Floyd paled, then galvanized into action. “We move at once,” he exclaimed, and hurtled for his loud-speaker system.
But as his hand reached for the switch, a voice broke into the room. The intonationless, lisping voice of Palooka.
“It is no use, friend Floyd,” it said. “All your sacrifice, or the sacrifice of millions of your comrades, will not help. The power I tap for my defensive, screens is unlimited. It comes from the magnetic beams that surge through space. And I am ready even now to take off for Baridu. But if you and Dr. Schley will come alone into this laboratory, I have something to say to you.”
The voice ceased. The two men stared at each other in dismay. Then, without a word, they went out through the door, through the silent guard lines, walking with death in their hearts toward the impalpable shimmer of light.
Millions of curious eyes followed their steady progress, wondering, waiting. The light darkened as they came to it; lit up again as they penetrated.
They found Palooka serious and pale-faced within the circle of his quanta disrupters.
“I am glad you came,” he said. “I wish to say goodby. I am returning to my native Baridu; once more I shall see those of whom I am a part.” A momentary grin illumined his features; died. “You were my friends, even though you tried your best to kill me.”
“We loved you, Palooka,” Floyd declared vehemently. “But even now, if we could, we would do our best to kill you.” Something choked him, hurried his words. “For the first time in human history, man has achieved freedom and a sense of unity—when it is too late. Goodby! And take this message to your people. They will find a barren planet when they come to colonize. We shall destroy and lay waste every fertile field, obliterate our forests, blow up our mines and factories. We shall perish in a single universal holocaust rather than live on as slaves to an alien folk.”
The Jovian smiled gently. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Our people of Baridu will never leave their present home to seek your alien planet.”
“What!” The simultaneous exclamation burst from both the Earthmen’s lips.
“I am reporting to my people,” said Palooka with a grimace, “that Earth is not inhabitable by the men of Baridu. As they knew beforehand. Your atmosphere, for one thing, is too thin; the hideous, raw sunlight that beats with blinding fierceness upon your planet is insupportable to eyes accustomed, as ours, to soft pastel shades and modulated tones. Your gravitational pull is so weak that my muscles ache all over from lack of effort. I hate the interminable and particularly poisonous green that pervades every nook and cranny of your world. I shall be happy once more to feast my eyes on lovely browns and reds. Obviously, your world is pleasant to you because you were designed to live in it. Equally obviously, someone designed for a different kind of world would find it hideous. I assure you, it is.”
“But—but—” Floyd stammered, “you said all along how glorious you found life on Earth as compared to Baridu.”
Palooka grinned. “Sheer buncombe!” he avowed. “Every moment has been a torture to me. I couldn’t wait for this day. Green and blue—green and blue! It’s a wonder my eyes still function. Would you like to live on a world all crimson and violet?”
“Then why,” demanded Dr. Schley, “didn’t you go back at once instead of scaring the living daylights out of Earth?”
The Jovian’s lidless eyes probed deep into their own. “I found,” he murmured, “a people disunited, cooped up into artificial divisions, hating each other, killing. I am leaving a race united, strong in new-found understanding and mutual trust. A little session of unhappiness to a single being of Baridu did not matter.”
He smiled. His hand moved downward. There was a flash of blinding light. The two men blinked, stared at the vacant platform.
Palooka was gone, and the complex machinery he had erected was crumbling before their eyes to a silting powder, incapable of examination or reconstruction.
Floyd said in awed tones, “He deliberately chose this method as the best means of uniting the peoples of Earth into a proud, free race. He purposely delayed until he saw that his work was accomplished. He was a great man; greater than any our race has even possessed."
Dr. Sampson T, Schley found it necessary to take off his glasses. They were misty. “Delayed!” said he, indignantly. “He came for that.”
“Good old Palooka!” said Floyd fervently.
