by Fritz Leiber
The Archeologist extended one of his eight tentacles toward the blackboard. The suckers at its tip firmly grasped a bit of orange crayon. Another of his tentacles took up the spectacles and adjusted them over his three-inch protruding pupils.
The eel-like glittering pet drifted back into the room and nosed curiously about the crayon as it traced:
RAT
THE WOLF PACK
Originally published in Amazing Stories, April 1950.
CHAPTER I
Just inside the weatherdome Normsi stripped off his flying togs and hung them on the family rack. He noticed Allisoun’s and her brother Willisoun’s, his father’s and mother’s, and his own walking togs.
Outside it was chilly winter with a low red sun, but under the intangible hemisphere of the weatherdome the atoms were domesticated. Here were light, heat, life-giving radiation. The warm, moist air moved in gentle currents—a little kept leaking from the lee side of the dome, to condense into white vapor and whirl away.
Flowers bloomed, buds opened, grass pushed up. Here was perpetual spring.
Norm’s world was like the weatherdome. He was a healthy, well-educated, uninjured young man, had an attractive job as a teletaction technician, looked forward to an early marriage with the girl he loved.
A world economy of abundance supplied him with conveniences, luxuries, and recreations almost beyond the dreams of earlier ages. There were even charming female psychiatrists to teach him sexual behavior.
A single government had ruled the world for two centuries. There had been no civil war for more than a hundred years.
The exploration of the nearer planets had brought to light no intelligent or dangerous non-intelligent enemies of mankind. Indeed, the opening up of Mars and Venus had proved rather anticlimactic, since their harsh environments prevented easy colonization and Earth’s synthetics-based self-sufficiency took the urgency from the search for new sources of mineral and organic wealth. The new planets would serve chiefly as stations for cosmological research, until gradual scientific exploration of their life-patterns opened yet unseen vistas.
Nor was Norm’s body the uneasy prey of disease germs and degenerative processes. He had far better than a 99 percent chance of escaping such dangers as long as he lived.
Yet, standing there in the garden beside the togs-rack, Norm did not look like that fortunate man. If his eyes had been closed, his face would have registered as young, fresh, healthy. But with them open, the fear of death infected every feature.
He delayed near the togs-rack, running his hand through his close-cropped hair, smoothing his pajama neckband, where a line of red, white, and blue recalled the necktie of ancient times.
With a sudden headshake, he started up the path toward the house. Halfway there his eye strayed to the grass. He pushed at a weed with the toe of his moccasin, remained staring at the tiny green world at his feet.
Even the vastest weatherdome has its outside, its region of storms and darkness and the unknown.
An ant struggled up one of the grassblades. Without thinking he set his foot on it, then drew back, wincing as though he had glimpsed something particularly unpleasant, and hurried on to the house. As the door opened, he readied his lips for a grin of relief.
But the grin never came. He stopped, and surveyed his family circle.
His mother, plumped down on the pneumatic blob of couch, had what he called her hurt look.
His father, sitting beside her, stared straight ahead. His mouth was pursed in a way that might have seemed grim in a bigger man.
Allisoun, sprawled on the resilient floor where it tilted up to merge with the wall at the other end of the room, looked doped. Her face was white, her eyelids red.
Willisoun, near her, studied Norm queerly. His fingers played with a cut flower, rolling and unrolling the petals, occasionally tugging one out.
Norm went over to the teletaction panel and plucked from the slot the newly engraved golden card bearing his death notice.
He studied the neat print. “You, Normsi” (there followed his citizenship number), “have been singled out by lot for a service of the highest honor that a citizen can render this world. You will…”
He heard an inane voice say, “Oh well, somebody has to get them,” and realized that it was his own.
At that his mother reacted. She was on her feet and talking in a hoarsely agonized way, as if she’d been going on for half an hour, “You don’t know what you’re saying, Norm! It’s horrible! Horrible! Don’t you realize that you’ll be…”
“…solely for the good of humanity, of course, and to avert far worse destruction…” his father put in hurriedly, apologetically.
“…Destroyed! Destroyed!” It was Allisoun who sobbed out the words, throwing her arms around him.
He looked at them warily—his mother gripping his arm, demanding attention, his father peering over her shoulder, Allisoun’s soft hair pushing against his cheek, Willisoun keeping his distance.
He heard the inane voice say, “Oh well, that’s war for you. Can’t be helped.”
“Don’t say it!” his mother implored. “Oh, Norm, I can’t bear to think of them taking you away. Why should it have to happen to us?”
His father was staring at the far wall, working his lips. “…And when he’s so young, just starting life…” He muttered the words, as if accusing someone invisible.
“Don’t let them, Norm,” Allisoun sobbed into his neck.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” the inane voice observed. He was beginning to hate its very sound.
His mother stood back. There were tears running down her cheeks.
“I won’t let them take you,” she said.
For a moment the others just looked at her. Then they caught fire from her spark.
“We’ll fight them!” chimed his father, clenching his little fists and grinning spasmodically as he always did when he said anything in the least violent.
