Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “No, sir,” Capt. Shaeffer said.

  “General Reuter, here, is a dear friend. We’ve known each other, oh, many years. Distantly related through our dear wives, in fact. And we serve on the same Board of Directors and the same Charity Committees . . . A few weeks ago, when he asked me for a man, I called for your file, Merle. I made discreet inquiries. Then I got down on my knees and talked it over with God for, oh, it must have been all of an hour. I asked, ‘Is this the man?’ And I was given a sign. Yes! At that moment, a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds!”

  General Reuter had continued his nervous movements throughout the speech. For the first time, he spoke. “Good God, Tom, serve us a drink.” He turned to Capt. Shaeffer. “A little drink now and then helps a man relax. I’ll just have mine straight, Tom.”

  Old Tom studied Capt. Shaeffer. “I do not feel the gentle Master approves of liquor.”

  “Don’t try to influence him,” General Reuter said. “You’re embarrassing the boy.”

  “I—” Capt. Shaeffer began.

  “Give him the drink. If he doesn’t want to drink it, he won’t have to drink it.”

  Sighing, Old Tom poured two bourbons from the bar in back of his desk and passed them over. Martyrdom sat heavily upon his brow.

  After a quick twist of the wrist and an expert toss of the head, General Reuter returned an empty glass. “Don’t mind if I do have another,” he said. He was already less restless.

  “How’s your ability to pick up languages?” General Reuter asked.

  “I learned Spanish and Russian at TUT PS,” Capt. Shaeffer said apologetically. “I’m supposed to have a real high aptitude in languages, according to some tests I took. In case we should meet intelligent aliens, TUT gives them.”

  “You got no association with crackpot organizations, anything like that?” General Reuter asked. “You’re either a good Liberal-Conservative or Radical-Progressive, aren’t you? I don’t care which. I don’t believe in prying into a man’s politics.”

  “I never belonged to anything,” Capt. Shaeffer said.

  “Oh, I can assure you, that’s been checked out very, very thoroughly,” Old Tom said.

  The General signaled for another drink. With a sigh of exasperation, Old Tom complied.

  “Bob,” Old Tom said, “I really think you’ve had enough. Please, now. Our Master counsels moderation.”

  “Damn it, Tom,” the General said and turned back to the space pilot. “May have a little job for you.”

  Old Tom shook his head at the General, cautioning him.

  “Actually,” the General said, ignoring the executive, “we’ll be sort of renting you from TUT. In a way you’ll still be working for them. I can get a million dollars out of the—”

  “Bob!”

  “—unmarked appropriation if it goes in in TUT’s name. No questions asked. National Defense. I couldn’t get anywhere near that much for an individual for a year. It gives us a pie to slice. We were talking about it before you came in. How does a quarter of a million dollars a year sound to you?”

  “When it comes to such matters,” Old Tom interjected hastily, “I think first of the opportunities they bring to do good.”

  The General continued, “Now you know, Merle. And this is serious. I want you to listen to me. Because this comes under World Security laws, and I’m going to bind you to them. You know what that means? You’ll be held responsible.”

  “Yes, sir,” Merle said, swallowing stiffly. “I understand.”

  “Good. Let’s have a drink on that.”

  “Please be quiet, General,” Old Tom said. “Let me explain. You see, Merle, the Interscience Committee was recently directed to consider methods for creating a climate of opinion on Itra—of which I’m sure you’ve heard—which would be favorable to the proposed Galactic Federation.”

  “Excuse me,” General Reuter said. “They don’t have a democracy, like we do. They don’t have any freedom like we do. I have no doubt the average whateveryoucallem—Itraians, I guess—the average gooks—would be glad to see us come in and just kick the hell out of whoever is in charge of them.”

  “Now, General,” Old Tom said more sharply.

  “But that’s not the whole thing,” the General continued. “Even fit were right thing to do, an’ I’m not saying isn’t—right thing to do—there’s log-lo-lo-gistics. I don’t want to convey the impresh, impression that our Defense Force people have been wasting money. Never had as much as needed, fact. No, it’s like this.