The End
*****************************
Worlds Don't Care,
by Nat Schachner
Astounding April 1939
Novelette - 11924 words
Base No. 1 was a hive of activity. The great spaceship rested in its cradle, its nose pointed upward to the stars. The flood lamps sprayed the ground with their blue-white glare. Within the cleared space a stumbling stream of Martian men, women and children were passing into the interior of the ship. A common apathy of despair pinched their faces into suffering masks. They seemed like cattle herded to the slaughter.
Sam White tried to blink the pity out of his eyes and remember that he was a reporter with a job to do. He lifted his pad and began to scribble. But somehow the words his shaking fingers formed didn’t make sense. They were blurred at the edges, wavering, incoherent; just as those poor people were to his smarting eyes.
He shut the pad with a snap, thrust it angrily into his pocket. “Damn it, doc!” he said with an unsteady gesture to the man who stood next to him, the caduceus of the medical service glowing on his visor. “I can’t stand this! I feel like a heel watching those poor scared folks being torn from everything they’ve known and loved all their lives, and thrown out into space like a pack of infected rats.”
Dr. Aylesworth looked unhappy. “Don’t think I feel any better about it than you do, White,” he grimaced. “But there’s no other choice. Either they go, or we all stand a chance of being wiped out. Look what’s happened to Mars.”
Sam scowled. “Yeah, I know!” He didn’t have to tell Aylesworth what everyone knew—that he, Sam White, roving reporter for Universal, had been the only Earthman to come out alive from that unhappy planet with news of the strange plague that had made it into a shambles.
The horror of what he had seen still clung to him—that horror which he had been able to communicate only too effectively to the other peoples of the System. Even now, as he thought of it, he couldn’t repress a shudder.
Ever since he had first taken to the spaceways he had loved that queer, gentle, dying race. There were not many of them, compared to Earth standards. A bare million, all told. They huddled in the long valleys where the scarce air still lingered and the brown-red vegetation with its leathery covering furnished them with food, drink and the tough, heat-inclosing textiles that made life possible.
The Martians were a tall, albino race of almost ethereal beauty—far different from the ancient concepts and imaginative writings before space travel made contact possible. The weak sunlight made pigmentation unnecessary; the slight gravitational pull gave them slender, wavering bodies of the type immortalized in the early paintings of El Greco and Arthur B. Davies, and the slighter atmosphere puffed out their chests so that expanded lungs might drink in greedily the precious oxygen.
Sam would never forget that first day in Tari-Gor, the inclosed city erected especially for the benefit of Earthmen with their weaker lungs, when the plague had struck without warning. He had seen the bright-red spots come swiftly to the fair, almost snow-white pallor of the Martian face. He had seen them stagger and run screaming through the streets, their long hands clawing at their throats. He had seen the swift putrescence of their flesh, the lightning suddenness with which they had dropped in their tracks.
They had died by the hundreds before even the first doctor could go to the rescue. But the Martian doctors themselves caught the infection, and dropped beside their patients. A handful of Earthmen, there on tours or on business, and medically trained, had taken over.
For several Martian days they worked h
eroically, seemingly immune to the mysterious ailment that threatened to wipe out the more delicately organized natives. They found no cure, but they managed to discover the cause. It was incredible!
Life molecules, elemental ultravirus forms, had drifted like a huge meteoric swarm into the Solar System from God knew what focal point of origin in the depths of the universe. Immune to light, heat, or the blasting effects of ray bornbardments, they pervaded every nook and cranny of interplanetary space, of the worlds that composed the System. They attacked the nucleoplasm of the cells, dissociated it into gaseous, toxic compounds which swelled swiftly and burst open the cell walls. Death followed literally from numberless interior explosions.
But only the Martian nuclei, with their unpigmented basic genes, seemed affected. Neither Earthmen, nor swart Venusians, nor the green folk of Callisto, succumbed to the invading virus.
That, at least, had been the first report of the heroic Earth doctors on Mars. The Martians died by the hundreds of thousands, but the rest of the System was immune.
