by Various
But where was Ted? What had she exposed him to, with her hysterical orders? She held her breath till he moved within sight, standing quietly by a pile of salvaged tools. Behind him the cabin began to smoke.
Ted wasn't afraid, then. He understood what he faced. And Richard wasn't afraid, either, because he didn't understand.
But she? Surreptitiously Naomi pinched her hip till it felt black and blue. That was for being such a fool. She must not be afraid!
"Daddy seems to be staying there," she said. "Let's wait for him at home, Richard."
"Are you going to make Daddy burn our tree?"
She jumped as if stung. Then, consciously womanlike, she sought relief in talk.
"What do you think we should do, dear?"
"Oh, I like the tree, Mommie. It's cool under there. And the tree plays with me."
"How, Richard?"
"If I'm pilot, he's navigator. Or ship, maybe. But he's so dumb, Mommie! I always have to tell him everything. Doesn't know what a fairy is, or Goldilocks, or anything!"
He clutched his book affectionately, rubbing his face on it. "Hurry up, Mommie. It'll be bedtime before you ever read to me!"
She touched his head briefly. "You can look at the book while I fix your supper."
* * * * *
But to explain Cappy's pictures--crudely crayoned cartoons, really--she had to fill in the story they illustrated. She told it while Richard ate: how the intrepid Spaceman gallantly used his ray gun against the villainous Martians to aid the green-haired Princess. Richard spooned up the thrills with his mush, gazing fascinated at Cappy's colorful and fantastic pictures, propped before him on the table. Had Ted been home, the scene might almost have been blissful.
It might have been ... if their own tree hadn't reminded her of Cappy's. Still, she'd almost managed to stuff her fear back into that mental pigeon-hole before their own tree. It was unbelievable, but she'd been glancing out the window every few minutes, so she saw it start. Their own tree began to walk.
Down the hill it came--right there!--framed in the window behind Richard's head, moving slowly but inexorably on a root system that writhed along the surface. Like some ancient sculpture of Serpents Supporting the Tree of Life. Except that it brought death ...
"Are you sick, Mommie?"
No, not sick. Just something the matter with her throat, preventing a quick answer, leaving no way to keep Richard from turning to look out the window.
"I think our tree is coming to play with me, Mommie."
No, no! Not Richard!
"Remember how you used to say that about Cappy? When he was really coming to see your daddy?"
"But Daddy isn't home!"
"He'll get here, dear. Now eat your supper."
A lot to ask of an excited little boy. And the tree was his friend, it seemed. Cappy's tree had even followed the child's orders. Richard might intercede--
No! Expose him to such danger? How could she think of it?
"Had enough to eat, dear? Wash your hands and face at the pump, and you can stay out and play till Daddy gets home. I--I want----I may have to see your friend, the tree, by myself ..."
"But you haven't finished my story!"
"I will when Daddy gets home. And if I'm not here, you tell Daddy to do it."
"Where are you going, Mommie?"
"I might see Cappy, dear. Now go and wash, please!"
"Sure, Mommie. Don't cry."
Accept his kiss, even if it is from a mouth rimmed with supper. And don't rub it off till he's gone out, you damned fool. You frightened fool. You shaking, sweating, terror-stricken fool.
Who's he going to kiss when you're not here?
The tree has stopped. Our little tree is having its supper. How nice. Sucking sustenance direct from soil with aid of sun and air in true plant fashion--but exhausting our mineral resources.
(How wise of Ted to make you go to those lectures! You wouldn't want to die in ignorance, would you?)
The lecture--come on, let's go back to the lecture! Let's free our soil from every tree or we'll not hold the joint in fee. No, not joint. A vulgarism, teacher would say. Methinks the times are out of joint. Aroint thee, tree!
Now a pinch. Pinch yourself hard in the same old place so it'll hurt real bad. Then straighten your face and go stick your head out the window. Your son is talking--your son, your sun.
