Science-Fiction Adventures in Dimension, page 41
Linden hesitated before commenting. “It will not be comfortable in our world. The sense of perception is almost useless. You will not be able to move about except with the use of attachments to your body.”
“Still, we wish it.”
Linden caught the underlying urgency in the thought that Phlan tried to keep casual.
“How many are there in this colony, Phlan?”
“About two thousand.”
“Where are they?”
Linden felt that Phlan tried to stop the thought, but it was too late. “Here ... in Inbetween.”
“So— We refuse permission.”
“Linden! Remember, we can make things severe for your people.”
“No. You are not asking for a colony, Phlan. You seek sanctuary.”
It was long before Phlan answered. “Yes, Linden, we beg sanctuary.”
Linden felt sympathy. “This two thousand—”
“There are no other Phlen left.” “I’m sorry, Phlan. But your threat was too great. You forced us to it.”
“I understand, now. . . . Linden, we had no choice against them. At first we ignored the few we perceived. They multiplied with amazing rapidity, attacked our farms, took our food so that our peoples starved.
“At first they destroyed. Then they seemed to learn. There were mutations. They developed an alert, savage intelligence. They took over our farms, developed them, fought off our counterattacks. They used their teeth and claws against us, then learned to fashion weapons that killed at a distance. They slaughtered us even for food.
“They became much like you humans, Linden, in the way they built and fought and thought.”
“We did not expect them to develop intelligence, Phlan, but we thought they would cause a diversion.”
“They are horrors. They have learned to fashion the mist material. Whatever you can make on your world, Linden, I think they can make on Phlen-world. They were your rats, of course?”
“Yes. A cunning, destructive rodent on our world. A conqueror on yours. Stay here, Phlan, and I will talk to Badick.”
~ * ~
“Warner made the deal with them, Badick. Let him supply the colony with land and food, and figure out what to do with them. We can make a guarantee on atomic warfare. We can make projectors to hurl bombs into Phlen-world.”
Badick shook his head. “I’ve been dodging it, George. Basic Assurances will give basic assurance from now on. We’ll guarantee peace-on-earth. You can start planning your research center on Phlen-world.”
“Yeah? All right, I’ll get the big-game hunters.”
“Who?”
“The big-game hunters to kill the tigers.”
“What tigers?”
“The ones who kill the wolves who kill the dogs who kill the cats who kill the rats we sent against the Phlen.”
Badick shook his head, then laughed.
“We won’t be needing all of that, George. Phlan told you those rats had developed intelligence, a civilization not unlike mankind’s. They’ve mutated, George, remember that.”
“Yes. But they’re still savage, still wanting to fight and kill. You’d deal with them? With rats?”
“Of course. We’ll give them the benefits of a more advanced civilization, George, and let them work out their own destiny. All the benefits: gunpowder and dope and atomic warfare and bacteria and poison gas. A few of our weeks, and—”
George nodded.
>
~ * ~
Fritz Leiber, Jr.
BUSINESS OF KILLING
In infinite time, all varieties of worlds can exist, as has been pointed out elsewhere. Here a pacifist named Whitlow discovers a world which he grossly misinterprets at first. Moreover, his knowledge of human nature is just as poor as his judgment, but he remains alive because of his ability to escape when the going gets tough.
Actually, the civilization pictured on this alternate world is close to what our own might be if certain trends here were to continue unchecked. This makes it an uncomfortable tale to read—which is, I am sure, just what its author meant it to be.
~ * ~
THE room was small and undistinguished, yet there was the indelible impression that power radiated to and from it, that it was the focal point of vast, far-flung, tension-fraught, and crucial activities. Its general appearance—that of a hastily stripped living room—clashed with the large, efficient, and centrally located desk from which radiated a number of ribbons sheathing conductors and adhering unobtrusively to the floor. A strong possibility: that it was the temporary headquarters of an organization engaged in a critical enterprise.
The man who had said they might call him Whitlow sat in a corner. His face was long, bony, and big-jawed, but the effect was of fanaticism and obstinacy, even sulkiness, rather than strength. He rubbed his hands in a way that was meant to be amiable, very much the master of the situation although it was he who was being interviewed. His gaze wandered inquisitively. He looked, despite his pseudogeniality, as if he could make his expression go all stern in a moment, and he wore high-mindedness like an admiral’s uniform. Yet behind it all lurked a hint of the brat who knows where the candy is hidden and who knows, furthermore, that he is immune from interference.
Saturnly and Neddar sat behind the desk. Or, rather, Saturnly sat behind most of it, while Neddar was tucked in at a corner, his nimble fingers poised above the noiseless keys of a hidden lightwriter, which was at present hooked up with a little panel that stared slantwise at Saturnly from the center of the desk.
