her, then around the lobby, his brown eyes resting on first one object, then another. His little chin began to quiver.

  The girl picked him up and stroked his hair. "Don't cry," she soothed. "Everything's going to be all right."

  She walked down a hall, fumbling inside her coveralls for a key. At the end of the hall she stopped, unlocked a door, and carried him inside. As an afterthought she locked the door, still holding the small bundle in her arms. Then she placed him on a bed, removed the jacket and threw it on a chair.

  "I don't know why I should go to all this trouble," she said, removing her protective coveralls. "I'll probably get picked up by the Patrol. But somebody's got to look after you."

  She sat down beside him. "Aren't you even a bit sleepy?"

  He smiled a little.

  "Maybe now you can tell me your name," she said. "Don't you know your name?"

  His expression didn't change.

  She pointed to herself. "Jane." Then she hesitated, looked downward for a moment. "Jana, I was called before I came here."

  The little face looked up at her. The small mouth opened. "Jana." It was half whisper, half whistle.

  "That's right," she replied, stroking his hair. "My, but your throat must be sore. I hope you won't be sick from breathing too much of that awful air."

  She regarded him quizzically. "You know, I've never seen many little boys. I don't quite know how to treat one. But I know you should get some sleep."

  She smiled and reached over to take off the rags. He pulled away suddenly.

  "Don't be afraid," she said reassuringly. "I wouldn't hurt you."

  He clutched the little ragged shirt tightly.

  "Don't be afraid," she repeated soothingly. "I'll tell you what. You lie down and I'll put this blanket over you," she said, rising. "Will that be all right?"

  She laid him down and covered the small form with a blanket. He lay there watching her with his large eyes.

  "You don't look very sleepy," she said. "Perhaps I had better turn the light down." She did so, slowly, so as not to alarm him. But he was silent, watchful, never taking his eyes from her.

  She smiled and sat down next to him. "Now I'll tell you a story and then you must go to sleep," she said softly.

  He smiled--just a little smile--and she was pleased.

  "Fine," she cried. "Well--once upon a time there was a beautiful planet, not at all like this one. There were lovely flowers and cool-running streams and it only rained once in a while. You'd like it there for
it's a very nice place. But there were people there who liked to travel--to see strange places and new things, and one day they left in a great big ship."

  She paused again, frowning in thought. "Well, they traveled a long, long way and saw many things. Then one day something went wrong."

  Her voice was low and soft. It had the quality of a dream, the texture of a zephyr, but the little boy was still wide awake.

  "Something went very, very wrong and they tried to land so they could fix it. But when they tried to land they found they couldn't--and they fell and just barely managed to save themselves. The big, beautiful ship was all broken. Well, since they couldn't fix the ship at all now, they set out on foot to find out where they were and to see if they could get help. Then they found that they were in a land of great big giants, and the people were very fierce."

  The little boy's dark eyes were watching her intently but she went on, hardly noticing.

  "So they went back to the broken ship and tried to decide what to do. They couldn't get in touch with their home because the radio part of the ship was all broken up. And the giants were horrible and wanted everything for themselves and were cruel and mean and probably would have hurt the poor ship-wrecked people if they had known they were there.

  "So--do you know what they did? They got some things from the ship and they went and built a giant. And they put little motors inside and things to make it run and talk so that the giants wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't another giant just like themselves."

  She paused, straightening slightly.

  "And then they made a space inside the giant where somebody could sit and run this big giant and talk and move around--and the giants wouldn't ever know that she was there. They made it a she. In fact, she was the only person who could do it because she could learn to talk all sorts of languages--that's what she could do best. So she went out in the giant suit and mingled with the giants and worked just like they did.

  "But every once in a while she'd go back to the others, bringing them things they needed. And she would bring back news. That was their only hope--news of a ship which might be looking for them, which might take them home--"

  She broke off. "I wonder what the end of the story will be?" she murmured.

  For some time she had not been using English. She had been speaking in a soft, fluid language unlike anything ever heard on Venus. But now she had stopped speaking entirely.

  After a slight pause--another voice spoke--in the same melodious, alien tongue! It said, "I think I know the end of the story. I think someone has come for you poor people and is going to take you home."

  She gasped--for she realized it had not been her voice. Her artificial eyes watched, stunned, as the little boy began peeling off a skin-tight, flexible baby-faced mask, revealing underneath the face of a little man.

  * * *

  Contents

  VITAL INGREDIENT

  By Charles V. De Vet

  It is man's most precious possession--no living thing can exist without it. But when they gave it to Orville, it killed him. For the answer, read 1/M.

  "Now watch," Remm said, indicating the native. Macker had been absent, exploring the countryside in the immediate vicinity of their landing place, and had not witnessed the capture of the native, or the tests his two companions made on it.

  Macker followed Remm's gaze to where the biped native sat hunched. The creature was bent into an ungainly position, its body crooked at incongruous angles, in such a way as to allow most of its weight to rest on a packing-box at the base of a middle angle. Its stubby feet, on the ends of thin, pipelike legs, rested against the floor of the space ship. Its body was covered, almost entirely, with an artificial skin material of various colors. Some of the colors hurt Macker's eyes. In the few places where the flesh showed through the skin was an unhealthy, pallid white.