  “We have this broad base to buil’ from. Backbone. But we live in a democracy. Now, Old Tom’s Liberal-Conservative. And me, I’m Radical-Progresshive. But we agree on one thing: importance of strong defense. A lot of people don’ understan’ this. Feel we’re already spendin’ more than we can afford. But I want to ask them, what’s more important than the defense of our planet?”

  “General, I’m afraid this is not entirely germane,” Old Tom said stiffly.

  “Never mind that right now. Point is, it will take us long time to get the serious nature of the menace of Itra across to the voters. Then, maybe fifteen, twenty years . . . Let’s just take one thing. We don’t have anywhere near enough troop transports to carry out the occupation of Itra. You know how long it takes to build them? My point is, we may not have that long. Suppose Itra should get secret of interstellar drive tomorrow, then where would we be?”

  Old Tom slammed his fist on the desk. “General, please! The boy isn’t interested in all that.”

  The General surged angrily to his feet. “By God, that’s what’s wrong with this world today!” he cried. “Nobody’s interested in Defense. Spend only a measly twenty per cent of the Gross World Product on Defense, and expect to keep strong! Good God, Tom, give me a drink!” Apparently heresy had shocked him sober.

  Old Tom explained, “The General is a patriot. We all respect him for it.”

  “I understand,” Capt. Shaeffer said.

  General Reuter hammered his knuckles in rhythm on the table. “The drink, the drink, the drink! You got more in the bottle. I saw it!”

  Old Tom rolled his eyes Heavenward and passed the bottle across. “This is all you get. This is all I’ve got.”

  The General held the bottle up to the light. “Should have brought my own. Let’s hurry up and get this over with.”

  Old Tom smiled the smile of the sorely beset and persecuted and said, “You see, Merle, there’s massive discontent among the population of Itra. We feel we should send a man to the planet to, well, foment change and, uh, hasten the already inevitable overthrow of the despotic government. That man will be strictly on his own. The Government will not be able to back him in any way whatsoever once he lands on Itra.”

  The General had quickly finished the bottle. “You she,” he interrupted, “there’s one thing they can’t fight, an’ that’s an idea. Jus’ one man goes to Itra with the idea of Freedom, that’s all it’ll take. How many men did it take to start the ‘Merican Revolution? Jefferson. The Russian Revolution? Marx!”

  “Yes,” Old Tom said. “One dedicated man on Itra, preaching the ideas of Liberty—liberty with responsibility and property rights under one God. That man can change a world.” Exhausted by the purity of his emotions, Old Tom sat back gasping to await the answer.

  “A quarter of a million dollars a year?” Capt. Shaeffer asked at length.

  II

  The Itraians spoke a common language. It was somewhat guttural and highly inflected. Fortunately, the spelling appeared to be phonetic, with only forty-three characters being required. As near as anyone could tell, centuries of worldwide communication had eliminated regional peculiarities. The speech from one part of Itra was not distinguishable from that of another part.

  Most of the language was recovered from spy tapes of television programs. A dictionary was compiled laborously by a special scientific task force of the Over-Council. The overall program was directed and administered by Intercontinental Iron, Steel, Gas, E
lectricity, Automobiles and Synthetics, Incorporated.

  It took Shaeffer just short of three years to speak Itraian sufficiently well to convince non-Itraians that he spoke without accent.

  The remainder of his training program was administered by a variety of other large industrial concerns. The training was conducted at a Defense Facility.

  At the end of his training, Shaeffer was taken by special bus to the New Mexican space port. A ship waited.

  The car moved smoothly from the Defense Force Base, down the broad sixteen-lane highway, through the surrounding slum area and into Grants.

  Sight of the slums gave Shaeffer mixed emotions.

  It was not a feeling of superiority to the inhabitants; those he had always regarded with a circumspect indifference. The slums were there. He supposed they always would be there. But now, for the first time in his life, he could truly say that he had escaped their omnipresent threat once and for all. He felt relief and guilt.

  During the last three years, he had earned $750,000.