Saturnly was obviously all appetite and will power. Heavy-jowled bullethead set on a torso that had expanded with its owner’s enterprises. Eyes in which there was little subtlety but worlds of dogged power. A man who lived to outshout, outpound, outorganize, and outwit. A great driving voraciousness, joyously dedicated to the task of making men and money work.
Yet deep underneath was the suggestion of an iron and admirable integrity; one felt that in a pinch the man would unfailingly stand up for the things he believed in and lived by, whatever the cost and no matter how tawdry they might be.
Neddar just as obviously had no appetite at all except for his own peculiar whims, and subtlety fairly danced a jig in his liquid brown eyes. Yet he was Saturnly’s equal in energy and tireless competence, but based on intellectual rather than emotional drives. A small, lithe man, very quick in all ways, young, but with a full black beard. Lips brimming with humor and mockery, though now carefully composed. A human catalyst, a court jester turned private secretary, a superassistant.
Their relationship was that of crocodile and crocodile bird, or—more accurately—shark and pilot fish.
The most arresting difference between them and the Whitlow person related to clothing. Although superficially similar, there was the suggestion of different epochs of fashion—or of some even wider gulf.
They watched him as a fat tom and a brainy kitten watch a mouse just out of reach.
Whitlow said, “I repeat, the means whereby I came here are immaterial to our discussion. Suffice it to say that alternate time streams exist, resulting from time bifurcations in the not-too-distant past, and that I possess the means of traveling between them.”
Saturnly extended his great paws soothingly. He said, “Now, now, Mr. Whitlow, don’t excite your—”
He choked off. Neddar’s fingers flickered, although no other part of his anatomy moved, and there glowed up at Saturnly the following warning: “WATCH YOUR STEP! It’s probably true. Remember, he turned up where he couldn’t have.”
Neddar said, “Mr. Saturnly is concerned that you don’t overtax yourself after your strenuous ordeal.”
Mollified, Whitlow continued in his unpleasantly high-pitched and mincing voice, “I am, among other things, a pacifist. I am visiting the alternate worlds in search of one that has learned how to do away with the horrid scourge of war, in order to bring back the precious knowledge to my erring co-timers. I see in yours no uniforms, no headlines detailing carnage, no posters blaring propaganda, nor any of the subtler indications that war is just over or will soon break out. I assume, therefore, that you have been able to eliminate this dreadful business of killing—”
During this speech a stifled inward churning had been apparent in Saturnly. Now he exploded, “Just who do you think you are, anyway ? Coming here and insulting me—John Saturnly—this way! Why, you dirty Red—”
He chewed air furiously. A new message glowed on the panel: “You big ape! This guy’s got something. If we offend him, we may not get it.”
To Whitlow, Neddar said, “Mr. Saturnly misunderstood you. He is a businessman and has a very keen sense of the dignity and worth of his work. He thought you were referring specifically to business, whereas, of course, you were only using the words in a figurative sense.”
At the same time he made furtive motions indicating that Saturnly, though well intentioned, was rather slow of understanding.
Whitlow inquired, “Just what is the nature of Mr. Saturnly’s business?”
A grumble of explosions shook the night.
“Blasting operations,” said Neddar. “I don’t mean his business—that comprises a variety of enterprises and has many ramifications. It happens, moreover, to be very closely concerned with that matter on which you are desirous of obtaining information.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Whitlow. “I appreciate the attention you’ve shown in bringing me here. But I could just as well follow my usual procedure of drifting around and taking things in gradually.”
“A needless waste of your time, which I am sure must be valuable. In Mr. Saturnly you have found the fountainhead. It is his enterprises that have eliminated from this world the terrible and chaotic sociopolitical upheavals of war.”
The explosions continued. There came the vindictive drone of high-speed aircraft. Eagerness and doubt fought in Whitlow’s face.
“The night freight,” said Neddar. “We are a very industrious people —very businesslike in all matters. And that leads me to another consideration. Mr. Saturnly and I are in a position to provide you with information which you greatly desire. You, on the other hand, possess a very fascinating power—that of passing between time streams.”
“Follow my lead,” glowed on the panel, but it was unnecessary. Sat-urnly understood things like this without thinking.
He said, “Yes, how about a little deal, Mr. Whitlow? We tell you how to prevent . . . uh . . . war. You tell us how to cross time.”
Whitlow rolled the idea on his tongue, as if it were a new but not necessarily unpleasant kind of cough syrup. “An interesting proposal. I could, of course, ultimately obtain the same information independently—”
“But not so adequately,” said Neddar quickly, his eyes flashing. “And not soon enough. I take it that there is some particular war which you desire to stop or prevent.” A tiny green light began to blink on Saturnly’s desk. Neddar thumbed a square marked “No.” It continued to blink. He thumbed the square once more, then resumed, “So speed must be your paramount consideration, Mr. Whitlow.”
“Yes . . . ah . . . perhaps. And if I decide to impart my power to you, I would require assurances that it be used only for the most high-minded purposes.”