A few days after the first onslaught, however, something happened. Sam White, the only nonmedical alien to remain on Mars, saw it happen. One after another, the hitherto-immune men from Earth caught the contagion, sickened, and died. The last young martyr in Tari-Gor gasped out the last frightened disclosure of his tests before he, too, turned over, shuddered convulsively, and was still.
Earth’s immunity to the ultrauniverse virus extended only to its original form. But after it attacked and destroyed the Martian nuclei, the molecular structure of the virus was itself slightly modified in the process. In its new form, it proved equally virulent to Earthmen.
“In other words,” whispered the dying doctor, “the Martian acts as a host. Should one of them come in contact with the people of our world, he could spread the plague so as to depopulate the entire planet. There is no cure.” He tried to lift himself. “Tell them . . . tell them—” Then he died.
But Sam White knew what he had wanted to say. He had fled from the silent shambles of Tari-Gor in his one-man speedster, had catapulted back to Earth to spread the warning. And this was the result.
Yet now, as he watched these poor people stumble into exile, he was almost sorry for what he had done. For most of these Martians had lived all their lives on Earth. Some of them were the descendants of those who had emigrated to the more abundant planet generations before. This was their home, their world. They knew no other.
But the dying doctor had said that the presence of even a single Martian was sufficient to cause original infection, and by the modification of the disease molecule, produce secondary infection among the otherwise immune peoples of Earth.
Therefore, by the inexorable decree of the Council, every Martian residing on Earth was to he quarantined immediately and shipped. by closely guarded rocket cruiser away from Earth. At first the decree had read to Mars. But this cold cruelty was too much even for the fear-maddened multitude. Accordingly, the decree was modified to include any satellite in the System that would receive the hapless exiles.
“But damn it,” Sam White had exploded, “nobody will touch them with a hundred-meter wave!”
Warna Metsu, Head of the Council, shrugged. “We’re leaving that part of the business to the discretion of Captain Garth,” he said with a gesture of dismissal. “He is an experienced space officer. He will know what to do.”
And now Johnny Garth, in the gaudy sky-blue that marked his rank, was standing a little to one side of the entrance port, watching the hunted cattle being driven into his care. He was an imposing figure of a man. Big and burly of body, his arrogant face tanned a dark red by the ultraviolet radiations of space, his eyes implacable and cold.
“Yeah, he’ll know what to do, all right,” Sam thought bitterly to himself. “He’ll scuttle them in space with as little compunction as any pirate of the Spanish Main in the old days. A bruiser, tough as hell, and without a soul. A swell guy for a job like this!”
Obviously, Sam White did not like Captain Johnny Garth of the Interplanetary Line.
Dr. Aylesworth had moved away. Garth had called him for a final check of the medical records. The herded unfortunates were still streaming into the hold. They presented their identification tags at arms’ length as they went in. The guards at the entrance checked them against lists in their hands, but stood as far away as possible from the doomed people. Everyone was jittery. In spite of previous inspection, it was impossible to say when the dread red spots might break out suddenly on one of them. The swarm of plague virus was moving toward Earth—but its limits were vague.
Sam sighed, fished for his reportorial pad. He had a job to do, and he might as well get it over with. Millions of listeners would await his newscast of this scene. He scowled horribly. Damn ’em! They’d expect him to lay it on thick—sob stuff, personal touches, interviews with the unfortunates on how it felt to be kicked out of the System. He’d be damned if he’d pander to the multitude’s flair for vicarious thrills. He’d—
A Martian was standing dejectedly at the end of the long queue that waited its turn for entrance into the exile ship. The reporter’s eyes lifted as he scribbled, flitted over the crowd, fastened on the man. He stopped writing. There was something in that young Martian’s expression that didn’t quite fit.
He was not much more than a lad, pale and delicate as all of his race, though his chest was more nearly according to Earth standards. But there was an intensity in his eyes, a violence of despair, that shocked Sam. He seemed to have made up his mind to some desperate resolve.
