Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “Come under,” the guard said, lifting the rope.

  “The one called Herb?”

  “He’s in that one over there.”

  She moved in the indicated direction. A moment before, the night had been warm. Now an uncomfortably chill breeze whispered around her as she moved into the starship’s shadow. The thought of the distance it had come, the countless millions of miles of space its hull had shed, was enough to dwarf her into less than insignificance. She wanted to run back to the guard, and to the protection of the familiar.

  The ladder was down, and when she reached it, the door above opened and a starman looked out.

  “I’d like to come up.”

  The starman went away. In a moment, he was back with one of the three who could speak English.

  “I’d like to come up,” Norma repeated.

  “We’ve already given the official tour for today.”

  “I have an authorization from our government. I’d like to talk to Herb. You tell him I’m from Senator Council. It’s about the report.”

  “Just a moment.” He disappeared inside. Norma teetered nervously back and forth. Wonderingly she put out her hand to touch the hard, icy metal of the ladder.

  “Come up.”

  She began to climb toward the opening. Looking behind her, she saw Washington, real and solid and reassuring.

  The starman at the top helped her inside.

  Herb was coming down the narrow corridor. She smiled at him.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello . . .”

  “I want to talk to you a moment.”

  He gestured her inside.

  In the first room off the main corridor, Herb stopped. Several starmen hovered nearby to listen.

  “Can I talk to you for just a couple of seconds alone?”

  “Why—why, yes, I guess.” He looked around for permission.

  The Oligarch, towering imperiously on the fringe of the group, said, “Why don’t you interview her in my office, Herb?

  “Come along,” Herb said.

  In contrast to the Spartan plainness of the rest of the ship, the Oligarch’s office was richly furnished. Its private corridor led past the messhall arid opened upon the main corridor that led forward to the second level: it was strategically located; from its doorway, one could interdict entrance and escape.

  It was the first time Herb had been in the room. Automatically his eyes searched the walls.

  “Senator Council asked me to talk to you,” Norma said. “He wants you to understand about the report. You’ve heard? It’s going to the full Senate tomorrow. We’d like you to . . .”

  “I’m only a technician, Miss.”

  “My name is Norma.”

  “Norma.” His emotions were tangled beyond solution. He wanted to say, I’ll stay behind when the others leave, will that make everything all right, you won’t blame me, you won’t blame me for it if I stay behind, will you?’ His mind hurt with the confusion.

  “We thought, if you’d go away, if the people thought we’d actually lost you . . .”

  “It’s not for me to make any kind of decision. I’ll have to ask. Would that be all right, sir?” Norma blinked. She did not understand to whom the question was addressed. Her eyes followed his to the wall, a concealed microphone? She felt a little prickle of fear.

  The Oligarch stood in the doorway behind her. “That will be agreeable with us.”

  She whirled guiltily.

  “Bud wanted to, to see Herb tonight . . .” Norma felt resentment against this man in the doorway. “I was told to bring Herb.”

  “I will be able to speak for my government.”

  “I was told to bring Herb,” Norma said stubbornly. Bud had not specified, but she told herself that she would not yield to a stranger. She did not consider Herb a stranger. “Isn’t it all right to take him?”

  “He may come, too, if you wish.” He smiled. “Whatever you wish.”

  His voice was not reassuring. “Thank you.” She modified her tone. Some of the iciness went out of it. “I’ll leave now. Bud will send two C.I.D. men over for you.”

  SITTING at his desk in his Georgetown apartment, Bud looked through a stack of letters.

  Norma, waiting, tried to become interested in a Saturday Evening Post story and failed. She put the magazine aside.

  The knock they were waiting for came.

  Bud rose and crossed quickly to the door.

  “Ah, hello,” he said with a genial smile. “If you gentlemen will wait downstairs, I’ll call you when they are ready to leave.” The C.I.D. men withdrew. “Hello, young fellow. Herb, I believe? And?”

  “George . . . How would George be?”

  “George,” the Senator said, pumping the Oligarch’s hand and drawing him across the threshold. “I like your people’s way of using first names. Very democratic. Just call me Bud.”

  They arranged themselves around the room.

  “I don’t suppose you’d care for a drink?”

  “I’d be delighted,” George said.

  Bud, solemn faced, mixed the drinks, talking over his shoulder. “I hope you haven’t taken our Committee report as a rejection of your generous offer . . . You understand? I want to explain my position—what we, you and I, can do . . . There we are.” He turned from his labors and handed the drinks around.

  “Norma, Herb. I wonder if you’d mind if George and I stepped in there?”

  “It’s all right with us,” Norma said.

  Bud and the Oligarch went into the study. Bud closed the door.

  “Now,” he said. Ambition was a sickness in him. This is the boy I’ve got to sell, he thought. That’s all I’ve got to do: sell him. Once he’s sold, the rest will follow. Ambition was like a hunger, and success hung in the air like smoke. “We can have a nice, private talk. I’m sure you’ll appreciate my rather delicate position.”

  George swirled ice and smiled.

  “Norma tells me you can speak for your government?”

  George nodded.

