At eighteen thousand klicks Sharpie snapped, “Gay Bounce!” She added, “Infested.”
“Execute!”
Jake flipped us to Earth-Tau-Two-Minus and bounced. Same routine, same story: heavily infested. So was Tau-Three-Minus. We flipped to Tau-Four-Minus.
Glaciation; we detected no radiation, found some dimly lighted settlements near the equator on the night side, primitive culture in the tropics on the day side. We searched at low range; Sharpie reported the planet free of Panki. “Cap’n Zebbie, I think they like planets where the pickings are good.”
“Copilot, move on, by routine doctrine.”
The ice was even farther down on Tau-Five-Minus. We placed a six-transit girdle around it by voice program in five minutes; Sharpie found nothing but grass shacks and mud hovels—no Panki. “Copilot, glaciations search, two hundred quanta.”
“Two hundred, Captain?”
“Jake, we go farther. I want to be certain there aren’t Panki out this way beyond the glaciations.”
“ ‘Certain!’ Could be a long, long way, Captain. You trust my theories more than I do.”
“Well … reasonably certain. Please start a two-hundred quanta search.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
At Tau-One-Hundred-Sixty-Five, the ice was receding; we slowed down, spent a few minutes on each of the next dozen. Then we reached a high-technology culture, gave it slow and cautious treatment. No Panki—“Copilot, inasmuch as we can’t search all worlds, I shall assume that the varmints never got this far. So we’ll turn our attention to tau-plus axis. Comment, anyone?”
“Captain,” said Deety, “can you hold long enough for me to change a diaper or two, and horsewhip all of them? They’re raising a ruckus.”
“Want me to ground?”
“ ’Tisn’t necessary, Zebadiah. But I think I’ll move Zebulon and Jacqueline into the dressing room for their bottles.”
“How long have we been gone?”
“Three hours twenty-four minutes.”
“Why didn’t you remind me?”
“ ‘Remind you’—I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Zebadiah, I feel more alive than I have since the night I met you. At last we’re doing something constructive.”
“Having babies isn’t ‘constructive’?”
“It is, but not very—any mother can do it. Having babies is like food and sex and sleep: necessary but not enough.”
“No comment. Seat belts, all. Let the kids yelp. Gay Deceiver, head for the stable!”
The following afternoon (Sunday) it took forty-five minutes for Sharpie to establish that Earth-analogs Tau-One-Plus through-Nine-Plus were infested (as expected), another ten minutes to prove the same for -Eleven-Plus and -Twelve-Plus. On Earth-Analog-Tau-Thirteen-Plus we again ran into glaciations and no Panki, and found the same thing on the next thirty-one worlds. We then checked the next four worlds, found them warming up but no infestation. “Jake, I assume that we’ve found a pattern. The vermin don’t know about teh-axis or rotation worlds, and don’t go farther once they run into ice. That gives them sixteen analog Earths—possibly all they want. Or can get.”
“Cap’n Zebbie, I think it is all they can get.”
“Why, Sharpie?”
“I think they’re stupid.”
“They damn near outsmarted us!”
“Oh, they’re fast and they’re crafty and mean. But not creative, not truly intelligent. Zebbie, I can feel their thoughts a little now, when I’m close to them—I haven’t talked about it because they’re nasty. Brutish. I think that at some time, someone like Jacob built a space shifter, one that could move on tau-axis. He tried it out and ran into them—and they enslaved him or killed him or both, then used his machine to infest other worlds. But that’s all they can do; they’re parasites.”
“What happened to your ‘multiperson solipsism’ theory?”
“Your theory, yours and Jacob’s—I just polished it a little. It’s still there. This whole shenanigan feels like a horror adventure story by a writer in a hurry. Doesn’t have to be logical, just as the Land of Oz isn’t logical. This writer didn’t fret about the loose ends, as long as he could peddle it.”
“Hillbilly,” exclaimed Deety, “that’s the scoundrel I want to kill! The one who thought up Panki!”
“Are you sure, dear?”
“Sure I’m sure! Kill that moneygrubber and there wouldn’t be any Panki.”