A speed car came roaring over the field toward them. A minor official, no doubt, with last-minute instructions for Captain Garth. It started to slow as it came within the reserve space that surrounded the cradle.
Then it happened!
The Martian flung himself forward suddenly, directly into the path of the still-speeding car. The streamlined nose hit him with a sickening crash. His body turned crazily, fell underneath. The oversized wheels passed over him.
Something snapped in Sam as he raced forward. The great landing field swirled with commotion. The juggernauting car had braked to a halt not twenty feet beyond; a shocked-looking. official sprang out. People were running.
But Sam reached the body of the suicide first. He was dead, his head crushed by the thundering wheels beyond all recognition. The reporter bent over quickly. Poor kid! He would never have to face exile now. His peaked cap had been thrown clear; so had the aluminum identification tag he had clutched tightly in his hand before the end.
Obeying a sudden instinct, Sam picked them both up from the soft earth and stuffed them into his pocket. Then a swarm of horrified spectators descended upon the scene. The minor official was crying to all who would listen:—“I couldn’t help it. He deliberately threw himself in my way. You all saw it, didn’t you?”
Sam saw Dr. Aylesworth rush over, accompanied by Captain Garth. An ambulance plane lit lightly on the field. The place was black with people.
Sam moved away. He felt a little sick. In a way he had been responsible for the unknown Martian’s death.
If he hadn’t brought that story back from Mars—
Yet he had been right in doing it; and the Council had been right in exiling these people. If one of these poor devils should catch the plague, the billions of Earth people might be wiped out in turn. Yet the Council needn’t have been quite so hysterically brutal in its methods. Two days before, Sam had brought the warning; today the unsuspecting Martians were being bundled off into space, without adequate preparations, without knowledge even of where they were going. The official orders were vague. The final destination was left to the discretion of Captain Garth. Sam laughed bitterly. Everyone knew Garth’s reputation; even that wretched Martian who had sought the quick way out. Once that hard-bitten space dog had cleared Earth—
Swiftly, Sam acted. He flung his dark slouch hat with its newscaster’s trumpet to the ground; jammed the peaked cap he had salvaged on his head.
It was a trifle large and the peak cast a shadow over his face. He yanked the identification tag out of his pocket, thrust himself into the apathetic line close to the front. Even the death of one of their own had not shaken the lethargy with which the average Martian met misfortune.
Sam knew now what he wanted to do. He’d get on board the Ellie May. The confusion attending the suicide would help him. Though the Council had strictly forbidden newscasters on the trip, he felt confident of his ability to get away with it. He knew the radio operator. Once the ship had started, he’d get human-interest stories from the outcasts, radio them back to Earth. Daily messages. Propaganda. The people of Earth, the Council itself, would cool off. Hysteria would give way to normal kindliness. More definite measures would be considered for the resettlement of the exiled Martians until the plague danger had passed. Sam himself had certain suggestions to make. He had brought trouble upon this gentle folk; he’d help them now.
Sam moved with the line abreast of the guard. The peak rested almost on the bridge of his nose. He held out his tag, straight-armed. The guard took it gingerly, compared it with his list.
“Inside, Atshir Jones,” he growled. “Next!”
The Ellie May was an old tub of a cargo boat, built for capacity rather than for speed or luxury. Its last trip had been a charter to carry actinium ore, blasted from an obscure asteroid, back to Earth; now its mission was to dump two hundred-odd unwanted Martians somewhere in space.
Its crew were tough old space rats, assembled from the dives of half a dozen planets, blacklisted by every other company whose ships traversed the space-ways. But they suited their captain. Sam remembered Johnny Garth as the commander of a spruce luxury liner to Mars. A competent navigator, without the shadow of a doubt, fanatically devoted to his profession; but a slave driver and a man without a soul.
When The Future Dies Page 23