The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 203
"That's mighty white of her," said Searle sarcastically. "Especially since she's no guarantee that sooner or later I might not devise a way of boosting off by myself."
"You could never do that."
"I know it, and so do you. But she doesn't. These folk want to let their world travel incognito by shutting the traps of everyone who finds it. They've a neat play. No bombs, no bullets, no bloodshed. All they need do is offer a guy his heart's desire—and shut him up by pressure of a woman's lips."
"Ah!" sighed Wingrove. "What a beautiful fate."
"IT'S NOT funny," snapped Searle, openly irritated. "It's serious. It's effective sabotage of Earth's plans. You know what is happening and why it is happening. You know you are being grossly deceived—and yet this Melusine still appeals to you?"
"And how!"
"Knowing all the time that she is not exactly as you see her? That what you do see is reflected cunningly from the depths of your own mind?"
"It makes no difference. I can only go by how she looks. There's no other basis for judgment. She looks to me like the epitome of all I've ever wanted, even in her most insignificant habits, her smallest gestures and mannerisms. She couldn't suit me better if specially made to my specification."
"You dumb monkey!" said Searle. "She is specially made to your specification."
"I know." Unexpectedly, Wingrove hit back. "Could you want anything better than what you want the most?"
"Leave me out of this," Searle countered. "You're the lovesick gump, not me." He resumed his pacing. "By hokey, they are even stronger than I'd thought, cleverer, more cunning, more expert."
"You don't know the half of it," Wingrove assured. "You should try a taste for yourself. Melusine has a friend named Nivetta whom she could bring along to meet you and—"
"So that's why she's been slow and gentle," rasped Searle. "That's why she's let you stick around a bit. She wants both birds! Not just you, but you and me! She'll be content when there's nothing here but an empty ship, rotting like a skeleton under the sun."
"Oh, I don't know, Cap. We're planted for twelve months anyway. After a while, persuasion might work the other way and we can take them—"
"You'll never get them back to Earth," declared Searle, positively. "Nor see it yourself, either. Not ever again." He went closer, speaking earnestly. "Look, Reed, we've found a bonanza loaded with uranium. Discovering such items is our job for which we are equipped and paid. Reporting such a discovery to Earth is our bounden duty. If we fail, if we lose ourselves and never turn up, it may be anything from fifty to live hundred years before another Earth ship rediscovers the place. You realize all that?"
"You bet I do."
"Then you will also realize that since these half-pints can fahn our speech-patterns—whatever that may mean—and discern our mind-pictures, they can also detect our purposes, our motives. If they don't approve of them, as well they may not, their best move is to destroy us or, at least, prevent our return. A ship is of no use without its crew. They have only to take away the crew—and the ship becomes a lump of junk corroding somewhere in the cosmos. It rots away and Earth's schemes go with it."
"Better for the ship to rot rather than its crew," contributed a voice.
Searle whirled around on one heel.
It was Maguire, red-capped, green-clothed and slightly over four feet high.
THERE WERE A dozen shorties with Maguire, some male, some female. Searle recognized Rifkin standing at one side of the group, also Mab clinging possessively to Maguire's arm. The entire bunch now came almost up to Maguire's shoulders instead of a little above his waist as formerly.
Two liquid-eyed creatures on the left went toward Wingrove, moving with the sprightly grace of ballet dancers. One put her tiny hand in his huge paw.
"Melusine," said Wingrove, looking at Searle.
Searle took no notice. Edging closer to the ship's airlock, he spoke to Maguire. "You've shrunk. You're still shrinking. You're going down into your boots."
"I know it," said Maguire. "This world does things to you if you aren't shielded by metal most of the time." He shrugged his indifference. "Do I care? I do not! I'm being reduced to proper size instead of staying big and ugly. So is Jacques. So is Reed. So are you as long as you hang around outside the ship."
Putting a careful foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, Searle readied himself for a quick move.