“But Deety, if there weren’t any Panki you wouldn’t have met Zebbie, I wouldn’t have trapped Jacob, and we wouldn’t have our mostly-sweet-but-sometimes-horrible kids. Would you rather be an old maid? I wouldn’t.” Hilda patted Jake’s neck.
“Uh ….”
Jake said, “Thank you, my love; it’s mutual. Deety, you missed an elementary fact.”
“Pop, don’t get logical. I’m glad I got Zebadiah but that doesn’t make me like Panki. I hate ’em!”
“Irrelevant, and I didn’t mention logic; I said ‘fact.’ An author’s creations do not die when he does. You have observed that fact. Edgar Rice Burroughs died many years ago and L. Frank Baum even longer—but Dejah Thoris is very much alive and so is Glinda. Doctor Smith died around the time I was born, I think ….”
“Nineteen sixty-five.”
“So? But we were with Worsel and Port Admiral Haynes and our other friends there only last week. So you would gain nothing by killing the writer who thought of Panki.”
“He needs killing. For thinking of them.”
“Dear, dear! He may be a she—and a widow supporting four kids as best she can. Kids like ours. The record shows clearly that many of the goriest, most terrifying characters were written by women writers; they seem to have special talent for vivid terror. Frankenstein. Northwest Smith. Many more who used male pseudonyms. It seems to me that the female writer feels things more deeply, creates more vividly. And remember, Deety, if she created Panki, she also created you and Hilda.”
“What? Pop, I’ve told you again and again … I am not a figment of somebody’s imagination!”
“I don’t suppose Thuvia feels that she is, either. But you can’t have it both ways.”
“Why can’t I? Who says so?”
I said, “The meeting is adjourned. We won’t try to check Tau-Ten-Plus and Earth-Zero today; we must decide whether or not to visit Helium first—Cart may have news for us. So let’s get the kids out of freefall before we have used baby formula floating around aft. Deety, I couldn’t love you more if you were real.”
“When we get home, I’m going to bite you. You know where!”
Deety plays rough. “Honey, you’re as real as I am. Maybe more so. Gay Deceiver, head for the stable!”
XLVIII
Deety
Usually all of us—Zebadiah, Pop, Aunt Hilda, and me—plan a Panki hunt each Friday evening and carry it out Saturday afternoon. But this war conference did not go as usual.
Pop started it by saying, “According to my records, it has been over seven months since we hit Tau-Seven-Plus; it should be ripe. Zeb, how do you feel about it? Eager? Or hoodooed by it?”
“Eager!”
Seven-Plus is where my husband lost an arm and thereby caused us to spend three months at Prime Base while he grew a new one (null time at New Earth, of course). I knew that Zebadiah’s answer would be—it was mine, too! I wanted to kill at least ten Panki, on that planet, for Zebadiah’s left arm (even though Dr. Phillips grew him another just like it).
“Deety?”
“Double eager, Pop! I’m going groundside this raid! I’ve got a score to settle.”
“Your privilege, dear—if Zeb approves. Hilda my love, shall we hit target-of-opportunity? Or do you prefer full reconnaissance? Seven months is a long time.”
“Neither one, Jacob.”
“Eh? You have another target in mind?”
“Jacob, I have sixteen targets in mind.”
“Sixteen?” asked Pop. “My dear, do you mean sixteen specific targets? Or are you speaking of
the sixteen infested Earth-analogs on tau-axis? If it’s the latter, I think you had better explain.”
“I mean the latter. But I won’t go into it, Chairman darling, unless I have unanimous consent to talk at length, without interruption, before it is thrown open to discussion.”
“I’ll keep quiet, Sharpie.”
“Me, too,” I agreed. (What was Aunt Hilda up to?)
“You have the floor, dearest. No time limit.”
“Very well. But at the first interruption, I’m going to clam up … because all of you are going to want to interrupt. I must ask questions—but I want answers. Not arguments. Until I’m through.”
Pop glanced around, said, “The chair will suppress any interruption. Proceed.”
“Thank you, Jacob. Think back to the afternoon that you and Zebbie killed our first Pankera by the swimming pool at Snug Harbor”—I shivered but kept my mouth shut—“you men were discussing reengineering the solar system—that solar system, I mean. Have you discussed it since?”
