Futures Past

by James White

  The captain gestured toward the wall speaker, and the biologist's slow, almost pedantic, voice filled the room.

  "The specimen has extensive burns," he began, "but its nervous system is reasonably intact. Besides renewing the damaged tissue, this means that we can thought-probe the creature's mind when it is revived. Our judgment will therefore be based on complete and accurate information." He paused, and the captain could imagine the struggle it was for him to keep the mounting excitement and curiosity he felt from showing in his voice. He resumed, "The creature is well-designed physically, but curiously underdeveloped. Taking into consideration the size and composition of this planet I would have expected something larger. Perhaps this is an especially small one because of the necessity of saving weight.

  "The fuel," he continued, "which I was able to analyze from its spectrum as it exploded, is a low-powered chemical type, and I'm amazed that the ship reached the altitude which it did. And the being would have died anyway, because there was not enough fuel left in its tanks for the return trip." His voice grew vaguely uneasy. "I don't understand this. There were ways in which the ship could be lightened, mechanisms with overlapping functions and so on, so that a return would be possible. Maybe . . ." He hissed slightly in puzzlement, and ended, "It's been some time since we've had a regrowth. I think you might find it interesting."

  With an effort the captain altered his body's center of gravity and rolled onto the floor of the control room. Immediately a wave of pain and weakness sent him sliding against a nearby bulkhead. He hadn't realized he was so far gone. Maybe he shouldn't waste time with the creature, but follow the weapons officer's suggestion of destroying the life on this planet at once. If he delayed, then collapsed before being able to carry out the sentence . . . He compromised by having the weapons officer remain by his panel in the control room while he went to examine the specimen.

  It was a pity, the captain thought as he watched the creature in the regrowth tank, that the metabolism of the Srilla was not so simple and straightforward as this. If it had been, then he and his surviving crew would have gone through a similar process and emerged alive and whole, instead of being the radiation rotted near-corpses that they now were. But the Srilla were an old race, and their physical cell-structure was as bewilderingly complex as the tangle of conflicting motivations which drove them into creating such things as the Execution Ships.

  The captain looked down at the raw, pink, and still hairless skin forming over the newly grown layers of muscles. Animal! Somehow he knew that this one was going * to be like the others, a vicious, power-hungry brute.

  Why, he groaned despairingly, echoing the half prayer, half curse that rose constantly from every member of his race, did bestiality and intelligence march together? Why did the gift which set a being above the animals succeed only in making him more cruel, sadistic, and predatory?

  Think of a race old, wise, and peace-loving, spreading slowly and naturally over the millenia from star to star. Their ways were gentle, and even racial memory held no hint of violence in their past. This was the Srilla. Then imagine them meeting another race—a poisonous, exploding mushroom race, scattering its spore across the galaxy like a corrosive blight, and attacking and destroying every thing in its path. Then shortly afterwards the awful discovery that the Srilla were alone, because every new culture found was, or would certainly develop into, an identical copy of that first accursed race. In short, that almost every being in the galaxy was a potential enemy. At first the enemy had a name, then soon there were too many of them. They were just__the enemy.

  Retaliatory action was impossible. The Srilla could not hit back, or even defend themselves, because that would have meant killing, and the philosophy they had held for thousands of years made violence toward any intelligent being unthinkable. That was at first. But the shame of constantly retreating, of fleeing from world to world, from an enemy which they might possibly have beaten began to put cracks in the noble white pillar that was their pacifist philosophy. Some of them were able to fight back.

  The Executioners, as they called themselves, were unaffected by the thought of killing—except, the captain amended grimly, when they dreamed at night. Hypnotic conditioning coupled with some very delicate brain surgery removed every trace of the softer emotions as well as the glandular network responsible for them. The treatment, on those able to take it, made it possible to begin a program of extermination that would have horrified even the enemy.

  By this time the number of Srilla able to fight was too small to attack the enemy directly—long life in their race was counterbalanced by a very low birthrate—so they were left alone. Over the centuries, it was hoped, the more highly advanced cultures of the enemy would gradually kill each other off. The hope was probably a vain one. Instead, the Srilla searched out planets containing races whose cultural patterns were fixed and—even though their technology was on the bow and arrow level—if those races showed signs of becoming counterparts of the enemy, they were ruthlessly obliterated. The best way to deal with vermin was to make sure that they never reached maturity.

  And somewhere, sometime, there would be another race that was good, and kind, and intelligent, and yet be able to stand against the enemy without losing those attributes. ...

  "Captain!" the biologist called excitedly, jerking him back to awareness of his surroundings. "The revivification is successful. I will be able to receive thought impressions in a few minutes." Embarrassed then, he brought his tone down to a more sober level and explained that he had been able to analyze the spongy substance retrieved with the specimen, and while it was undoubtedly a food of some sort, he couldn't see the need for it when the creature had proved to be well-fed already.