Can your son be eclipsed by a tree? A matter of special spatial relationships, and the space is shrinking, friend. The tree is only a few hundred feet from the house. It has finished its little supper and is now running around. Like Richard. With Richard! Congenial, what?
Smile, stupid. Your son speaks. Answer him.
"What, dear?"
"I see Daddy! He just came over the hill. He's running! Can I go meet him, Mommie?"
"No, dear. It's too far."
Too far. Far too far.
"Did you say something to me, Richard?"
"No. I was talking to the tree. I'm the Spaceman and he's the Martian. But he doesn't want to be the Martian!"
Richard plays. Let us play. Let us play.
You're close enough to get into the game, surely. A hundred and fifty feet, maybe. Effective range, fifty feet. Rate of motion? Projected time-interval? Depends on which system you observe it from. Richard has a system.
"He doesn't want to play, Mommie. He wants to see you!"
"You tell that tree your Mommie never sees strangers when Daddy isn't home!"
"I'll make him wait!"
Stoutly your pot-bellied little protector prevents his protective mother from going to pot.
"If he won't play, I'll use my ray gun on him!"
Obviously, the tree won't play. Watch your son lift empty hands, arm himself with a weapon yet to be invented, and open fire on the advancing foe.
"Aa-aa-aa!"
So that's how a ray gun sounds!
"You're dead, tree! You're dead! Now you can't play with me any more. You're dead!"
* * * * *
Seeing it happen, then, watching the tree accept the little boy's fantasy as fact, Naomi wondered why she'd never thought of that herself.
So the tree was a treacherous medicine-man, was it? A true-believing witch-doctor? And who could be more susceptible to the poisoning of fear than a witch-doctor who has made fear work--and believes it's being used against him?
It was all over. She and the tree bit the dust together. But the tree was dead, and Naomi merely fainting, and Ted would soon be home ...
* * *
Contents
SERVICE WITH A SMILE
BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY
Herbert was truly a gentleman robot. The ladies' slightest wish was his command....
Herbert bowed with a muted clank--indicating he probably needed oiling somewhere--and presented Alice with a perfect martini on a silver tray. He stood holding the tray, a white, permanent porcelain smile on his smooth metal face, as Alice sipped the drink and grimaced.
"It's a good martini, Herbert," said Alice. "Thank you. But, dammit, I wish you didn't have that everlasting smile!"
"I am very sorry, Miss Alice, but I am unable to alter myself in any way," replied Herbert in his polite, hollow voice.
He retired to a corner and stood impassively, still holding the tray. Herbert had found a silver deposit and made the tray. Herbert had found sand and made the cocktail glass. Herbert had combined God knew what atmospheric and earth chemicals to make what tasted like gin and vermouth, and Herbert had frozen the ice to chill it.
"Sometimes," said Thera wistfully, "it occurs to me it would be better to live in a mud hut with a real man than in a mansion with Herbert."
The four women lolled comfortably in the living room of their spacious house, as luxurious as anything any of them would have known on distant Earth. The rugs were thick, the furniture was overstuffed, the paintings on the walls were aesthetic and inspiring, the shelves were filled with booktapes and musictapes.
Herbert had done it all, except
the booktapes and musictapes, which had been salvaged from the wrecked spaceship.
"Do you suppose we'll ever escape from this best of all possible manless worlds?" asked Betsy, fluffing her thick black hair with her fingers and inspecting herself in a Herbert-made mirror.
"I don't see how," answered blond Alice glumly. "That atmospheric trap would wreck any other ship just as it wrecked ours, and the same magnetic layer prevents any radio message from getting out. No, I'm afraid we're a colony."
"A colony perpetuates itself," reminded sharp-faced Marguerite, acidly. "We aren't a colony, without men."
They were not the prettiest four women in the universe, nor the youngest. The prettiest women and the youngest did not go to space. But they were young enough and healthy enough, or they could not have gone to space.
