Collected Short Fiction, page 821
“Come along,” she whispered. “I’ve something else to show you.”
Down at the waterhole, we found its surface brighter than the sky, shimmering with reflections of the luminous night flowers in bloom all around it. Their heavy fragrance was more intoxicating than the wine. A night bird was singing somewhere, and she was lovely in the magical starlight. She sighed and drew me closer. I slid my arm around her waist. She let her body melt against me and gave me a kiss I won’t forget.
“Stay with us!” she breathed in my ear. “Please! You’re somebody new and you’ll love it here!”
Her own sweet odor is the last thing I remember. LeZarr got me back on the ship. He woke me next morning, and stuck a pen and paper in my face.
“The charter contract.” He was crunching a starkiss nut, and my stomach roiled from its burnt-toast scent. “Sign the release if you want to stay here.”
My head was splitting, and my vision blurred the pen, but I felt glad to have no nanorobs in my blood. I pushed the contract away. An hour later, we were taking off. Looking back, I saw McDervik and Aranda standing by the waterhole, holding hands as they waved farewell. The planet shrank behind us till LeZarr cut the jets and I saw the coupled ships shining in the sun. We left McDervik’s yacht still safe in polar orbit, its robot crew left there to wait for him forever.
We skipped back home. Our story of an actual planet of youth was greeted with disbelief that turned to consternation. McDervik had never named a successor to head Pan-Galactic. His heirs sued the company, demanding an immediate reading of his will. He had left no will. The company attorneys produced his signature on the charter contract as proof that he was still alive. They set up a trust to administer his affairs, and the trustees seem likely to control the company forever.
They have let me go, with a platinum-cased multiplanet timepiece and a certificate of recognition for faithful service to McDervik Pan-Galactic. I’ll never inherit the planet he promised me, but LeZarr introduced me to Fawn, McDervik’s granddaughter, who is lovelier than Aranda and totally alive. She’s no heiress now, but seems not to care. We are migrating from Earth to find a new home on Grand Bonanza.
The Luck of the Legion
“Soldier starmen, rise and fly!”
Goodsister Joylander yelled from the door and came stalking down the narrow aisle between the rows of cots in the long dim barracks, screeching out her mockery of the Legion marching song.
“Fly and fight to save the earth that gave you birth,
Tell the story of your glory—and how you sold your souls
To bring the dragon bugs to Earth
And made us slaves forever.”
A tall gaunt woman in a stark white uniform, she wore the Goodfriend badge, a blood-red heart, pinned over her own Her dagger-sharp eyes stabbed at Giles Habibula, who lay moaning on his cot.
“Move it, soldier! Now! All of you out for a special inspection.”
“Mercy, lass!” Habibula groaned and sat up on the side of the cot, pulling his purple pajama jacket around his white-haired chest and shaking his pink-scalped head. “Why roust us out of our blessed beds on this holy Sabaath dawn?”
“Special orders!” Her voice was a clang of hard authority. “You will secure your quarters now, and fall out at oh five hundred for review by Goodfellow Inspector Nine.”
“Not today!” his old voice quavered. “Has he forgotten the noble history of the Legion? How we spilled our precious blood in ten thousand bitter battles on twenty thousand hostile planets to defend mankind—”
“He knows how your own cowardly commander Kalam sold us out,” her icy voice cut him off. “How he gave away this great fortress and all our secret weapons to save his own precious skin. We’d all be dead today, if the Goodfriends hadn’t got here to beat the bugs.”
“A lie, Miss! A monstrous libel, if you’ll forgive the word. The commander fought the: mortal bugs to the bitter end, and lost his own blessed eyes.”
“Stop your senseless sniveling and thank the Goodfather for your good care here in Goodhome.” Marching past him, she raised her brassy voice. “Rise and fly! Out on the ramp in fifteen minutes!”
“Goodhome!” Habibula whispered hoarsely to Jay Kalam, on the cot beside him. “Thank anybody for this filthy sty and the stinking swill they feed us?”
“I heard you, soldier.” Goodsister Joylander turned abruptly back, her voice an icy blade. “The Goodfellows are the galactic police, serving many thousand worlds. They drove the invading bugs off the planet. They defend us now, since your noble Legion failed.”