  “Let’s sit down.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now here’s the way I feel about it. I’m on your team. We’re both on the same team. I want to help you all I can, and I know you’ll want to help me.”

  George nodded.

  “I was thinking: if you would leave. Not tell anybody. Leave tonight. I don’t mean for good, but make it look that way. You see?”

  “Our leaving would serve as an emotional shock?”

  “Yes, exactly. Your leaving might be just what the people need to wake them up and get them on our team. I don’t need to tell you that the Senate is likely to reject your offer. I mean, right now. The way things stand now. My first mail is coming in. It’s predominantly unfavorable. But some telegrams I’ve gotten, I think the people are coming around. But they’re still not around yet. We need a couple of weeks. My idea is, I’d like to be the one that—more or less—handles it.”

  “You want us to work through you?”

  “You have put your finger on it, George. If there’s just one Earthman you can trust and work through, who knows the ropes . . .”

  “I believe I understand.”

  “And when you come back, you make it plain that it was Bud Council who brought you back—H was Bud Council who really convinced you to return.”

  “You and I,” George said, “will probably be able to work out a deal.”

  Jubilation rang in Bud’s ears. This was it. The talk of working out a deal was an assurance of victory. President Bud—no, perhaps it would be better, more dignified, to be President Phil. He would write it out and see which looked best: President Philip Council or President Bud Council . . . History lay heavily upon his thoughts . . . For the first time he actually felt at home with a starman.

  “Perhaps you would do something for us?” George said.

  Bud found himself looking deep into George’s eyes. Instinctively he knew that George knew him better than he knew himself, and that George ha
d carefully studied him according to no one could tell what alien science.

  “Why, why, yes, yes, of course.”

  “Well,” George said, rising and going to Bud and dropping a hand across his shoulder, “just to be sure that you really are on our team, perhaps you could give us a little token of loyalty.”

  Bud grew cold in anticipation. But the crowds cheering and the banners waving . . . No! Not now, they couldn’t snatch it away now! What was it George wanted? Money? A signed agreement? Patronage? “Why, yes, naturally.”

  George’s hand tightened in friendly reassurance. He knew that he had found his man. “Your brother’s head. I believe his name is Frank. His head. We’ll expect you to have it for us when we return in two weeks. Two weeks from tomorrow.”

  He no longer needed to count on Herb.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE starmen had vanished into the night that is deepest just before dawn, when the sky is black and most mysterious. They had ordered the guards away, their lifts had whirled, they rose, and far above the Earth there were ruby tongues of jets and the volcanic roar of power.

  The airport lay desolate.

  . . . In his ship, Herb could not sleep. He kept reviewing the time he had spent alone with Norma. It was difficult to remember clearly. What few things he could remember would, he was afraid, be lost forever in the jungle of confusion that was his mind unless he went over them again and again and planted them firmly and deeply into his being.

  What an alien and lovely name, Norma. Something about her was so quiet and reassuring. He wanted to bury his head against her breasts and whisper, “I wish I could save your planet, but I can’t.” He had wanted to confess to her, but he could not. If she had discovered . . . But now, in the darkness, on the narrow cot, he thought about her and buried his head against her soft breasts, and he smelled the cool darkness of the perfume, and he spoke to her and told her the truth, and she understood his hurt and knew the necessity and forgave him . . .

  * * *

  The trouble began one week after the take off. The Oligarch read well the signals of its arrival, but he did nothing. A scene would be bad for the crew’s morale. He thought it would be a tonic to his own. It would prove the validity of his conclusion: that the indoctrinated starman called Leslie would crack up on the seventh day.

  It happened, as he imagined it would, shortly after Leslie had filled out his dream form.

  It was in the messhall.

  Without warning Leslie kicked over his chair. His face twisted. His hands whitened at the knuckles. There was an insane expression in his eyes. He looked slowly around the table.

  With his first movement there came silence; it was instantaneous; it was as though the clock had stopped in a parlor of corpses. No one moved.

  He screamed a great, searing curse. The word was English.

  The crew waited. No one breathed.

  Leslie began to break things with mounting fury. He shattered his plate by slamming it savagely to the table. He threw his cup against the far wall.

  They waited. Many of them cried inward encouragement to insanity.

  “Lies!” he screamed in English. “Lies! There is no Universe!”

  He fell to his hands and knees and growled and snapped like an animal.

  The Oligarch felt his detachment shatter. Hurriedly he left his table and went to Leslie and killed him.

  Breathing with difficulty, he arose and addressed the crew. “This is what happens to a man who lies on his dream form.” They rustled uneasily. “Go back to your meal.”

  One by one they resumed eating. Slowly conversation grew and expanded from whispers to abnormal loudness and then back to whispers again. The ubiquitous microphones peered up eagerly from the tables, and the hungry record tapes consumed the sounds.

  The food lodged in Herb’s throat. There seemed no moisture anywhere in his body. He fought down an irrational impulse to get to his own feet and scream forever.

  Once again at his private table, the Oligarch was amazed to find that the complete justification of his own logic left him feeling empty and unsatisfied and disappointed. The matter was behind him. In the future could he expect equal success? Insatiable doubt grew.

