6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction Read online

  “But there is just one thing I want to ask you before I go—why do you bother to live, anyhow? I would think that any one of you would welcome an end to your silly, futile lives just from sheer boredom. That’s all.” He turned back to the bailiff. “Come on, you.”

  “One moment, David MacKinnon.” The senior judge held up a restraining hand. “We have listened to you. Although custom does not compel it, I am minded to answer some of your statements. Will you listen?”

  Unwilling, but less willing to appear loutish in the face of a request so reasonable, the younger man consented.

  The judge commenced to speak in gentle, scholarly words appropriate to a lecture room. “David MacKinnon, you have spoken in a fashion that doubtless seems wise to you. Nevertheless, your words were wild, and spoken in haste. I am moved to correct your obvious misstatements of fact. The Covenant is not a superstition, but a simple temporal contract entered into by those same revolutionists for pragmatic reasons. They wished to insure the maximum possible liberty for every person.

  “You yourself have enjoyed that liberty. No possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your action did not damage another. Even an act specifically prohibited by law could not be held against you unless the State was able to prove that your particular act damaged, or caused evident danger of damage, to a particular individual.

  “Even if one should willfully and knowingly damage another—as you have done—the State does not attempt to sit in moral judgment, nor to punish. We have not the wisdom to do that, and the chain of injustices that have always followed, such moralistic coercion endanger the liberty of all. Instead, the convicted is given the choice of submitting to psychological readjustment to correct his tendency to wish to damage others, or of having the State withdraw itself from him—of sending him to Coventry!

  “You complain that our way of living is dull and unromantic, and imply that we have deprived you of excitement to which you feel entitled. You are free to hold and express your aesthetic opinion of our way of living, but you must not expect us to live to suit your tastes. You are free to seek danger and adventure if you wish—there is danger still in experimental laboratories; there is hardship in the mountains of the Moon, and death in the jungles of Venus—but you are not free to expose us to the violence of your nature.”

  “Why make so much of it?” MacKinnon protested contemptuously. “You talk as if I had committed a murder. I simply punched a man in the nose!”

  “I agree that individual deserved it,” the judge continued calmly, “and am not displeased at his misfortune, but your psychometrical tests show that you believe yourself capable of judging morally your fellow citizens and feel justified in personally correcting and punishing their lapses. You are a dangerous individual, David MacKinnon, a danger to all of us, for we cannot predict what damage you may do next.

  “You refuse treatment—therefore we withdraw our society from you. To Coventry with you.” He turned to the bailiff. “Take him away.”

  ~ * ~

  MacKinnon peered out of a forward port of the big transport helicopter with repressed excitement in his heart. There! That must be it—that black band in the distance. The helicopter drew closer, and he became certain that he was seeing the Barrier—the mysterious, impenetrable wall that divided the United States from the reservation known as Coventry.

  His guard looked up from the magazine he was reading and followed his gaze. “Nearly there, I see,” he said pleasantly. “Well, it won’t be long now.”

  “It can’t be any too soon for me!”

  The guard looked at him quizzically, but with tolerance. “Pretty anxious to get on with it, eh?”

  MacKinnon held his head high. “You’ve never brought a man to the gateway more anxious to pass through!”

  “Hm-m-m—maybe. They all say that, you know. Nobody goes through the gate against his own will.”

  “I mean it!”

  “They all do. Some of them come back, just the same.”

  “Say—maybe you can give me some dope as to conditions inside.”

  “Sorry,” the guard said, shaking his head, “but that is no concern of the United States, nor any of its employees. You’ll know soon enough.”

  MacKinnon frowned a little. “It seems strange. I tried inquiring, but found no one who would admit that they had any notion about the inside. And yet you say that some come out. Surely some of them must talk—”

  “That’s simple,” smiled the guard, “part of their reorientation is a subconscious compulsion not to discuss their experiences.”

  “That’s a pretty scabby trick. Why should the government deliberately conspire to prevent me, and people like me, from knowing what we are going up against?”

  “Listen, buddy,” the guard answered, with mild exasperation, “you’ve told the rest of us to go to the devil. You’ve told us that you could get along without us. You are being given plenty of living room in some of the best land on this continent, and you are being allowed to take with you everything that you own, or your credit could buy. What the deuce else do you expect?”

  MacKinnon’s face settled in obstinate lines. “What assurance have I that there will be any land left for me?”

  “That’s your problem. The government sees to it that there is plenty of land for the population. The divvy-up is something you rugged individualists have to settle among yourselves. You’ve turned down our type of social co-operation; why the hell should you expect the safeguards of our organization?” The guard turned back to his reading and ignored him.

  They landed on a small field which lay close under the blank black wall. No gate was apparent, but a guardhouse was located at the side of the field. MacKinnon was the only passenger. While his escort went over to the guardhouse, he descended from the passenger compartment and went around to the freight hold.

