Star Science Fiction 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  “Colony?” says Edie.

  “Anything?” says Hank.

  * * * *

  Nine hours later, just at dusk, a small, gray 1937 sedan in good repair is to be seen approaching the gate of a cer­tain military installation in New Mexico. It stops at the wide gate and two MPs in white helmets approach it. There is a short conversation between them and the driver, and then they march rather stiffly and woodenly back to their small, glassed-in gatehouse. The sedan proceeds on into the interior of the installation.

  A little under an hour later, after several more like con­versations, the sedan parks. Its three occupants leave it for another gate, another guard, another compound within an­other area, and finally find themselves standing at the foot of an enormous tall, tapering metallic creation.

  There are some half-dozen guards around this creation, but after a short conversation with the oldest of the party they have all stretched out beside their weapons and gone to sleep.

  “Here we are,” says the oldest of the party, who is, of course, Mr. Wilier.

  The other two are speechless and stare at the enormous ship beside them. They seem rather impressed.

  “Will it—” falters Edie, and then her voice fails her.

  “Will it take the two of you to Venus? Absolutely,” says Mr. Wilier, fondling the smooth head curve of his malacca walking stick. “I had a long talk with one of the chief men who designed it, just a week ago. You just follow these instructions—” He reaches for an inside pocket of his coat and withdraws a typewritten sheet of paper, which he hands to Hank- “Just run down the list on this, doing everything in order, and off you go.”

  Hank takes the paper rather gingerly. “Seems like steal­ing,” he mumbles.

  “Not when you stop to think,” says Mr. Wilier. “It’s for the Colony, for the ultimate good of humanity.” He puts a wrinkled hand confidentially on Hank’s arm. “My boy, this has come so suddenly to both of you as to be quite a severe shock, but you will adjust to it in time. Fate has selected you two young people to be of that dedicated band of psychical pioneers who will one day lift humanity from this slough of fear and pain and uncertainty in which it has wallowed ever since the first man lifted his face to the skies in wonder. Have faith in your own destiny.”

  “Yeah,” says Hank, still doubtful. But Edie is gazing with shining eyes at Mr. Wilier.

  “Oh!” she says. “Isn’t it wonderful, Hank?”

  “Yeah,” says Hank.

  “Well, then,” says Mr. Wilier, patting them both on the arm and pushing them gently to the metal ladder of a framework tower that stretches up alongside the ship. “Up you go. Don’t worry about the controls. This is built on a new, secret principle. It’s as easy to drive as a car.”

  “Just a minute!” cries a sudden, ringing voice. They all hesitate and turn away from the ship. Approaching rapidly through the air from the northwest is something that can only be described as a scintillant cloud of glory. It swoops in for a landing before them and thins away to reveal a tall, handsome man in a tight sort of coverall of silver mesh.

  “Up to your old tricks, again, Wilo, aren’t you?”, he barks at Mr. Wilier. “Can’t keep your hands off? Want everything your own way, don’t you?”

  “Fools rush in,” says Mr. Wilier, “where angels fear to tread.”

  “What?” demands Hank, looking from one to the other. “What’s all this about? Who’re you?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” says the tall man. “The point is, having psi-talents puts you under my protection. Half a dozen people a year I have to come chasing in and rescue. And all on account of him!” He glares at Mr. Wilier.

  “I still don’t—” Hank begins.

  “Of course not. How could you? If Wilo here had started leaving things alone as little as a hundred years ago, you humans would have developed into probationary members of Galactic Society by this time. Natural evolution. More psi-talents in every generation. Recognition of such. Alter­ation of local society. But no, not Wilo. The minute he dis­covers anyone with psi-talent he points them toward de­struction. I have to save them. The only safe way to save them with Wilo around is to take them off the planet. Wilo knows this. So—no progress for humanity.”

  Hank blinks a couple of times.

  “But how come?” he cries, staring at Mr. Wilier. “He’s one himself! I mean, he can do all sorts of things Edie and I can’t do—”

  “Nonsense!” says the tall man. “He’s just sensitive. An antenna, you might say. He can feel when real ones are sending.”

  “But—the ash tray…” falters Edie.

  “There, there, I scan you perfectly,” soothes the tall man. “Illusion. Nothing more. Even an ordinary intelli­gence can learn something in a hundred and eighty-four years and some months, after all. Wilo, Master Hypnotist. That’s the way he used to bill himself back in his days on the stage. He hypnotized you, just as he hypnotized these soldiers.”

  “With a glance,” mutters Mr. Wilier darkly.

  “Unfortunately very true,” says the tall man. He glares at Mr. Wilier again. “If it wasn’t for the fact that we truly advanced civilization members can’t harm anyone—!”

  He turns back to Hank and Edie.