  He stood up. The compulsion to wash his hands was irresistible. He left the mess hall hurriedly.

  As he watched the cool cleanness of the water flow over his hands, he felt at peace.

  He was a god, playing with men, knowing them as they would never know themselves, seeing into their inmost souls, moving them to his will.

  He was tempted to greater accomplishment. Could he—could he—? Unsure of himself, he was doomed to seek endless reassurance.

  Herb. Now Herb. There was a dangerous man. At least, he would become one, in another three days. It would be like playing with fire to play with Herb. It would be exciting, too.

  He dried his hands. His heart was beating faster.

  Herb would soon begin to doubt.

  William was already doubting. He should have done something about them both before now. About Leslie before now . . .

  I will see that Herb . . . that Herb . . . what?

  His mouth was dry. Excitement swelled and made his breath catch. His throat ached.

  He would help William to doubt. None of them must return to Bronimar.

  It was intensely rewarding to play God, if you could get your hands clean.

  The Oligarch rang the buzzer. He would leave the mike tapes and the dream forms until this afternoon.

  He would interview William now.

  He was washing his hands when William entered.

  AFTER the interview, William came in and sat on Herb’s cot.

  In recent days, their common knowledge had drawn them together; before, they had scarcely spoken. Whenever they talked now, they used English, partly as a recognition of their kindred uniqueness, partly as a futile subconscious attempt to outwit the spy tapes.

  “It’s a ridiculous planet, Herb said.

  “Yes, a ridiculous planet,” William agreed.

  “Freedom,” Herb said. “That is nonsense.”

  “Equality,” William said. “Equality. They are down right silly.”

  “You wouldn’t think a place like that could exist, a silly place like that, where a man can actually say whatever silly idea pops into his mind.”

  “Yes,” William said. “They should be destroyed—even if it wasn’t necessary, they should be destroyed.”

  Herb was silent for a moment. The microphones listened. Then: “Imagine how awful it would be to live down there, with no one to do your thinking for you.”

  “The natural leaders aren’t even recognized. You can’t tell an Oligarch from a Subject.”

  “I’d never like to live in a place like that,” Herb said. I dreamed of it, he wanted to say, and I dreamed that Brionimar had been changed into Earth, and there was no Oligarchy, and a man was free. “It’s like a nightmare,” he said.

  They fell silent.

  William wanted to say: I) only we could take that dream back with us, if only our people could see.

  “Yes,” Herb said suddenly. “God, yes, yes.”

  “Eh?”

  “. . . nothing.”

  “He called me in today,” William said.

  “Oh?”

  “We talked.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Not much . . . I don’t see what he was trying to get at.” William stood up. He looked at the microphone. He felt courage grow in him. “I’ve been . . . thinking . . .”

  Herb nodded. He dared not speak.

  “You know what I mean?”

  Herb nodded.

  “We’ll talk later.”

  AFTER the fourth daily meal, William came once more. He took Herb’s arm and gestured with his head that Herb should follow. Herb arose; his heart stood wildly beating in the cage of his chest; his blood ran with conspiracy and excitement.

  They walked down the corridor until they were in a section f
ree of microphones. It was, although they did not know it, intentionally unwired. It provided the crew a harmless escape valve for their emotions. It was not (as any Oligarch could have told you) necessary to watch a Subject all the time. Most of the spy tapes, as a matter of fact, were never even inspected.

  William was sweating. Herb could not account for the intensity of emotional strain he seemed to be under. Herb imagined they would talk briefly—and plan vaguely—about ways to carry some of the idea and the feel of freedom back to Brionimar. They would bear a message of hope, they would tell that Earth had not been destroyed in vain, that a civilization could function in freedom without chaos. And perhaps, someday, not in their time, but someday . . .

  “It’s not perfect,” Herb said. “We dream of perfection, do you understand, but even Earth is not perfect, I think we ought to remember that. I can feel it, I can tell it. I . . . We want to take that back with us, too.”

  William was scarcely listening. His muscles were tense and crawling with danger. He had to speak, to confide, to know that he was not alone. To have Herb help him. Herb, too, must know.

  “Listen,” he hissed. “You know what I meant when I said I’ve been thinking?”

  “Yes,” Herb said “So have I.”

  William licked his lips. His heart seemed to stop. He took a deep breath.

  “How can we stop him from blowing it up?”

  The Universe wheeled. Herb could not believe what he had heard. A Destructionist!

  “He dropped some hints, he didn’t mean to, but he did,” William said. “I finally realized. You must have known longer than I have. It’s all a lie. He as good as told me so.”

  Herb took half a step backward. His skin crawled with horror.

  William, oblivious to everything but his own words, said, “We’ve got to stop and plan carefully. I will kill him myself, and then you get to the control room . . . We’ll have to hold the crew off. They might not believe us. Not at first. That will be the big trouble . . .”

  Herb continued to back away. All the training of a lifetime surged into his mind. There is scarcely a way to express the detestation a starman, properly conditioned felt toward a Destructionist. His reason was destroyed. He wanted to leap at William and tear at his face with his naked hands.