“But, Hilda, my love, the circumstances are entirely dif—”
“Jacob.”
“Sorry! I discussed it once, simply as a theoretical possibility, with Sir Austin. But it is not appropriate to their system. No need.”
“I don’t think I’ve discussed it with anyone, Sharpie. It was just a dream … before we learned how tough the Panki are.”
“You’ve both given up a magnificent dream; that’s my first point. Deety, how many Panki have we killed?”
“Do I count those killed at Helium, after we left?”
“Count them separately. But how many have we killed? We four.”
“I’m glad you want a separate count. At Helium there were the twenty-three from their embassy that tried to refuse outgoing health inspection, plus an unknown number killed from later landings. Banths don’t keep count and nobody knows how many the Green Hordes killed before Earth-Tau-Ten quit trying to land ships on Barsoom. We four? Starting with the fake ‘ranger’ and counting through last Saturday, I make it one thousand eighty-nine kills plus seventy-two probables.”
“What percentage is that of the total number of Panki on sixteen planets?”
“Why, Aunt Hilda, how can I even guess?”
“Are there more than a dozen Panki left? More than a hundred? More than a thousand? A million? Ten million? Deety, what effect are we having on their total number?”
I tried to work an impossible problem, one in which the data were no more than samples of what Aunt Hilda had been able to sniff by perceptron from ten klicks—or higher, rarely lower. Besides that, Panki breed, even though we didn’t know where or how.
“Aunt Hilda, I don’t have solid data … but the number has to be over ten million—and there are almost certainly more now than there were when we started killing them.”
I felt suddenly depressed.
But Aunt Hilda went on calmly, “I now have a question to ask each of you, one by one. It is not a rhetorical question; I want a factual answer. A deep-down answer, not a superficial one. Not the answer you think I want to hear, not an answer”—she looked at Zebadiah—“that sounds amusing. I want the truth. Zebbie … why do you hunt Panki?”
Zebadiah hesitated, then grinned. “I’ve never been able to work up an interest in golf and ….”
“Zebbie.”
Zebadiah’s face instantly became sober. Then he looked puzzled and answered slowly, “Sharpie, I’m not sure. When we started in, I think it was revenge. I never did have any notion that we could hunt them down and kill them all. Oh, I was willing—but I knew we couldn’t do it. They are too well hidden among human beings. Even with your Worsel-trained ability to pick them out and bird-dog them for us, it isn’t easy.” He looked at his left hand, turned it over, and looked at it again. “Sometimes it isn’t easy at all. One can get so intent on not losing the target, not killing a human by mistake, that one can wind up being the target. But, Sharpie, that adds zest to it. I wasn’t joking when I mentioned golf; hunting Panki does beat the hell out of golf—or any game. I find myself living from weekend to weekend, counting the days—anxious to hunt again.”
“Thank you, Zebbie. Jacob?”
“But, my dear, as I recall, you ladies announced that you two were firmly resolved to hunt Panki … then agreed that we men could come along.”
“Jacob, that is an argument; it is not a statement of your reason.”
“But we could not let you go by yourselves!”
“Jacob, rather than allow this investigation to wander into bypaths, I’ll withdraw my question and make a statement, one which you can deny or affirm. Before that night, some five years ago, when your daughter and I reinstituted the toast ‘Panki must be destroyed!’ you and Zebbie were discussing how—or ‘how soon’—you men could go hunting Panki … while leaving us women at home. True, or false?”
Pop opened his mouth—closed it, and dropped his gaze. Aunt Hilda said gently, “Jacob, please answer me. I need to know.”
(I’ll never know how much hung on how Pop answered—because I will never ask Aunt Hilda; I don’t want to know. But I was scared.)
My husband saved it. He growled, “Jake. Quit stalling.”
Pop looked up. “My dear … please forgive me—but Zeb and I were discussing how we could do it without endangering you two and the kids. But we never figured it out. My daughter is stubborn and—excuse me, dearest!—sometimes you are, too.”
Aunt Hilda leaned across to Pop, kissed him, caressed his face. “My gallant knight … there is nothing to excuse, dearest, nothing to forgive. Deety and I knew; that’s why we brought it to a head. Now, sir, if it pleases you, will you tell us why you hunt Panki?”