  As a civilian stationed on a Defense Force Base, he had, of course, to pay for his clothing, his food and his lodging. But the charge was nominal. Since he had been given only infrequent and closely supervised leaves, he had been able to spend, altogether, only $12,000.

  Which meant that now, after taxes, he had accumulated in his savings account a total of nearly $600,000 awaiting his return from Itra.

  Shaeffer’s ship stood off Itra while he prepared to disembark.

  In his cramped quarters, he dressed himself in Itraian-style clothing. Capt. Merle S. Shaeffer became Shamar the Worker.

  In addition to his jump equipment, an oxygen cylinder, a face mask and a shovel, he carried with him eighty pounds of counterfeit Itraian currency . . . all told, forty thousand individual bills of various denominations. Earth felt this would be all he needed to survive in a technologically advanced civilization.

  His plan was as follows:

  1. He was to land in a sparsely inhabited area on the larger masses.

  2. He was to procure transportation to Xxla, a major city, equivalent to London or Tokyo. It was the headquarters for the Party.

  3. He was to establish residence in the slum area surrounding the University of Xxla.

  4. Working through student contacts, he was to ingratiate himself with such rebel intellectuals as could be found.

  5. Once his contacts were secure, he was to assist in the preparation of propaganda and establish a clandestine press for its production.

  6. As quickly as the operation was self-sufficient, he was to move on to another major city . . . and begin all over.

  The ship descended into the atmosphere. The bell rang. Shamar the Worker seated himself, put on his oxygen mask and signaled his readiness. He breathed oxygen. The ship quivered, the door fell away beneath him and he was battered unconscious by the slipstream.

  Five minutes later, pinwheeling lazily in free fall, he opened his eyes. For an instant’s panic he could not read the altimeter. Then seeing that he was safe, he noted his physical sensations. He was extremely cold. Gyrating wildly, he beat his chest to restore circulation.

  He stabilized his fall by stretching out his hands. He floated with no sensation of movement. Itra was overhead, falling up at him slowly. He turned his back to the planet and checked the time. Twelve minutes yet to go.

  He spent, in all, seventeen minutes in free fall. At 2000 feet, he opened his parachute. The sound was like an explosion.

  He floated quietly, recovering from the shock. He removed his oxygen mask and tasted the alien air. He sniffed several times. It was not unpleasant.

  Below was darkness. Then suddenly the ground came floating up and hit him.

  The terrain was irregular. He fought the chute to collapse it, tripped, and twisted his ankle painfully.

  The chute lay quiet and he sat on the ground and cursed in English.

  At length he bundled up the chute and removed all of the packages of money but the one disguised as a field pack. He used the shovel to dig a shallow grave at the base of a tree. He interred the chute, the oxygen cylinder, the mask, the shovel and scooped dirt over them with his hands.

  He sat down and unlaced his shoe and found his ankle badly swollen. Distant, unfamiliar odors filled him with apprehension and he started at the slightest sound.

  Dawn was breaking.

  III

  Noting his bearings carefully, he hobbled painfully westward, with thirty pounds of money on his back. He would intersect the major North-South Intercontinental highway by at least noon.

  Two hours later, he came to a small plastic cabin in a clearing at the edge of a forest.

  Wincing now with each step, he made his way to the door. He knocked.

  There was a long wait.

  The door opened. A girl stood before him in a dressing gown. She frowned and asked, “Itsil obwatly jer gekompilp?”

  Hearing Itraian spoken by a native in the flesh had a powerful emotional impact on Shamar the Worker.

  Stumblingly, he introduced himself and explained that he was camping out. During the previous night he had become lost and injured his ankle. If she could spare him food and directions, he would gladly pay.

  With a smile of superiority, she stepped aside and said in Itraian, “Come in, Chom the Worker.”

  He felt panic, but he choked it back and followed her. Apparently he had horribly mispronounced his own name. It was as though, in English he had said Barchestershire for Barset. He cursed whatever Professor had picked that name for whatever obscure reason.

  “Sit down,” she invited. “I’m about to have breakfast. Eggs and bacon—” the Itraian equivalent—“if that’s all right with you. I’m Garfling Germadpoldlt by the way, although you can call me Ge-Ge.”