"I'm having fun while I'm young enough to enjoy it," Maguire went on. "It's doing me good and it's doing nobody else any harm, so I'm going to keep on having it. Just for a start I've become engaged to Mab."
"Congratulations," said Searle, sardonically. His mind busied itself with the question of whether he could take Maguire in one swift snatch, toss him headlong through the lock and into the ship. Also whether he could trust Wingrove to follow of his own accord. Three would be enough to get the boat home. The missing Drouillard could be dug up by some later vessel and frogmarched out of the mess. His big hand tightened on an upper rung.
"He schemes to grab you!" warned Rifkin.
Maguire grinned and asked Searle, "What's the use of plotting when they can fahn you all the time?"
Relaxing his grip, Searle growled, "What have you come for?" He kept his attention on Maguire, avoided looking at the others.
"Jacques has got engaged too. So we're having a celebration. Having celebrations is a frequent amusement here. We want you along."
"Why?"
"Why not? No sense in you squatting in the ship holding communion with yourself while everyone else is swimming in joy. What good will that do you? Come on, Cap, we want you along, so how about—?"
"I want you two along," Searle interjected. "And you'd better come fast. I can still be persuaded not to make entries in the log that'll cause both of you to be shot out of the service—but my patience is running dry."
"Now there's a real threat," Maguire scoffed. "I can be drummed out of the ranks. The mere thought of it grieves me. It will grieve Jacques as much—or as little. He's planning to marry Peg and run a little joint called Cookery Nook. We're going to eat fresh food instead of powdered proteins and vitamin pills. We're going to drink mead instead of distilled water. We're going to sing songs and forget all about scout vessel 87D." His eyes slid sidewise at Wingrove. "So will Reed before long, if he knows what's good for him." The eyes returned to Searle. "Give up the fight, Cap, and be a willing loser."
"You can go to blue blazes!" declared Searle.
A dozen pair of sharp, shiny little eyes went over him before they took him at his word and went away. Sitting on the bottom rung of the ladder, elbows on knees, his head between his hands, he stared fixedly at the grass between his feet and the fading bluebonnet to one side.
Maguire went, and Mab, and Rifkin and the rest. He knew that Wingrove also had gone, with Melusine and her companion. He was alone, terribly alone. With the useless bulk of 87D behind him, he sat there brooding, unmoving, a long, long time.
HE SPENT the next twenty-two days in his own company with his dessicated foods, his distilled water and utter silence. He spent most of this time entering the ship's log, mooching around a small radius, meditating bitterly, and playing with a friendly bronze beetle that could neither hear nor speak.
By the twenty-second day he was fed up. He sat in precisely the same position as they had left him many days before, on the bottom rung of the ladder, elbows on knees, head between hands. Even the beetle had gone on some mysterious errand of its own.
A slight rustling in the grass. His eyes raised a fraction, saw pointed green shoes with silver buttons. They were tiny and dainty.
"Beat it!" His voice was hoarse.
"Look at me."
"Go away!"
"Look at me." Her tones did not have the bell-like tinkling quality of the other's voices. She spoke softly and tenderly, in a way he had heard before.
"Go away, I tell you."
"You are not afraid of me ... Walter?"
He shivered as memories flooded upon him. Unwillingly, reluctantly, his eyes came up. His vision became fixed on her tiny figure, her tiny, bright-eyed face, and saw neither as they really were. He saw a honey-blonde, brown-eyed, with full, generous lips. He arose slowly, his gaze still locked upon hers. Perspiration was shining on his forehead. His hands were bunched as he held them close at his sides.
"Betty died in a Moon-ship crash. I knew you would look like her ... exactly like her ... you witch!" He swallowed hard, trying to let his brain retain command over his eyes. It was not easy. "But I know you are not Betty. You cannot be."