Pop looked puzzled. “I thought I had covered that.”
“Not explicitly, sir.”
“Uh … my reasons are much the same as Zeb’s. This is a good world we’ve settled in; I like it. Couldn’t ask for a better place to bring up children. But … well, it’s not enough to spend my time cobbling up ‘inventions’ that have already been invented—even though it pays well. Zeb and I have such a backlog of gadgets this world can use but doesn’t have that I’ve turned out only one truly original invention this year … and it’s been even longer since I did solid work in mathematics. When Zeb and I are in the shop, we work—but most of our talk is about what tactics to use come Saturday. Sweetheart—it makes me feel alive! Can you understand that?”
“I certainly can, dearest man. Deety? Your turn, hon. Will you tell us why you hunt?”
“Huh? Why, you know why, Hillbilly—I hate ’em!”
“You’re not afraid of them any longer?”
“Certainly I’m afraid of them! I’ve never gotten over being scared of them; they give me the jumping willies! I’ve been even more scared of them since Zebadiah lost his arm—and feeling guilty about that, too; I wasn’t covering his rear properly—”
“Deety, you mustn’t feel that way!” interrupted my husband.
“Order,” Pop said. “Zeb, Hilda still has the floor and has yielded it for Deety to answer her question.”
“Thanks, Zebadiah—but I’ll never be that careless again. Aunt Hilda, of course I’m scared of them. I’m jumpy every time we hunt. But only ’til you spot one. Then I’m anxious to make the kill myself. If you call it off—tell us you’ve lost it or that it’s too hard to get at, I’m disappointed. But almost always we’ve made at least one kill and we’ve averaged four point one eight eight per hunt—we’re improving, especially since we started using random numbers in picking where to strike. Then there was that wonderful day we made eleven kills. Does that answer you, Hillbilly?”
“Yes, dear; it does. Jacob, I now have the answers I need.”
“You’re through?”
“No, I’ve just started. I want to discuss them. I think …”
“Privileged question!”
“My dear, do you yield to Zeb while he puts his question?”
“Certainly. But I still want
to speak my piece.”
“Go ahead, Zeb.”
“Sharpie, you haven’t told us why you hunt.”
“I will—I intend to. I’ve been hunting for the same reason Deety hunts. It’s essentially the same reason you gentlemen gave. I enjoy the hunt. I enjoy the kill! And that’s why I’m not going to hunt again.”
Pop got that frozen look they tell me I get when something startles me, so I guess I did, too.
Zebadiah’s jaw dropped and he stared at Aunt Hilda. “Sharpie,” he said slowly, “are you ill? In the twelve years I’ve known you, I’ve never suspected you of even a trace of masochism. But that statement sounds like it.”
“No, Zebbie dear, I’m not ill. I think I’ve been ill—I think we’ve all been ill … and I think we’ve lost track of what we were supposed to be doing. We’ve been hunting for sport, killing for the pleasure of killing—and that’s not good. It’s—”
“Sharpie, you’re out of your—”
“Please, I’m not through!”
“Order! Zeb, shut your face.”
“I won’t be long, Zebbie. I’ve been the worst of all. While I almost never get a shot at one, I’m in on every kill. I hunt them down and I coach you and Jacob in the stalk. Often we flash in, kill and bounce out in under five seconds—I take pride in that. Best of all, I can feel the vicious vermin’s thoughts when it knows it’s been nailed—I relish it! But that’s what’s wrong! It’s not what we set out to do. We’ve become blinded by bloodlust. We set out to exterminate them, kill every one of them, rid the universes of a particularly nasty breed of vermin. Instead, we’ve just been having fun!”
“But, Hilda my love, we can’t exterminate them; you know that, I don’t see anything sinful in killing as many as we can—and in taking pleasure in it.”
Zebadiah said, “My turn to call for order, Jake.”
“You’re not through, dear?”
“Not quite, Jacob. I too see nothing sinful in enjoying killing anything as nasty as a Pankera—but I do say that it’s inefficient to waste time in useless sport. We don’t know that we can’t exterminate them because, so far, we haven’t tried.”
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Page 56