“And they work us like mortal dogs—”
“Silence, soldier! Inspector Nine won’t tolerate such insolence.” He raised his gnarled old hand to press his tips to a large green stone set in a thin gold band.
“Soldier, what is that?”
“A precious treasure, lass.” He looked up at her, tears in his faded eyes. “A gift from a woman I loved. She blessed it with the luck of the Legion. The stone is carved with the Legion star. It will guard me, she promised, from all the malice of a merciless world.”
She sniffed and strode away.
Most of the cots ahead of her were empty, but Jay Kalam was fumbling blindly for his eyes. Hal Samdu, beyond him, was reaching with his single arm to lever himself into the cradle of his towering ambulator. Habibula sat still, following her with his plaintive wail.
“Insolence? Where is the insolence in a moan of mortal truth? Please, lass! ‘Tis true we’ve suffered cruel defeats. I know the survivors want a scapegoat to suffer for their pain, but don’t you think we’ve earned just one blessed day of rest to heal our fearful wounds?”
“Ask Inspector Nine.” Her long nose lifted. “If you’ve got the guts.”
She swung back to snatch the pillow off his cot and uncover a little silver flask.
“Soldier, what is this?”
“A sacred elixir, Miss. I need it to sustain me through moments of distress. And those moments come too mortal often now. Pity me, lass!” Tears welled out of his eyes. “Leave it with me, for precious Terra’s sake.”
She unscrewed cap, sniffed it, and made a sour face.
“Alcohol! You know it’s not allowed.”
“You’re a rare beauty, lass!” He spread imploring hands. “I’ve loved your tender heart since my first blissful glimpse. Forty years ago I might have died for half an instant with you in the dark. How could you steal the last blessed sip of life—”
“If you ever need alcohol, the Goodfellows will issue you alcohol.”
She drained the flask on the floor and sent it skittering across the room.
“Listen, Miss!” He drew a wheezy breath. “That’s too mortal much! We’ve been patient as blessed angels, but we are still soldiers of the holy Legion. Give us time and we’ll escape this miserable pit——”
“Escape, soldier? How do you plan to escape?” Hands on her hips, she swung to sneer at him. “Three old men, miserable cripples, alive by the Goodfather’s mercy and blathering your stupid arrogance! Inspector Nine will hear of this.”
“I warn you, Miss!” He pointed a quivering finger. “We’ll make your tin-shelled inspectors rue the day they ever saw the precious Earth.”
“Soldier, I warn you—” Her voice caught, and she stood a moment glaring at him. “If you care how I feel, your devil bugs killed my father.”
“Quiet, Giles!” Jay Kalam was fitting the skullcap to his shaven head. “Peace!”
Samdu cradled himself in the belly of the ambulator and lurched upright, a towering titanium giant. Habibula shrugged himself into a faded uniform fitted when he had been fatter. Kalam fumbled to focus his eyes. They limped after Goodsister Joylander into daylight.
The barracks was a tunnel driven into the side of a hill, a bombproof arsenal while the old fortress stood. Outside they fell into a ragged line of aged and crippled men. The hillside sloped below them to what had been a wide flight-field. Saplings had grown up through broken pavements littered with masses of black and twisted metal that had been gantries, spacecraft, and heavy weaponry.
“Son, look at that fearful sight!” Habibula turned to a new arrival, a younger man beside him, leaning on a crutch. “This was Star Fort Seven, built for Keeper Ro and her secret arsenal. I’ll never forget the dreadful night it fell.”
“The star-bug attack?” The younger man blinked at him. “You remember that?”
“Aye, my lad.” He drew a long, uneasy breath. “It happened near twenty years ago, back before your own blessed mother ever let you out to play, but I lived through it, every frightful minute. I’d been posted to the Keeper’s guard detail. She was Rellya Ro, if you don’t recall your history. A Keeper of AKKA, the wonder weapon that had saved our worlds a thousand times. A living goddess she was, a perfect sweetheart like you’ll never meet. She let me tend her rose garden. I used to bring her a dozen long-stemmed beauties every blessed morning—till that dreadful night when the missiles hit.”