"Of course you know." She moved nearer, slim-thighed, slim-hipped, even her walk characteristic of the walk he once had known. "I am, Nivetta—today. But tomorrow my name can be another." Her hand went up to tuck a dark gold curl; behind her ear, an old familiar gesture that did things to him "If I am the picture you retain, the memory you treasure, am I not indeed both the memory and the picture? For always? Am I not ... Betty?"
HE PUT his hand over his eyes to shut out the sight of her. But then her scent reached him, the scent he knew. His words came out in a flood.
"I did not tell Wingrove. I hoped he would discover it for himself and thus confirm my own ideas. I wandered around a little while he was going on his own walks, and one day I found a dolmen, a great stone fairy-table. The four hearts engraved upon it still showed a stalk from their center. I could see at a glance that it was a four-leafed clover."
Her odor was strong now, and close to him. He was talking like a man fighting for time.
"Then I remembered that Mab and Peg are favored names among your kind, and that Morgaine was better known as Morgan le Fay. I remembered it is legendary among us that in the far-off, almost forgotten times your people went away because they were resented, not wanted. They went away, taking with them the seeds of their herbs, fruits and flowers, their incomprehensible arts, their misunderstood sciences which many still call magic. They went in some strange manner of their own, looking for another friendlier world resembling the one they knew of old, seeking the rainbow's end."
She did not speak as he finished, but there was a butterfly touch upon his hairy hand. Her forefinger linked with his thumb. It was an entirely personal gesture which only he and she had known. It was, it must be—Betty!
A rush of nostalgic feeling overcame him. He gave himself up to it because surrender was easier than resistance and more satisfying. His loneliness finished, his solitude ended, he looked straight into her eyes and saw only the eyes so well remembered.
Together they walked through the fields and the flowers, away from the ship, away from that far distant world of forgotten things.
* * *
ABOUT the self-confidence and bumptiousness of the four-man crew of scout vessel 114K there could be no doubt at all. Tumbling hurriedly out of the lock, they sniffed the fresh air, patted the good earth, celebrated their successful landing with raucous shouts and some horseplay.
Two of them found a crumbling pile of metal, vaguely cylindrical in outline, a few hundred yards to the north. They investigated it with no more than perfunctory interest, kicked some of its shapeless, powdery pieces, went leap-frogging back to their ship.
"Man, are we lucky!" exulted Gustav Berners, a big Swede, speaking to Captain James Hayward. He chuckled deep down in his chest as he watched the other two members of the crew indulging in an impromptu wrestling match. "When that space storm tossed us umpteen months beyond the limits of exploration, I thought we were goners. Who'd have guessed we'd fall right into the lap of a world like this? Just like home. I feel at home already."
"Home," echoed Hayward. "The sweetest word in any space-jerk's life."
"Enough uranium to last a million years," Berners went on. "Coming over that hill the counters jiggled like we were already worth a million credits apiece. And it's to be had for the taking. No bull-headed aborigines to fight for it."
Hayward said, "Don't go by first appearances."
"Here's a first appearance," announced one of the wrestling pair, ceasing to maul his buddy.
Excitedly they clustered around the gnome-like figure which had come upon the scene, taking in his human shape, tiny stature, crimson cap, green clothes and silver trimmings.
"They're small," commented Hayward. "Semi-civilized pygmies. I guessed as much from that toy-town we glimpsed just before we made our bump." Offering the gnome a cordial smile, he pointed to himself and said, "James Hayward."
GIVING him a quick, darting glance, the other made no reply. They filled in the silence by introducing themselves one by one. Motionless except for his bright, agile optics, the other leaned upon his gnarly stick, eyeing them sharply and. ruminating.
After a while, he said, "Waltskin," in a thin, reedy voice.
"Hah!" said one of the crew. "Let's call him Walter." With humor unconsciously prophetic, he sang, "Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar."
"He can talk, at any rate," observed Hayward. "Now we won't have to play snake-arms trying to make him understand. We can learn his language or teach him ours."
"Neither will be necessary," assured the newcomer, with perfect diction.
They were mutually dumbfounded.