“Absolutely,” said Saturnly, bringing down his palm as if it were a seal and his desk the document.
A door flicked open and a blonde young lady catapulted in. She squealed, “I know you’re in conference, J. S., but this is a crisis!”
Saturnly made frantic gestures of warning. Neddar, after one appraising glance, wasted no time in such maneuvers.
She struck the pose of one announcing catastrophe. “There’s been a strike of front-line operatives!” she managed to wail—then Neddar was rushing her out. The slamming door punctuated her woeful: “And just when you’d come down to supervise the big push, J. S.!”
“A lovely girl, Mr. Whitlow, but hysterical,” said Saturnly. “She talks . . . what’s that word? . . . figuratively.”
His blandness was lost on Whitlow. “Just what is the nature of your business, Mr. Saturnly?” The voice had acquired an inquisitorial edge.
Saturnly groped for a reply, looking around for Neddar as a dripping man looks for a towel.
“Of course,” Whitlow continued, a puzzled note creeping in, “I assumed that there was no war here, because of the absence of war atmosphere, to which I am very sensitive. But—”
“You took the words out of my mouth,” said Saturnly, clutching at the straw. “No war atmosphere—no war. You proved it yourself.”
But another door flicked open, and it is doubtful if even Neddar could have stemmed the agitated tide of the small crowd that poured through it.
Of individuals of major importance—the rest wore badges—there seemed to be three. The first was tall and had been, at some prior date, dapper and competent.
He said, “I’m through, J. S. I can’t do anything with them. They’ve gotten beyond reason.” He threw himself down in a chair.
The second was short and bristling. He said, “Just let me turn the artillery on them, J. S., and I’ll blast them out of their sit-down!”
“You and who else?” inquired the third, who was of medium height, lumpy, and wearing a dirty raincoat. “Just try that, and you’ll see the biggest sympathetic walkout you ever tried to toss tear gas at.”
They disregarded Saturnly’s herculean efforts to shush them as completely as they did the presence of Whitlow.
“J. S., their demands are impossible!” the second man barked over the babbling.
The third man planted himself in front of Saturnly’s desk. He stated, “Twenty cents more an hour and time-and-a-half in the mud, with pay retroactive to day before yesterday’s rainstorm.”
“It isn’t mud!” the second man rebutted fiercely. “It isn’t sufficiently gelatinous. I’ve had it analyzed.”
Two studious-looking men in the background bobbed their heads in affirmation.
The third man dug his hand in his raincoat pocket, stepped forward, and slapped down a black, gooey handful in the middle of Saturnly’s desk.
“No mud, eh?” he said, watching it ooze. “What do you say, Sat-urnly?”
The first man shuddered and cringed in his chair.
With a sweep of his bearlike arm, Saturnly sent the mud splattering off his desk as he came around it.
“You dirty gutter stooge!” he roared. “So two dollars an hour isn’t good enough for your good-for-nothing front-liners?” He waved his muddied fist.
The third man stood his ground. He said, “And there are complaints about the absence of adequate safety engineering.”
“Safety engineering!” Saturnly blew up. “Why, when I was a frontline operative—and I knew the business, I can tell you, because I worked up to it from a low-down factory job—we kicked out any safety engineers that had the nerve to come sniffing around our trenches!”
“Care to join the union at this late date?” asked the third man imperturbably.
Neddar’s return coincided with the outburst of fresh pandemonium. He gave one apprehensive look. Three skipping strides carried him to Whitlow and put his bearded mouth two inches from the pacifist’s ear.
“We did deceive you,” he said rapidly, “but it was only to avoid giving you an even more false impression. Let me clear out this rabble. Don’t come to a decision until we’ve talked to you.”
Without waiting for a reply, he darted to Saturnly and drew him toward the door, pulling the rest of the crowd after him like planets after a sun.
Fifteen minutes later Neddar was still trying to pry Saturnly away. The second and third man had departed with their satellites, but Saturnly was hanging onto the first man and giving him certain instructions that caused him to lose his defeated look and finally hurry off excitedly.
Neddar redoubled his tugging. Saturnly did not at once yield to it He turned his head. His broad face wore a beamy, glazed smile. “Wait a minute, Neddy,” he said. “I see it all now. Of course, when you first brought the guy in and tipped me off about time streams, I got the idea they were something we should go for. But you know how it is with me—I can only think when there’s no opportunity to. It was only when those boobs came in and started to yammer at me that I really began to see the possibilities.”
“Yes, yes,” said Neddar. “And while you gloat, he slips through our fingers. Come on.”
But in his exultation Saturnly was imperturbable. “Just think, Neddy, worlds like ours—maybe dozens of them—and we got a monopoly on the trade. A real open-door policy—nobody but us can open it. We got a surplus—we know where to unload it. There’s a scarcity—we know where we can get some. We got critical materials by the tail. We set up secret branch offices— Oh, Neddy!”