He rolled his yellow eyes.
“A night of wicked evil, when the bugs made their sneak attack. Monsters you can’t imagine, cunning and pitiless as they were hideous. Hatching their fearful scheme, they’d spied on us for years and captured Commander Kalam. After years of hell in their ugly clutches, he escaped to warn us. Alas, the fearful pity of it! He’d been away too long. He had no papers. The dumbbell commandant laughed at his advice and left humankind at the mercy of the bugs.”
He stopped to blink at the man on the crutch.
“Lad, I trust you do believe me?”
“It’s news to me.” The man nodded doubtfully. “I guess I do.”
“You’re damned if you don’t. I was there, lad, in a bunker high on the hill behind us.
Shivering there alone, long past a black and bitter midnight. I must admit I’d had a precious dram from my pocket flask to help me endure the piercing fangs of a cruel north wind. Perhaps I dozed for a mortal moment before the wicked thunder of the falling missiles jolted me awake.”
His gesture swept the lifeless field, the crater pits, the crumpled armament.
“When the smoke and dust had cleared, this fearful ruin was all I saw. Yet we fought on, my comrades here!” He nodded at Samdu, standing tall in the titanium frame, and Kalam grimly scanning the field through his skullcap lenses. “Hopeless odds against us. The monster bugs hit all seven Star Forts on their seven different planets in a single mortal instant. Killed all the seven Keepers, with no chance to use their weapons.
“Yet we fought on with the feeble means we had. From my own perilous post on the hill, I saw a bug battle-craft drop out of the sky. A great black ball, rockets blazing, red lasers stabbing out of it at anything left alive on the field. It landed right there.”
He pointed.
“A long ramp slid down the side of it. I watched the hell-born bugs crawling out.”
“You saw them?” the young man whispered. “Saw them yourself?”
“Nightmares that haunt me yet! Great blobs of black jelly, each one wrapped in a glittery bubble. They had no shapes that I could see. Nothing except their demon eyes and hellish fangs. Great green eyes, shining in the dark. Fangs red as blood, long as sabers. No natural arms or legs, but they grew jelly hands to carry laser guns. You see what they did to us—”
“Attention!” Goodsister Joy lander came tramping past them. “Silence in the ranks. Toes on the yellow line. Inspector Nine has arrived. His escort is Goodfriend Colonel Kamby. You will greet them with a snappy salute.”
Inspector Nine was a thick red cylinder, taller than a man, hopping on a coiled spring. His head was a bright bowl-shaped signal dish, tilted toward the sky. Two eyes on long stalks projected forward. Two snaky arms coiled around a laptop computer and a laser weapon.
Colonel Kamby came close behind him. A fat little human in a white-and-gold Goodlife uniform, he had a round pink face and headphones over his ears. He returned their salutes, looked up for orders from the inspector’s dish, and stopped to shout hoarsely at the waiting men.
“Inspector Nine wishes to remind you of your great debt to the holy Goodfather, who sent the Goodfellows to drive the bugs off the Earth and care for us you forever. The inspector asks me to announce that this old battlefield is now to be cleared and leveled for a blackroot plantation. Goodhome will be closed. Inmates will be transferred for subsistence and employment at Goodwork Valley, to continue your labor for the greater glory of the Goodfather.”
The major colonel turned to listen again, but Inspector Nine was already hopping on down the line.
“Greater glory!” Habibula snarled when they were gone. “If we’re condemned to sweat and die in Goodwork Valley?”
The young man frowned. “What’s Goodwork Valley?”
“A tar pit.” Habibula wrinkled his nose. “The Goodfellows have drained our precious petroleum and shipped it off the Earth. Now they want our oil tar. We’ll be slaving out our lives digging the foul stuff and loading it on space freighters for export to wherever they take it.”
Back inside the barracks, he picked up his empty pocket flask and shook it sadly. Jay Kalam swung his lenses to be sure they were alone.
“Giles.” He dropped his voice and beckoned them closer. “I heard your rash ultimatum to our hostess. Do you mean it? Are you ready to give up the rotgut you brew in the basement and risk a desperate chance at freedom?”