After they had got over it, Berners whispered to Hayward, "This is going to make things dead easy. It will be like taking candy from a kitten."
"You're getting mixed," said Hayward. "You mean like taking bad fish from a child." He grinned and turned his attention to the dwarf. "How come you know our language?"
"I do not know it. I can fahn it. How can people communicate if they cannot fahn each other's speech-patterns?"
That was too tough for Hayward. He shrugged it off, saying, "I don't get it. I've been around plenty, but this is a new one on me." He looked hopefully toward the distant town, pondering the chances of a little relaxation. "Well, we'll have a tale to tell when we get back."
"When you get where?" asked Waltskin. The sun glowed on the peculiar four-heart sign ornamenting his silver buttons.
"When we get back," Hayward repeated.
"Oh, yes," said the other, with subtle change of emphasis. "When you get back."
He used his gnarly stick to decapitate something resembling a daisy and waited for the next conversational move leading toward the inevitable end. And in due time his eyes glittered as he conducted the first victim away.
The End
... And Then There Were None
Astounding – June 1951
THE BATTLESHIP was eight hundred feet in diameter and slightly more than one mile long. Mass like that takes up room and makes a dent. This one sprawled right across one field and halfway through the next. Its weight made a rut twenty feet deep which would be there for keeps.
On board were two thousand people divisible into three distinct types. The tall, lean, crinkly-eyed ones were the crew. The crop-haired, heavy-jowled ones were the troops. Finally, the expressionless, balding and myopic ones were the cargo of bureaucrats.
The first of these types viewed this world with the professional but aloof interest of people everlastingly giving a planet the swift once-over before chasing along to the next. The troops regarded it with a mixture of tough contempt and boredom. The bureaucrats peered at it with cold authority. Each according to his lights.
This lot were accustomed to new worlds, had dealt with them by the dozens and reduced the process to mere routine. The task before them would have been nothing more than repetition of well-used, smoothly operating technique but for one thing: the entire bunch were in a jam and did not know it.
Emergence from the ship was in strict order of precedence. First, the Imperial Ambassador. Second, the battleship's captain. Third, the officer commanding the ground forces. Fourth, the senior civil servant.
Then, of course, the next grade lower, in the same order: His Excellency's private secretary, the ship's second officer, the deputy commander of troops, the penultimate pen pusher.
Down another grade, then another, until there was left only His Excellency's barber, boot wiper and valet, crew members with the lowly status of O.S.—Ordinary Spaceman—the military nonentities in the ranks, and a few temporary ink-pot fillers dreaming of the day when they would be made permanent and given a desk of their own. This last collection of unfortunates remained aboard to clean ship and refrain from smoking, by command.
Had this world been alien, hostile and well-armed, the order of exit would have been reversed, exemplifying the Biblical promise that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. But this planet, although officially new, unofficially was not new and certainly was not alien. In ledgers and dusty files some two hundred light-years away it was recorded as a cryptic number and classified as a ripe plum long overdue for picking. There had been considerable delay in the harvesting due to a superabundance of other still riper plums elsewhere.
According to the records, this planet was on the outermost fringe of a huge assortment of worlds which had been settled immediately following the Great Explosion. Every school child knew all about the Great Explosion, which was no more than the spectacular name given to the bursting outward of masses of humanity when the Blieder drive superseded atomic-powered rockets and practically handed them the cosmos on a platter.
At that time, between three and five hundred years ago, every family, group, cult or clique that imagined it could do better some place else had taken to the star trails. The restless, the ambitious, the malcontents, the eccentrics, the antisocial, the fidgety and the just plain curious, away they had roared by the dozens, the hundred, the thousands.
SOME TWO hundred thousand had come to this particular world, the last of them arriving three centuries back. As usual, ninety per cent of the mainstream had consisted of friends, relatives, or acquaintances of the first-comers, people persuaded to follow the bold example of Uncle Eddie or Good Old Joe.