“Can’t be done—” But the inane voice was swallowed up in a confused chorus of “We’ll find ways,” “You’re ours, and we don’t care what they do to us,” and “Yes, by Man, we’ll fight them!”
Allisoun said nothing, but she kept nodding her head against his chin and clung to him like death.
Willisoun dropped the half-stripped flower and shuffled up. “I’ve got influence,” he said uneasily. “I’ll see you get out. I won’t let you down.”
Suddenly the voices all stopped. In the silence Norm looked around. It occurred to him that they were waiting for him to say something. He looked around again. The faces wavered a little, but the look of anxious expectation stayed in the eyes. There was something embarrassing about that look.
“All right,” he said quietly. “The worst they can do is kill me in disgrace instead of honor. I won’t let them take me.”
For a moment the significance of the dropped jaws, the raised eyebrows, didn’t dawn on him. Even when Allisoun recoiled from him, lifting her tear-smeared disconcerted face.
Then it hit him.
His jaw tightened.
It was almost amusing to see the hasty, aggrieved way they began to backtrack, once he had called their bluff. His father began it.
“Now, Norm, I wouldn’t do anything rash. We’re all for you, my boy, of course, but there are so many things that have to be considered. It’s terrible, I know, but the government has reasons for doing this thing—reasons which it’s hard for a single individual to understand.”
“Reasons for killing me?”
“Oh, it’s ghastly when you put it that way, of course. But—did you hear Director M’Caslrai this afternoon?”
“No.”
“You should have. He stressed that they were taking this step only with the greatest reluctance, after exploring every conceivable alternative. He emphasized that this time we’d manag
ed to avoid war for a period of thirty-five years, longer than ever before—in itself a notable accomplishment. But he pointed out that we dared not frustrate the mounting death-wish of mankind any longer. That death-wish is the realest thing in the world, Norm. It’s the same guilt-urge that led thousands to confess to hideous crimes they never committed in the ancient witchcraft trials and political purges. It’s the same hate-urge that piled pyramids of skulls before conquered cities and hills of human ashes before conquered countries. It’s the thing that caused all past two-sided wars, with their messiness and inefficiency and their horrible unpredictability—their tendency to leap all bounds and engulf everyone. That inexorable death-wish, clearly indicated by the rocketing suicide and murder rates and a thousand other statistics, would inevitably break out in revolution or collective bestiality and probably, considering our degree of technical advancement, destroy all mankind—unless (as we have done successfully before—that’s the big point!) unless we declare war.”
“And he mentioned the religious side,” his mother broke in, using what Norm called her hushed voice. “He said—” She choked a little but continued bravely, “—that Man the Hero must sacrifice himself to Man the Devil in order that Man the God may be able to go on.”
“Oh that rot!”
She stepped back. Norm’s father put his arm around her.
“I know what you’re feeling, Norm,” he said. “I was through it all myself, last time, and—”
“Were you picked?” Norm’s voice was like a thrown rock.
“No, of course not—”
“Then you don’t understand anything.” He whirled on Willisoun. “I suppose they missed you too. Yes, of course they would. Bureaucracy’s darling.” As Willisoun bristled, Norm turned back to his parents.
“Let’s get this straight now. Do you mean to tell me that you’re willing to see my life snuffed out by war? Yes, Mother, I realize it’s an intensely painful subject, but what I want to know is this: Do you think it’s all right to kill fifty million people in order to save five billion from some possible greater injury? Don’t look at me that way, Mother! I know I’m being crude and unkind, but it’s the way I feel.”
She lifted her head. Her lips trembled, but her voice was almost imploringly sweet as she said, “I know that no son of mine will do anything that will bring disgrace on himself and his family.”
Her husband’s arm tightened around her protectively, and the little man said, “Don’t you see, Norm, you wouldn’t be asked to do this unless it were absolutely necessary? Do you imagine I’d stand by without protesting if I thought it were? But the collective death-wish is a terrible thing and, as M’Caslrai kept hammering home, we’ve got to be realistic about it. We can only hold it in check by great sacrifices. For two hundred years we’ve been making those sacrifices. When absolutely necessary, we’ve declared war. But if we ever stopped…”
Norm snorted. “Do you believe everything M’Caslrai shoves down your throat? Can’t you see that war is an inhuman device, a confession of failure, a throwback to the dirtiest superstitions? Men have been sacrificed before now to jealous gods and blood-hungry demons. Ever since history began, scapegoats have been selected and stoned. I wouldn’t mind war against a tangible enemy—”
“What!” his mother interrupted. “Why, that would be horrible. To go out with hate in your heart and kill other people…”
“I can think of some cases in which it would be eminently worthwhile,” said Norm harshly. “At least I’d get a run for my money. But this business of donating my body as a safety valve for man’s destructive impulses—”
“But only to prevent worse destruction,” his father cut in, his face contorted monkeywise in his eagerness to assuage. “It’s only because any alternative would be far worse, that you’re being called upon. It’s to save people like your mother and Allisoun from indescribable horrors. I’m sure, Norm, that if you could see it in that light, you’d be only too willing—”
“To die? In order to preserve the present unholy setup that fattens on these sacrifices? To keep fossils like M’Caslrai in their present position? For that’s all it really comes down to—a conspiracy against the young men so they won’t upset the old men’s applecart.”