  Two members of the crew were letting down a ramp from the cargo port. When MacKinnon drew near, one of them eyed him and said, “Okay, there’s your stuff.”

  He sized up the job and said, “It’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I’ll need some help. Will you give me a hand with it?”

  The crew member addressed paused to light a cigarette before replying, “It’s your stuff. If you want it, get it out. We take off in ten minutes.” The two walked around him and re-entered the ship.

  “Why, you—” MacKinnon shut up and kept the rest of his anger to himself. The surly louts! Gone was the faintest trace of regret at leaving civilization. He’d show them! He could get along without them.

  But it was twenty minutes and more before he stood beside his heaped-up belongings and watched the ship rise. Fortunately the skipper had not been adamant about the time limit. MacKinnon turned and commenced loading his steel tortoise. Under the romantic influence of the classic literature of a bygone day he had considered using a string of burros, but had been unable to find a zoo that would sell them to him.

  The vehicle he had chosen was not an unreasonable substitute for burros. It was extremely rugged, easy to operate, and almost foolproof. It drew its power from six square yards of sun-power screens on its low curved roof. These drove a constant-load motor, or, when halted, replenished the storage battery against cloudy weather or night travel. The bearings were “everlasting,” and every moving part, other than the caterpillar treads and the controls, was sealed up, secure from inexpert tinkering.

  It could maintain a steady six miles per hour on smooth, level pavement. When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.

  The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe-like independence. It did not occur to him that his chattel was the end product of the cumulative effort and intelligent co-operation of hundreds of thousands of men, living and dead. He had been accustomed all his life to the unfailing service of much more intricate machinery, and honestly regarded the tortoise as a piece of equipment of the same primitive level as a
woodsman’s ax or a hunting knife. His talents had been devoted in the past to literary criticism rather than engineering, but that did not prevent him from believing that his native intelligence and the aid of a few reference books would be all that he would really need to duplicate the tortoise, if necessary.

  His goods filled every compartment of the compact little freighter. He checked the last item from his inventory and ran a satisfied eye down the list. Any explorer or adventurer of the past might well be pleased with such equipment, he thought. He could imagine showing Jack London his knock-down cabin. “See, Jack,” he would say, “it’s proof against any kind of weather—perfectly insulated walls and floor, and can’t rust. It’s so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself, yet it’s so strong that you can sleep sound with the biggest grizzly in the world snuffling right outside your door.”

  And London would scratch his head and say, “Dave, you’re a wonder. If I’d had that in the Yukon it would have been a cinch!”

  He checked over the list again. Enough concentrated and dessicated food and vitamin concentrates to last six months. That would give him time enough to build hothouses for hydroponics and get his seeds started. Medical supplies—he did not expect to need those, but foresight was always best. Reference books of all sorts. A light sporting rifle—vintage: last century. His face clouded a little at this. The war department had positively refused to sell him a portable blaster. When he had claimed the right of common social heritage they had grudgingly provided him with the plans and specifications and told him to build his own. Well, he would, the first spare time he got

  Everything else was in order. MacKinnon climbed into the cockpit, grasped the two hand controls and swung the nose of the tortoise toward the guardhouse. He had been ignored since the ship had landed; he wanted to have the gate opened and to leave.

  Several soldiers were gathered around the guardhouse. He picked out a legate by the silver stripe down the side of his kilt and spoke to him. “I’m ready to leave. Will you kindly open the gate?”

  “Okay,” the officer answered him, and turned to a soldier who wore the plain gray kilt of a private’s field uniform. “Jenkins, tell the powerhouse to dilate—about a number three opening, tell them,” he added, sizing up the dimensions of the tortoise.

  He turned to MacKinnon. “It is my duty to tell you that you may return to civilization, even now, by agreeing to be hospitalized for your neurosis.”

  “I have no neurosis!”

  “Very well. If you change your mind at any future time, return to the place where you entered. There is an alarm there with which you may signal to the guard that you wish the gate opened.”

  “I can’t imagine needing to know that.”

  The legate shrugged. “Perhaps not—we send refugees to quarantine all the time. If I were making the rules, it might be harder to get out again.” He was cut off by the ringing of an alarm. The soldiers near them double-timed away, drawing their blasters from their belts as they ran. The ugly snout of a fixed blaster poked out over the top of the guardhouse and pointed toward the Barrier.

  The legate answered the question on MacKinnon’s face. “The power house is ready to open up.” He waved smartly toward that building and turned back. “Drive straight through the center of the opening. It takes a lot of power to suspend the stasis; if you touch the edge we’ll have to pick up the pieces.”