  The captain made a pretense of interest, but he wished suddenly that he had listened to the weapons officer instead of allowing the biologist to talk him into waiting. True, it was his duty to weigh all the available evidence before passing judgment, but he was so very tired. It seemed as though he had traveled for eons, being judge and executioner to a myriad worlds, always hoping to find just one culture that showed the promise of true civilization. He had yearned—secretly—for that discovery since his first captaincy, but the few cultures he had not needed to wipe out were so physically impotent that any hopes he had were long since dead. The galaxy, all of it, was evil.

  The captain was tired, and disillusioned. This was, after all, his last job, so nobody would know of his one and only lapse. He turned to call up the weapons officer.

  "This is very strange," the biologist said suddenly. He had an induction plate of the thought probe pressed against his brain case and his eyes were closed in concentration. He opened one of them enough to extend a similar plate to his superior. The captain hesitated, then accepted it. A short delay would not matter much.

  He wished fervently that he hadn't.

  Fear; hatred; cunning. A surly, vicious killer whose mind fairly screamed savage instability, and an all-pervading animal selfishness that was completely without gratitude. Utterly amoral, too, presupposing that it could recognize a code of morals if it saw one, something which the captain doubted very much. In short, a creature without a single saving trait.

  How, he asked himself sickly, had these . . . these beasts . . . built a civilization capable of climbing into space? For once his duty would be almost a pleasure.

  But the empathy which had grown in the Srilla over the centuries for all forms of intelligent life and which neither surgery nor hypnotic conditioning could completely eradicate, made him pause. Surely they were not all like this. He forced himself to probe deeper.

  The brain was not fully restored, and acceleration trauma still blurred everything. But there was remembered pain in the creature's mind, too. Memories of great shining, whirling machines, of crushing, smothering pressure, and of the prick of many needles. Acceleration tolerance tests, the captain guessed. There was anger as well, at what seemed to be its confinement; strict and continual confinement because
of some grave offense. It was a life of feeding, testing and detention. A twitch of revulsion sent the probe plate clattering to the floor.

  The culture that would use one of its criminals—one of its mentally sick—for the purpose of space-flight experiments instead of searching for curative therapies, deserved to die. Firmly he pressed the call-up stud for the control room.

  "Sir!" the weapons officer said eagerly.'

  But the biologist cut in before the captain could speak.

  "I agree with your feelings," he said quickly. "But remember that the impressions you received were mostly on the subconscious level. When it is fully restored the thalamic censors will operate, showing up its inhibitions, its moral and ethical values, and allowing us to read the traces left on its brain by the minds of its close associates." The biologist gestured toward the creature, whose skin had now deepened in color and begun to grow hair. "Let me make a full investigation, sir. It won't take very long..."

  Angrily the captain waved for silence. He had the feeling that he was about to make a ghastly mistake, but didn't know which of two courses to take to avoid it. The creature's mind had convinced him that its world should be destroyed, and if he didn't act quickly he would be too weak to act effectively if at all. But the ship's biologist kept appealing to his Srillan sense of justice—though the other's motivation there was partly selfish curiosity about a new and unusual life-form. Hurriedly he made a decision.

  "Detail all power sources available in the ship," he said briskly, ignoring the biologist. "And your procedure in destroying the planet below."

  The ship was woefully short of power, the weapons officer reported, his voice over the intercom sounding even more slurred and discordant. Complete detonation or irradiation of the planet was impractical, but they could "peel" ...

  ". . . Our tractor beams, reinforced by the hyperdrive generators, will immobilize the whole surface of the planet to a depth of roughly fifty feet for several seconds. The normal rotation of the world under this temporarily immovable "skin" will pulverize and destroy all artifacts and grosser forms of life on it. The effect will be the same as if the planet's spin had been abruptly halted. There will be considerable flooding and volcanic activity, but the flora will not suffer much, nor sea life so long as it is well below the surface." He ended, almost enthusiastically, "Everything else which is larger than an insect will perish at once."

  "Very well," the captain said. "Set up the necessary machinery." But silently he wondered if the Srillan therapists had slipped up during his conditioning. He did not like the job, as the others did theirs, and never had. And particularly he did not like this one. Feeling a vague need to justify himself he turned to the biologist.

  A sudden wave of sympathy choked off his words.

  He hadn't realized that the biologist was so near death. The other had slumped against the regrowth tank, and accelerating tissue breakdown had made his once sleek hide a wrinkled and flaking horror. The thought-probe plate was still in position, though, but held more by gravity than by his grip on it. Urged more by compassion than curiosity, the captain made a query sound.

  "I've discovered the effect of the gas used on the creature," he answered, his voice surprisingly strong. "And the reaction of its taste buds to that spongy food substance." He became technical for a brief time, then went on. "And the strong mind traces of his associates leads me to assume that he is not typical, and that—"

  "Ship ready for execution!" the intercom speaker blared. "Do you wish me to proceed, sir?"

  Caught off balance the captain hesitated. Of course, he told himself savagely, the being was atypical. A luckless, mentally retarded criminal, used for callous experimentation and then discarded. That in itself was a judgment on those capable of such behavior. He swung toward the intercom.

  "I repeat," the biologist said gently, "that we must assume the presence of yet another race on this being's planet, one of much higher intelligence...."