It had been a year and a half now--an Earth year and a half on a nice little planet revolving around a nice little yellow sun. Herbert, the robot, was obedient and versatile and had provided them with a house, food, clothing, anything they wished created out of the raw elements of earth and air and water. But the bones of all the men who had been aspace with these four ladies lay mouldering in the wreckage of their spaceship.
And Herbert could not create a man. Herbert did not have to have direct orders, and he had tried once to create a man when he had overheard them wishing for one. They had buried the corpse--perfect in every detail except that it never had been alive.
"It's been a hot day," said Alice, fanning her brow. "I wish it would rain."
Silently, Herbert moved from his corner and went out the door.
Marguerite gestured after him with a bitter little laugh.
"It'll rain this afternoon," she said. "I don't know how Herbert does it--maybe with silver iodide. But it'll rain. Wouldn't it have been simpler to get him to air-condition the house, Alice?"
"That's a good idea," said Alice thoughtfully. "We should have had him do it before."
* * * * *
Herbert had not quite completed the task of air-conditioning the house when the other spaceship crashed. They all rushed out to the smoking site--the four women and Herbert.
It was a tiny scoutship, and its single occupant was alive.
He was unconscious, but he was alive. And he was a man!
They carted him back to the house, tenderly, and put him to bed. They hovered over him like four hens over a single chick, waiting and watching for him to come out of his coma, while Herbert scurried about creating and administering the necessary medicines.
"He'll live," said Thera happily. Thera had been a space nurse. "He'll be on his feet and walking around in a few weeks."
"A man!" murmured Betsy, with something like awe in her voice. "I could almost believe Herbert brought him here in answer to our prayers."
"Now, girls," said Alice, "we have to realize that a man brings problems, as well as possibilities."
There was a matter-of-fact hardness to her tone which almost masked the quiver behind it. There was a defiant note of competition there which had not been heard on this little planet before.
"What do you mean?" asked Thera.
"I know what she means," said Marguerite, and the new hardness came natural to her. "She means, which one of us gets him?"
Betsy, the youngest, gasped, and her mouth rounded to a startled O. Thera blinked, as though she were coming out of a daze.
"That's right," said Alice. "Do we draw straws, or do we let him choose?"
"Couldn't we wait?" suggested Betsy timidly. "Couldn't we wait until he gets well?"
Herbert came in with a new thermometer and poked it into the unconscious man's mouth. He stood by the bed, waiting patiently.
"No, I don't think we can," said Alice. "I think we ought to have it all worked out and agreed on, so there won't be any dispute about it."
"I say, draw straws," said Marguerite. Marguerite's face was thin, and she had a skinny figure.
Betsy, the youngest, opened her mouth, but Thera forestalled her.
"We are not on Earth," she said firmly, in her soft, mellow voice. "We don't have to follow terrestrial customs, and we shouldn't. There's only one solution that will keep everybody happy--all of us and the man."
"And that is...?" asked Marguerite drily.
"Polygamy, of course. He must belong to us all."
Betsy shuddered but, surprisingly, she nodded.
"That's well and good," agreed Marguerite, "but we have to agree that no one of us will be favored above the others. He has to understand that from the start."
"That's fair," said Alice, pursing her lips. "Yes, that's fair. But I agree with Marguerite: he must be divided equally among the four of us."
Chattering over the details, the hard competitiveness vanished from their tones, the four left the sickroom to prepare supper.
* * * * *
After supper they went back in.
Herbert stood by the bed, the eternal smile of service on his metal face. As always, Herbert had not required a direct command to accede to their wishes.
The man was divided into four quarters, one for each of them. It was a very neat surgical job.
END
* * *
Contents
The MONSTER
By Randall Garrett
What will cosmic rays do to a living organism? Will they destroy life, or produce immortality? The eminent Dr. Blair Gaddon thought he knew ...
Fred Trent pulled his coupe into the curb and leaned his head out the open window beside him.
"Hi, Joan, need any help?"