  “Well,” he sighs heavily, “come along. This world will have to stay stuck in its present stage of development un­til something happens to Wilo, or he changes his mind.”

  Edie stares at the old man.

  “Oh, Mr. Wilier!” she says. “Why can’t you let people just go ahead and develop like Hank and I did?”

  “Bah!” says Wilier. “Humbug!”

  “But the world would be a much better place!”

  “Young lady!” snaps Mr. Wilier. “I like it the way it is!” He turns his back on them.

  “Come on,” says the tall man.

  They take off. Mr. Wilier turns back to look at them as they ascend into the new rays of the just-risen moon and the New Mexico night sky, trailing clouds of glory as they go.

  The clouds of glory light up the landscape.

  “Bah!” says Mr. Wilier again. With a snap of his fingers he produces some flash paper which, at the touch of flame from a palmed match, flares brightly for a moment. It’s one tiny recalcitrant beacon of stability and permanence in the whole of the madly whirling, wild and evolving uni­verse.

  <>

  * * * *

  Semanticist, teacher, Intelligence officer and gun collector, John J. McGuire draws on many lores in concocting his few but fine science-fiction pieces. As a member of the loose-knit Monmouth County science-fiction colony (George O. Smith, Lester del Rey and Algis Budrys are a few of the others), he spends his days inventing clever monsters for whom he then devises cleverer traps. Here, for example, are his instructions on how-

  TO CATCH AN ALIEN

  by John J. McGuire

  “Go through the red door. Sit down in the big chair facing the wall,” the vice-admiral commanded. Then, the voice so devoid of inflection that the words emerged as mockery, “And make yourself at home, Loytenant.”

  Croyden waited a moment, unable to believe that this was the extent of his orders. When nothing was added, mentally he shrugged, physically he abased himself in the deep salute, proudly he marched through the red door.

  Two strides inside the door he was shocked to a halt. This room couldn’t be the one whispered of as the “sweat-box.”

  Three of its four gray walls were bright with abstractions of space-flight. Below the paintings were low, open-stack bookcases. The big chair facing the blank wall looked luxuriously comfortable, one of the form-fitters designed to promote relaxation. On the low table beside the chair was the transcriber for ordering almost any drink that the Galaxy had ever professed to enjoy.

  And even—he rolled one between his fingers to be sure —even fresh tobaccettes.

  For a moment Croyden endured the stresses of conflicting drives. To do or not to do, to yield to temptation or merely to sit and sweat
. . . .

  Then he remembered the final sentence of the admiral’s orders and made himself at home.

  Carefully he laid his papers on the table. With even greater care he considered and punched an order for a long, strong drink. Then, as if it were a religious rite, he puffed gently on one of the tobaccettes. When its tip finally burned with an even glow, he inhaled deeply and settled into the comfort of the chair.

  He felt his fatigue and inner tension easing. If this were the “sweat-box,” he was willing to come here more often.

  The blank wall in front of him turned his glance right and left. He whistled appreciatively as he studied the irregular rows of books for familiar titles. These were not transmitted facs, but home-printed originals. Bringing them to the satellite when every centimeter of cargo space was . . . well, he could think of no comparison. Cargo space was an absolute in itself.

  But the pleasures!

  Psychologists had been long in recognizing that the joy in reading had been delicately blended with all the other senses, touch, smell, balance. ... Another drink and he would not be able to keep his eyes and fingers from that luxury.

  Croyden swore. Fervently he damned himself to eternal duty in the nethermost depths of lightless space. It was no excuse that he had been tired, confused, tense. Nothing could excuse the fact that he had, literally, not thought.

  He stood up and saluted the blank wall.

  “Reporting as directed.” As he concluded the terse formality, the one-way vision shield slid back.

  He was face to face with five of the men who made this room the “sweat-box.”

  The Supreme Co-ordinator was smiling and casual, returning Croyden’s formal abasement with the informal heart salute. Gracefully he gestured toward the chair and graciously he said, “Please sit down, Loytenant. Understandably, you are very tired. Sit down and order us companions to your choice of drinks.”

  The simple activities of ordering and serving should have been calming, Croyden knew. Instead, it gave him time to remember. The gripping pain in his stomach had died away during those first few moments he had been alone. Now it was back, a redoubled, squeezing anguish.

  The Co-ordinator’s smooth voice cut through the mind-clouding pain.

  “In your own words, Loytenant, space-slang and all, introduce yourself and tell your story. Talk with another drink in your hand, light yourself another tobaccette. And above all, regard us merely as brother officers. There is no rank in this room.”

  Croyden understood. The seeming request was really an order, but an order designed to put him at ease as no direct—or more subtle—expression of need could have done. Outside the “sweat-box,” he was merely another in the long lines of abasing officers. Here he was a delicate, living record of a disaster and he had to be handled so.