  The shock of it was like a physical blow. There is no time to go through all this again, he told himself desperately as he limply accepted the proffered probe plate.

  It was the same vicious, bad-tempered, murderous brute. After attacking and almost killing three other beings working with or near it—there was a brief but shocking picture filled with blood and pain and killer lust—it was confined and guarded. But the guards . . . ! As the mental image of them developed, the captain almost dropped the probe plate.

  Roughly similar to the creature in the tank, but with differently distributed and a more sparse growth of hair— which they augmented by artificial coverings—they were a taller and more slender race. A stubborn, aggressive race, but ... It was several seconds before he lowered the probe plate and began moving heavily back to the control room.

  Because its body chemistry and reactions so closely resembled their own, and because it weighed so much less than they did, the beings of Earth had used a large "monkey" in the first test ascent into space. The frustrating inefficiency of available fuels made it impossible for a "human" to go, though many yearned passionately for the chance. The captain thought of the race that fought a lot, then forgot it and shook hands; the race who found time to laugh while desperately trying to sort out the mess that their nonunified planet was in, and who had progressed to atomic power and space ships even more rapidly than the vicious cultures of the enemy. Mostly he thought of the race who bore no grudge against an experimental animal who had maimed three of their own.

  "Hyperdrive ready!" the weapons officer relayed. The stay of execution puzzled him, but obedience was a strong habit. The captain might get around to telling him why.

  The race, the captain mused, that could send, an animal into space, using a phenomenal amount of their precious fuel—and then waste that same fuel by including in the payload such unnecessary devices as a heavy timer and tube, which contained a gas that killed instantly and without pain, and several large pieces of cake for the occupant. The captain liked a race that could do that. Very much.

  At the moment they were having their growing pains. But soon peace would come to their planet. He didn't think that peace would make them soft, nor make them forget to laugh, or fight—either for fun or ideals—without being needlessly cruel. Someday they would have to meet the enemy.

  There was power enough to get his ship home, and the Srilla could use it again—after the radiation had died from it, of course. The captain felt content, and almost happy. It was rarely that the crew-of an execution ship had the chance of going home to die.

  As the great blue globe of Earth faded into the gray of hyperspace, the captain thought, Poor enemy!

  FALSE ALARM

  DAVIES had ceased believing in buried treasure at a very early age and his skepticism had included such related items as Ancient and Forgotten Documents and the Secret and Perilous Voyages in search of it. The realization that he was now at the end of just such a treasure hunt came as a shock to his rather staid personality, but he could not dispute the evidence of his own eyes. There, half a mile away across the "snow" of Titan lay the cluster of pressure domes which the Document had said would be here. There also lay the Treasure—not gold, of course, but something which was incalculably more valuable in this day and age: knowledge.

  It was the abandoned base of the aliens which they had come so far and searched so long to find, and above it and around it—like a fabulous setting surrounding a jewel that is dull and cheap—there was the most beautiful sight that Davies had ever seen.

  The snow of Titan stretched away to the horizon, broken occasionally by dark brown outcroppings of rock which were also streaked with white and powdered with diamond frost-crystals. Titan's frigid, methane atmosphere was dense enough to give the sky above the horizon a deep, turquoise blue tinge which shaded into star-sprinkled black overhead, and on this band of cold pure color Saturn blazed like some splendid heraldic device. Davies was suddenly glad that he had come here; the view, apart from everything else, was worth coming nin
e hundred-odd million miles to see.

  "H-how soon can we get over there?" said Davies. He had the lamentable habit of stuttering sometimes when in the grip of strong emotion, but at the moment he felt too excited even to feel ashamed of it.

  "Not until the slush hardens," said Mercer, the ship's A-Drive engineer and radioman. His face remained glued to the direct vision port as he spoke. He was a small, thick-set man with heavy features whose only vice seemed to be the inability to stop and think before speaking his mind. He asked suddenly, "Now that we've found it, and if it really is an alien base and not some hush-hush installation of our own, what are you going to do?"

  Captain Silverman, the other half of the Hannibal's crew who had been busy with his post-landing instrument check, joined them beside the view-port at that moment. He spoke before Davies could begin a proper reply to Mercer's question.

  "You will be in charge from here on in, of course," he said seriously. "But try to remember that this isn't the Nile Valley, Professor Davies, where the only protection needed is a pith helmet—assuming that is what the well-dressed archaeologist wears these days. You know, I wish you had more practice handling yourself in a space-suit ..."

  The perpetually worried look on the captain's thin, intense face deepened slightly, and he brushed at a lock of light brown hair which threatened to fall into his right eye.

  Silverman's hair had grown long during the trip out here, and Davies knew the reason. The captain would not allow Mercer to cut it because of a tonsorial catastrophe which had occurred while Silverman had been attempting to barber the engineer—he was afraid of Mercer getting his own back and leaving him nearly bald on one side. But with that great brown mane curling softly over his uniform collar, Davies thought he looked more like one of the prophets than a present-day spaceship captain.