  Slowly the creature's head swiveled on its short neck until it faced them.

  "Those orifices in the upper portion of its skull are evidently organs of sight," Remm said. "It sees that we are quite a distance away. It will probably attempt to escape again."

  Slowly--slowly--the native's head rotated away from them in a half-circle until it faced Toolls, working over his instruments on the far side of the room. Then it turned its head back until it faced the door of the ship.

  "It is setting itself for flight now," Remm said. "Notice the evidence of strain on its face."

  The creature leaned forward and the appendages on the ends of its upper limbs clutched the sides of the box as it propelled its body forward.

  It raised its right foot in a slow arc, employing a double-jointed, breaking action of its leg. For a long moment it rested its entire weight on its lumpy right foot, while its momentum carried its body sluggishly forward. Then it repeated the motion with its left leg; then again its right. All the while evidencing great exertion and concentration of effort.

  "It is making what it considers a mad dash for freedom," Remm said. "Probably at the ultimate speed of which it is capable. That would be ridiculous except that it's normal for its own environment. This is definitely a slow-motion world."

  The creature was a third-way to the door now. Once again its head turned in its slow quarter-circle, to look at them. As it saw that Remm and Macker had not moved it altered the expression on its face.

  "It seems to express its emotions through facial contortions," Remm said. "Though I suspect that the sounds it makes with the upper part of its trachea during moments of agitation are also outlets of emotional stress, rather than efforts at communication." He called across the room to Toolls. "What did you find out about its speech?"

  "Extremely primitive," Toolls replied. "Incredible as it may appear to us it uses combinations of sounds to form word-symbols. Each word indicates some action, or object; or denotes degree, time, or shades of meaning. Other words are merely connectives. It seems to make little use of inflections, the basis of a rational language. Thoughts which we can project with a few sounds would take it dozens of words to express."

  "Just how intelligent is it?" Macker asked.

  "Only as intelligent as a high degree of self-preservation instinct would make it."

  "Are you certain that it is a member of the dominant species of life on the planet?"

  "There's no doubt about it," Toolls replied. "I've made very careful observations."

  "This attempt at escape is a pretty good example of its intelligence," Remm said. "This is the sixth time it has tried to escape--in exactly the same way. As soon as it sees that we are farther away from it than it is from the door, it makes its dash."

  * * * * *

  The creature was one step away from the space ship's open portal now and bringing its foot up to cross the threshold. Remm walked over and lifted it off the floor.

  "Its legs are still moving in a running motion," Macker said. "Doesn't it realize yet that you've picked it up?"

  "Its nervous system and reflexes are evidently as slow as its motor muscles," Remm replied. "There has not been time for the sensation of my picking it up to reach the brain, and for the brain to send back its message to the legs to stop their running motion."

  "How heavy is it?" Macker asked.

  "Only a few ounces," Remm replied. "But that's logical considering that this is a 'light' planet. If we took it back to our own 'heavy' world, gravity would crush it to a light film of the liquid which comprises the greater part of its substance."

  Remm set the creature down on the box in its former queerly contorted position. Toolls had left his instruments and strolled over beside them to observe the native.

  "One of its appendages seems bent at a peculiar angle," Macker said.

  "I noticed that," Remm answered. "I think that I may have broken the bone in several places when I first captured it. I was not aware then of how fragile it was. But now that you mention it, I should be able to use that injury to give you a good illustration of the interplay of emotional expressions on its face. Observe now as
I touch it."

  Remm reached over and touched--very lightly--the broken portion of the native's appendage. The muscles of the creature's face pulled its flaccid flesh into distorted positions, bunching some and stretching others. "It is very probably registering pain," Remm said.

  Suddenly the starch seemed to leave the native's body and it slowly slumped across the packing-box.

  "Why is it doing that, Toolls?" Remm asked.

  Toolls concentrated for a minute, absorbing the feelings and thought pulsations emanating from the creature. "The conscious plane of its mind has blanked out," he said. "I presume the pain you caused by touching its wounded member resulted in a breakdown of its nervous system. The only thought waves I receive now are disjointed impressions and pictures following no rational series. However, I'm certain that it will be only temporary."

  "Don't you think that in justice to the creature we should repair its wound before we free it?" Macker asked.

  "I had intended to have it done," Remm replied. "You shouldn't have any trouble fixing it, should you, Toolls?"

  "No," Toolls answered. "I may as well attend to it right now." He rolled the portable converter over beside the creature and carefully laid its arm in the "pan." The converter automatically set its gauges and instruments of calculation, and gave its click of "ready."

  Toolls fed a short length of basic into the machine and it began its work. The native was still unconscious.

  The bone of the wounded arm slowly evaporated, beginning with the wrist joint. The evaporated portion was instantly replaced by the manufactured bone of the converter. At the same time it repaired all ruptured blood vessels and damaged ligaments and muscles.

  "It was not possible, of course, for me to replace the bone with another of the same composition as its own," Toolls said, after the machine had completed its work. "But I gave it one of our 'heavy' ones. There will be no force on this planet powerful enough to break it again."

  * * * * *

  The native's first evidence of a return to consciousness was a faint fluttering of the lids that covered its organs of vision. The lids opened and it looked up at them.