“You know I’m ready, Jay. When did I ever shrink from danger? Though perhaps I feel a hint of blessed prudence when you speak of desperation. What exactly is this chance?”
“In prudence, we can’t discuss it here.” He touched his lips and brushed Samdu’s human arm. “If you want to know, follow me.”
“Are you dreaming?” Habibula stared at him. “You know Goodsister Joy lander and her devils, watching us like mortal hawks. And the Goodlife patrols cruising all the roads—”
“Lead us on. Jay,” Samdu interrupted him. “Lead us on.”
Kalam led them though the empty cots and down a long dim hall past a dozen doors, deep into the mountain, finally into a dark and vacant space where the tiny lamp on the crown of his skullcap made the only light. They squatted on the bare stone floor.
“Tell us, Jay,” Samdu begged him. “If you have a plan.”
A drop of water fell somewhere in the gloom, a small explosion that startled Habibula.
“For life’s sweet sake!” he wheezed. “Don’t ask too mortal much. I lost my temper with that hideous witch, but I never meant to beg for suicide. True, I once was able to serve the blessed Legion with a certain rare and precious gift with locks and secret things and the ways of evil beings, but the curse of time has blighted all my gifts and wit.”
“Tell us Jay.” Samdu hunched closer. “Tell us.”
“The bugs were spying on us with their quantum wave devices.” Kalam’s voice had gone with his eyes; he spoke in a raspy whisper. “I was scouting for their bases. They surprised us, seized my flagship, took us off to their hives in Draconis. They held us there for years, squeezing us in every way they could for information about AKKA and all our defenses.
“We kept silent when we could, tried to play their game when we had to, trading our own lies for theirs. You know the ugly score. We failed to scare them off. They offered peace and killed the Keepers. Killed our civilization. But there’s one last play I never got to make.
“I’ve waited all these years, hoping for a chance to try it If they’re going to take us to the tar pits, we must make our move tonight.”
A drop of water fell.
“Now?” Habibula cinged and gasped, “What’s this mortal move?”
“Better you don’t know till after we’ve tried it.” Kalam swung his lenses to sweep the bare walls again, and his whisper fell till they had to lean closer. “But I can tell you something about the bugs. Or in fact the bug. Because they are only one single individual.”
“One bug?” Habibula blinked. “We saw ten thousand.”
“Or ten million.” Kalam nodded, the shadows from his headlamp flickering on the walls. “But they have no individual minds, only tiny rudiments of brains. Every bug is linked to every other by a net quantum entanglement that can flash a signal across the galaxy in no time at all. They are all connected like the individual transistors in a computer to make a single hive mind.
“That was a problem when it tried to question us.” Old pain shadowed his leathery face. “It had no language. Existing alone, it needed none. The solution we found was to connect our computers to it. I have a message for it now, if we can reach the right computer.”
“Jay, are you crazy?” Habibula stared at him. “We have no computers. And you know the mortal bugs are gone, since the Goodfellows drove them out.” He shook his hairless head. “I hate to speak about it, Jay, but I sometimes think all that torture by the bugs was too much for you.”
Kalam flinched.
“Trust me!” he whispered to Samdu, and turned back to Habibula with a stiff little grin. “Trust your Legion luck.” Habibula blinked.
“Jay, actually I can’t.” He shook his head at the ring. “I don’t talk about her because I’m so ashamed I ever saw her, but the green stone was a gift from Elega LeChark. It happened while you were off in Draconis. She was a dancer and dazzling beauty. The sort of woman I never hoped to touch until she arranged the accident that got us together.
“I loved her, Jay.” He wiped his bleary eyes and blew his nose. “She made me think she loved me, but she was trying to turn me traitor, make me betray the Keeper to the bugs. A blade through my mortal heart when I found it out. I had to turn her in. She died in the Legion prison on the dark face of Mercury.”
He caught a long breath and looked back at Kalam.
“What in the name of total craziness are you asking us to do?”
“The thing may be insane.” Kalam shrugged, frowning soberly. “I’ve delayed so long because it seemed impossible. But here’s what we must do.” He raised three scarred and twisted fingers. “One, get out of this trap. Two, get to Green Hall Starport. Three, get into the flight control tower.”