He called to a trim-looking girl in a nurse's uniform. Joan Drake was holding on to a leash with both hands, and her slender body was tugging against the leash as she strained against the pull of a Great Dane on the other end.
She looked over her shoulder as Trent called out, her blonde hair glinting in the warm afternoon sunlight. Blue eyes smiled an impish greeting at him.
"Hello, Fred. No thanks. Brutus and I get along famously."
Trent opened the car door and got out. He walked up the sidewalk and stood beside the girl.
"Business must be mighty slack for the great gland specialist, Stanley Fenwick. Is this all he can find for his pretty nurse to do?"
The girl sniffed. "Walking Brutus around has its compensations. At least he doesn't get fresh--like some people I know."
Fred grinned as he saw the huge dog suddenly turn on its leash and raise itself off the ground to stick out a long rapier-like tongue and lick the girl's cheek before she could move her head away.
"Down, Brutus! Down!" she called out, half-laughing.
Trent stepped in and pulled the big animal away from the girl, patting the dog's head as he did so.
"What was that you said about getting fresh?" Trent asked her. "Looks to me like the dog's life is the best around the Fenwick offices."
"Just don't get any ideas!" Joan Drake shot back.
"I've already got them," he replied. "Which reminds me, am I seeing you tonight?"
The girl held a tight grip on the leash and looked at him coyly.
"Let's see. We'll take in a movie, stop for a bite to eat at Joe's Hamburger Palace, and then drive out to North Butte. You'll park the car and then you'll ask me when I'm going to quit my job and settle down raising a family for you, and I'll say--"
"You'll say not until I get the biggest scoop in Arizona, a big raise, and a bonus as a down payment on a house," he completed her sentence.
"There! You see? We might just as well not have our date. In effect, we've had it already."
He looked at her for a long moment, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its humorous note.
"You forgot one very important item. When I ask you that usual question, and after you give your usual answer, I'll take you in my arms and tell you how much you mean to me, and--"
"You win," she interrupted him. "I had forgotten about that."
* * * * *
The dog started to pull against the leas
h again and Fred reached out to help her hold the big animal in check. Then she looked at him again.
"What brings you to the outskirts of Tucson? Don't tell me there's a big story breaking on the edge of town."
He shook his head. "Not exactly. I'm on my way to the Rocket Research Proving Grounds. Just a routine story on the experiment they're going to pull off this evening. I've got to interview Mathieson, Gaddon, and a few other scientists on the project."
The girl laughed. "That's something of a coincidence. Dr. Blair Gaddon is in Dr. Fenwick's office right now."
Fred Trent's eyebrows raised in surprise.
"That so? Something wrong with him?"
"No. He's just having a physical checkup. Seems to be worried about his heart. Dr. Fenwick didn't need me since it's a routine job, so I took Brutus for a walk."
Trent nodded. "That's a bit of luck. I think I'll stick around and give Gaddon a lift out to the Proving Grounds. I wanted to talk to him anyway."
"In that case," the girl replied, "you can give me a hand putting Brutus back in his kennel. Once he gets out he's something of a problem."
Fred nodded, taking the leash from her hands and feeling the big dog tug against him.
"Never could figure out why Fenwick wanted a big hound like this. Seems to me a terrier would be more practical."
"That's a matter of taste," Joan answered. "Dr. Fenwick is very fond of Brutus--and so am I for that matter. But tell me something about this experiment you're covering."
They had turned in at a large Spanish type house that Trent knew served as a combination living quarters and office for the famous gland specialist. He shrugged.
"Don't know much about it myself. They're shooting off this new type rocket, a really big affair, loaded with all sorts of instruments. Some sort of experiment with cosmic rays. The rocket will go up to the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere, where a clocked mechanism will release a parachute-attached section containing the instruments. This will float back to the surface of the Earth.
"There is one interesting thing about it though. They're also including a live animal with the instruments. A cat I believe. They want to see what effect the cosmic rays will have on a living creature."