  The food was quite unpleasant, as though overly ripe. He was able to choke down the eggs with the greatest difficulty. Fortunately, the hot drink that was the equivalent of Earth coffee at the end of the meal, was sufficiently spicy to quiet his stomach.

  “Good coffee,” he said.

  “Thank you. Care for a cigarette?”

  “I sure would.”

  He had no matches, so she lit it for him, hovering above him a moment, leaving with him the fresh odor of her hair.

  The taste of the cigarette was mild. Rather surprisingly, it substituted for nicotine and allayed the sharp longing that had come with the coffee.

  “Let’s look at your ankle,” she said. She knelt at his feet and began to unlace the right shoe. “My, it’s swollen,” she said sympathetically.

  He winced as she touched it and then he reddened with embarrassment. He had been walking across dusty country. He drew back the foot and bent to restrain her.

  Playfully she slapped his hand away. “You sit back! I’ll get it. I’ve seen dirty feet before.”

  She pulled off the shoe and peeled off the sock. “Oh, God, it is swollen,” she said. “You think it’s broken, Shamar?”

  “Just sprained.”

  “I’ll get some hot water with some MedAid in it, and that’ll take the swelling out.”

  When he had his foot in the water, she sat across from him and arranged her dressing gown with a coquettish gesture. She caught him staring at the earring, and one hand went to it caressingly. She smiled that universal feminine smile of security and recklessness, of invitation and rejection.

  “You’re engaged,” he noted.

  She opened her eyes wide and studied him above a thumbnail which she tasted with her teeth. “I’m engaged to Von Stutsman—” as the name might be translated—“perhaps you’ve heard of him? He’s important in the Party. You know him?”

  “No.”

  “You in the Party?” she said. She was teasing him now. Then, suddenly: “Neither am I, but I guess I’ll have to join if I become Mrs. Von Stutsman.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  Then she spoke, and he was frozen in terror, all thoughts but of self-preservation washed from
his mind.

  “Your accent is unbelieveably bad,” she said.

  “I’m from Zuleb,” he said lamely, at last.

  “Meta—Gelwhops—or even Karkeqwol, that makes no difference. Nobody on Itra speaks like you do. So you must be from that planet that had the Party in a flap several years ago—Earth, isn’t it?”

  He said nothing.

  “Do you know what they’ll do when they catch you?” she asked.

  “No,” he said hollowly.

  “They’ll behead you.”

  She laughed, not unkindly. “If you could see yourself! How ridiculous you look, Shamar. I wonder what your real name is, by the way? Sitting with a foot in the water and looking wildly about. Here, let me fix more coffee and we can talk.”

  She called cheerily over her shoulder, “You’re safe here. No one will be by. I’m not due back until Tuesday.”

  She brought him a steaming mug. “Drink this while I dress.” She disappeared into the bedroom. He heard the shower running.

  He sat waiting, numb and desperate, and drank the coffee because it was there. His thoughts scampered in the cage of his skull like mice on a treadmill.

  When Ge-Ge came back, he had still not resolved the conflict within him. She stood barefoot upon the rug and looked down at him, hunched miserably over the pan of water, now lukewarm.

  “How’s the foot?”

  “All right.”

  “Want to take it out?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll get a towel.”

  She waited until he had dried the foot and restored the sock and shoe. The swelling was gone. He stood up and put his weight on it. He smiled wanly. “It’s okay now. It’s not broken, I guess.”

  She gestured him to the sofa. He complied.

  “What’s in the field pack?” she asked. “Money? How much?” She moved toward it. He half rose to stop her, but by then she had it partly open. “My,” she said, bringing out a thick sheaf of bills. She rippled them sensuously. “Pretty. Very, very pretty.” She examined them for texture and appearance. “They look good, Shamar. I’ll bet it would cost ten million dollars in research on paper and ink and presses to do this kind of a job. Only another government has got that kind of money to throw around.” She tossed the currency carelessly beside him and came to sit at his side.