“Now you’re talking like you used to when you went with that radical crowd.” His mother looked aggrieved. Then, shrewdly, “You talk that way about M’Caslrai because deep in your heart you look up to him. He’s a great man. You wouldn’t listen to him this afternoon because you were afraid he’d persuade you. And now you say anything nasty about him that comes into your head.”
Her husband patted her arm. “We all said some foolish things in the peace days, Gret,” he reminded her. “We weren’t realistic. Lord, I wish we could still afford illusions. I’m sure you’d feel very differently, Norm, if only you’d seen the sincerity and suffering in M’Caslrai’s face this afternoon.” The little man’s voice was placating, almost cheerful. His nervous smile had come back. Norm understood plainly: His father, always hating rows, figured that this one was over and the “smoothing out” time (his specialty) had arrived.
Norm watched him scamper spryly to the teletaction panel, heard him say, “Tell you what, they’re re-teletacting M’Caslrai’s address. You’ll listen to it—eh, Norm?”
Feeling sick at his stomach, he hurried out of the room.
* * * *
When he reached his bedroom he uncovered his ears, and was relieved to hear only an unintelligible sibilance of whispered conversation coming from the living room—none of those detestable, friendly, understanding, solemn mouthings of M’Caslrai.
It wasn’t true, what his mother had said, he assured himself angrily. The World Director had no emotional hold on him. It was just that the man was such a boring, sanctimonious old hypocrite!
He repeated this to himself more than once as he stared at the blank bedroom wall.
The resilient floor was noiseless. He only became aware of Allisoun’s presence a moment before her hand touched his shoulder. He let it stay there.
The room was dark except for a fan of dim light coming through the door and the ghostly glow outlining the furniture. The voices conferring out in the living room were muted to an unintelligible drone. It felt warm and stuffy and nauseous with flower-odors, like a funeral—the sweet stink of the weatherdome.
“Norm,” said Allisoun softly, “you know how it is with those who go to war—”
“Yes?”
“They let them have whatever they want. Give them any Measure they desire.”
“Well?”
“I was thinking that…well, you and I could be together, and sooner than we thought. We could do things and enjoy things that wouldn’t be possible under other circumstances. We could have the sort of fun we had in our sex-introductory lessons—”
He turned around. The soft silhouetting light made her hair a bronze aureole around the darkness of her face. Her shoulders stood out whitely above her black slip.
“You’d like that, eh?” he asked.
Her “Yes” was almost inaudible.
“You’d really like it?”
She nodded. “And afterward…there’d be your son.”
He surveyed her for a long moment. Then he reached for the white shoulders.
He pushed her back, held her at arm’s length.
“So you’d like to be a hero’s wife, eh?” he said loudly. “You’d get a thrill out of making love to a dead man? You’d like to be in on the orgies? You’d like to be one of the flower-decked concubines of the petted one who next year will have his heart torn out on a primeval God’s stone altar? You’d like to count the remaining moments gloatingly? You’d like to bear a dead man’s son for the next general bloodletting? Well, I wouldn’t like it.”
Willisoun stumbled into the room. “Look here,” he blatted, snatching at Norm, “you can’t talk t
o my sister that way.”
“Oh yes I can.” He shoved Willisoun against the bed and walked back into the living room. By the time Willisoun had followed him out, he was standing with his back to the outer door. He stopped Willisoun with a gesture and looked around—at his father with upraised hands fluttering the air, his mother slumped on the couch like a sick cow, Allisoun in the shadow of the opposite doorway, her brother a little ahead of her, face flushed and hands clenched.
“I’ll say my say and then get out,” Norm told them. “Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing. Maybe I’m just showing myself up as selfish and ignorant. I know that there are times when the few must perish for the sake of the many—when we must have a ‘finest hour’ and a goriest, most glorious day. I know there are a lot of things we don’t understand, especially about human nature. Maybe I ought to let myself be destroyed gladly. Maybe war is the greatest social invention since Brotherly Love. Maybe it’s magnificent long-range thinking and M’Caslrai’s a benign genius. Maybe in view of the ugliness of human nature, it’s the only alternative to universal chaos.
“But if that’s the way human nature works, I don’t want any part of it. Oh, I know I should have thought of all this before, and that it looks as if I were squealing just because I happened to be the one who drew the unlucky number. But better late than never! I decline to perform the service requested of me. I’ll use any means to avoid performing it. And I’ll urge others to do the same. Good-by, folks, I’m cutting loose.”
Willisoun walked toward him stiff-legged. “You won’t get far, you cowardly…”
Norm’s right to the jaw connected. Willisoun hit the tilted floor-section, bounced, came to rest. His fogged eyes, glaring crookedly at Norm, were half-moons of sick hate. Groping for support, his hands happened to close on the flower he had dropped earlier. Fingers and thumb squeezed the remaining petals to mush.
Norm turned and walked out.
At the togs-rack he jerked on his walking clothes, automatically transferring his death notice from hand to hand. A blast of chill air cut his face as he left the weatherdome, but he did not pull down his veil.