  A tiny, bright dot appeared in the foot of the barrier opposite where they waited. It spread into a half circle across the lampblack nothingness. Now it was large enough for MacKinnon to see the brown countryside beyond through the arch it had formed. He peered eagerly.

  The opening grew until it was twenty feet wide, then stopped. It framed a scene of rugged, barren hills. He took this in and turned angrily on the legate. “I’ve been tricked!” he exclaimed. “That’s not fit land for a man.”

  “Don’t be hasty,” he told MacKinnon. “There’s good land beyond. Besides, you don’t have to enter. But if you are going, go!”

  MacKinnon flushed and pulled back on both hand controls. The treads bit in and the tortoise lumbered away, straight for the gateway to Coventry.

  MacKinnon glanced back when he was several yards beyond the gate. The Barrier loomed behind him, with nothing to show where the opening had been. There was a little sheet-metal shed adjacent to the point where he had passed through. He supposed that it contained the alarm the legate had mentioned, but he was not interested, and turned his eyes back to his driving.

  Stretching before him, twisting between the rocky hills, was a road of sorts. It was not paved, and the surface had not been repaired recently, but the grade averaged downhill, and the tortoise was able to maintain a respectable speed. He continued down it, not because he fancied it, but because it was the only road which led out of surroundings obviously unsuited to his needs.

  The road was untraveled. This suited him; he had no wish to encounter other human beings until he had located desirable land to settle on and had staked out his claim. But the hills were not devoid of life; several times he caught glimpses of little dark shapes scurrying among the rocks, and occasionally beady eyes stared at him.

  It did not occur to him at first that these timid little animals, streaking for cover at his coming, could replenish his larder—he was simply amused and warmed by their presence. When he did happen to consider that they might be used as food, the thought was at first repugnant to him—the practice of killing for “sport” had ceased to be customary long before his time; and inasmuch as the development of cheap synthetic proteins in the latter half of the preceding century had spelled the economic ruin of the business of breeding animals for slaughter, it is doubtful if he had ever tasted animal tissue in his life.

  But once considered, it was logical to act. He expected to live off the country; although he had plenty of food on hand for the immediate future, it would be wise to conserve it by using what the country offered. He suppressed his aesthetic distaste and ethical misgivings, and determined to shoot an animal at the first opportunity.

  Accordingly, he dug out the rifle, loaded it, and placed it handy. With the usual perversity of the world as it is, no game was evident for the next half-hour. He was passing a little shoulder of rocky outcropping when he saw his prey. It peeked at him from behind a small boulder, its sober eyes wary but unperturbed. He stopped the tortoise and took careful aim, resting and steadying the rifle on the side of the cockpit. His quarry accommodated him by hopping out into full view.

  He pulled the trigger, involuntarily tensing his muscles and squinting his eyes as he did so. Naturally, the shot went high and to the right.

  But he was much too busy just then to be aware of it. It seemed that the whole world had exploded. His right shoulder was numb, his mouth stung as if he had been kicked there, and his ears rang in a strange and unpleasant fashion. He was surprised to find the gun still intact in his hands and none the worse for the incident.

  He put it down, clambered out of the car, and rushed up to where the small creature had been. There was no sign of it anywhere. He searched the immediate neighborhood but did not find it. Mystified, he returned to his conveyance, having decided that the rifle was defective.

  His recent target watched his actions cautiously from a vantage point many yards away, to which it had stampeded at the sound of the explosion. It was equally mystified by the startling events, being no more used to firearms than MacKinnon.

  Before he started the tortoise again, MacKinnon had to see to his upper lip, which was swollen and tender, and bleeding from a deep scratch. This increased his conviction that the gun was defective. Nowhere in the romantic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to which he was addicted, had there been a warning that, when firing a gun heavy enough to drop a man in his tracks, it is well not to hold the right hand in such a manner that the recoil will cause the right thumb and thumbnail to strike the mouth.

  He applied an antiseptic and a dressing of sor
ts and went on his way, somewhat subdued. The little arroyo by which he had entered the hills had widened out, and the hills were greener. He passed around one particularly sharp turn in the road and found a broad, fertile valley spread out before him.

  Much of the valley floor was cultivated, and he could make out human habitations. He continued toward it with mixed feelings. People meant fewer hardships, but it did not look as if staking out a claim would be as simple as he had hoped. However, Coventry was a big place.

  He had reached the point where the road gave on to the floor of the valley when two men stepped out into his path. They were carrying weapons of some sort at the ready. One of them called out to him:

  “Halt!”

  MacKinnon did so, and answered him as they came abreast. “What do you want?”

  “Customs inspection. Pull over there by the office.” He indicated a small building set back a few feet from the road, which MacKinnon had not previously noticed. He looked from it back to the spokesman and felt a slow, unreasoning heat spread up from his viscera, rendering his none-too-stable judgment still more unsound.