  “You know my name, sirs. I’m a loytenant, temporary commission.”

  “Permanent now.”

  Croyden glanced at the speaker. The statement helped him to recognize the vague-familiar face as the Adjutant General’s.

  “Thank you, Excellency.” He made his tone tell his pleasure. “I’m a . . .” He stopped, looked at the Supreme Commander, felt a foolish grin growing across his face. “Natural talk, Sire?”

  His Supremacy smiled. “Your gyro-training should answer that. Of course it is best for you to speak naturally.” The smile vanished. “You also know why it is best that you speak willingly. You are one of the six living records of what happened to the cruiser Holoman. To you, what happened and why it happened is simply a series of personal experiences. It means little to you beyond the blockages that those experiences may create. But to us, you are more. You may have, without knowing it, a clue to help answer the problem of the doppelganger menace, the problem you studied as an undergraduate psychologist.

  “Therefore, we must have, and wewill have, every facet of your knowledge. And, as you know, it is of most value in your natural speech and consciousness.

  “Give us yourself, Loytenant Croyden, completely, without reservation . . . and from conscious volition.”

  “Suggestions, Sire.”

  The deferent speaker was a small man with an intent stare, seated to His Supremacy’s immediate left.

  “I listen, Gludo.”

  Croyden gulped at his drink, hoped he could keep it down. The small man, Gludo, was Chief of the Combined Intelligence Staffs.

  “Properly to evaluate Loytenant Croyden’s story, we need to know how his philosophy of living colors it. Let him begin with his research project. This will give us the palette to the hues and tints of his mind-approach, a touchstone to use through all of his tale.”

  His Supremacy’s opaque gaze came back to Croyden. “Let it be so. Begin your story, Loytenant, and tell us everything about yourself.”

  Everything, Croyden thought. They seemed to know everything already.

  Strangely, the consideration helped to ease his pain and the story came more swiftly.

  * * * *

  I always wanted to be a psychologist. Specifically, a gyroscope on a combat ship. So when I qualified for the University, I worked hard.

  A gyro must be able to analyze the feelings and morale of his ship without the crew being aware of the fact that they are being studied. So, to graduate, you must make a survey without the University proctors discovering what single item of information you are looking for.

  The University being almost literally at the hub of our galaxy, it’s an ideal spot for cross section samplings and I chose as mine, what single item is the most vital factor in winning the war.

  The answer I got, mathematically, for 90 per cent of all personnel, combat and rear echelon, was this: give us a combat technique for identifying the aliens infiltrating us. Do this and we can quickly win this war.

  * * * *

  “That wins the war?”

  The interruption came from a thick-set man who looked as responsive to a new idea as the service regulations were.

  “That wins the war,” Croyden said, flatly.

  Something in the atmosphere of the room changed. His Supremacy withdrew all emotion pom his face. The Adjutant General scribbled a note, Gludo crushed his tobaccette and the general beside him ordered another drink. Only the thick-set man did not move, beyond a tightening around his lips.

  “Ninety per cent.” Gludo stressed the number thoughtfully.

  “Yes, sir, with even distribution from the edge of the Galaxy to its center. And as a corollary, 80 per cent of rear echelon personnel regard themselves as qualified for combat pay. They maintain that the aliens are so widely infiltrated that every area is now a battle area.”

  His Supremacy’s smooth voice closed the short pause. “Continue, Loytenant, with more about your work-philosophy”

  * * * *

  Well, Sire, the gyroscope-psychologist on a fighting ship is an important man. He’s got to bring into balance three sometimes irreconcilable elements.

  First, there’s the ship. At launch-dock, it’s an accumulation of machinery, poised but with no means of releasing its purpose.

  Then you have people in their quarters. They’re the opposite. They are purposes without the means of releasing what is vital to their well-being, in this case the winning of this war.

  Alone, the ship poised in the launch-dock and the people in their quarters, are usually in balance. There are exceptions, of course, with the people.

  But when you put the three things together—and I mean three—persons plus other persons plus the machine that lets them strive for their purpose, then you’ve got a new entity. And you need for this new entity, what each one of them had when it was sufficient by itself.

  But whatever name you call us—gyros, gyro-psychs, ship-psychologists—the name doesn’t matter. You need us.

  * * * *

  “It wasn’t always so” The Adjutant General’s voice was fretful. “Commanders once took care of these things themselves. It’s a waste of man-power and we need all we can dredge up.”

/>   “Some still do.” His Supremacy’s tones were soothing. “For example, take Slater.”

  “Yes, of course, and I wish we had more like him.” The AG’s face brightened with the dream.

  Croyden found that his confidence had grown with this interruption. They were interested, intently so. As a well-trained gyro, even more sensitive to the responses of his audience than an actor, he knew he was holding their attention. The cramp in his stomach eased.