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62139_J05FWZR6_1 | 62139_J05FWZR6_1_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
CAPTAIN CHAOS
By NELSON S. BOND
The Callisto-bound
Leo
needed
a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced
Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos.
We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean
Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with
acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we
were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since
we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back.
So we laid the
Leo
down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled
our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me,
"Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!"
"Aye, sir!" I said, and went.
Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful
of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were
at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted
to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for
nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you
don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as
difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp.
I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no
dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two
of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting
desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian
colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate
a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a
loud silence.
So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I
can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite."
The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But
we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!"
"In a pinch," I told him, "
I
might be able to boil a few pies, or
scramble us a steak or something, Skipper."
"Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed
regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but
when you're running the blockade—"
He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue.
I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our
orders?"
The Old Man nodded soberly.
"Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon
as the
Leo
lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours
after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago.
"We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any
spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is
Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence
Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is
reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting
will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation.
"If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have
been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter,
capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor
and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans."
I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end
this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar
family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness."
"If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We
can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top
physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must
find a cook, or—"
"The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant
voice, "is over. Where's the galley?"
I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little
figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two
in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's
uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness
was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in
his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned
at us impatiently.
"Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?"
The Old Man stared.
"W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?"
"I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came
here to be your new cook."
O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?"
"Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney."
The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said,
"you don't look like much of a cook to
me
."
But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which
makes it even," he retorted. "
You
don't look like much of a skipper
to
me
. Do I get the job, or don't I?"
The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward
hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because
the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little
fellow, "are a cook?"
"One of the best!" he claimed complacently.
"You're willing to sign for a blind journey?"
"Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?"
"And you have your space certificate?"
"I—" began the youngster.
"Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last.
"Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much
of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—"
I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over
trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man
can
cook—"
The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps
you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's
on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an
hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs
immediately—
Slops!
What are you doing at that table?"
For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes
gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the
skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly.
"Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice.
"Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance
blockade, Captain?"
"None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous
outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—"
"If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd
try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing,
their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in
through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover."
"
Mr. Dugan!
"
The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard.
I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?"
"Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm
an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll
come down to the galley for it!"
A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and
followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined
cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave
he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just
trying to help."
"You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him
sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever
lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook."
"But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I
know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course
is
by
way of Iris."
Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens?
He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the
little squirt off, but definitely.
"Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now
you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose
you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the
ship—Captain Slops!"
And I left, banging the door behind me hard.
So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called
up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were
scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know
spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all
the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the
Leo's
complement
was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop.
John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a
hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with
one of the Alliance ships, hey?"
Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of
macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we
do
meet up with 'em, that's whut I
does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders,
that's whut I didn't!"
And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but
the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused
paws were mutely eloquent.
Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new
Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely
had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful
call rose from the galley:
"Soup's on! Come and get it!"
Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he
had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in
space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals
I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things
and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities
of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably
dee-luscious!
Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the
Leo
had enjoyed in
a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from
the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle.
He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little
fellow came bustling in apprehensively.
"Was everything all right, sir?" he asked.
"Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect!
Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find
everything O.Q. in the galley?"
"Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted
from one foot to another.
"Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine
order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir."
"So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right
away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a
tip-top chef, what?"
The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully.
"But it's such a
little
thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with
it."
"No trouble at all. Just say the word."
"Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in
the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned,
inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down
two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it."
The skipper's brow creased.
"I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything
about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we
don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do."
"Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly,
"but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we
do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom.
If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an
incinerator."
I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against
regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be
placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions
of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy
ordnance.'"
Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said
discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with
roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if
I have no incinerator—"
The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque.
He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was
anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian
marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said:
"We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that
rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought
to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops
wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging
up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say
all
the fixings, Slops?"
Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer
glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on
the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was
it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk
when he said:
"Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as
the new incinerator is installed."
So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged
the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I
found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and
thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique
reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge.
I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I
said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little
piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh,
h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape.
Looks O.Q., eh?"
"If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must
be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy."
"But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of
garbage."
"Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I
warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up
the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop."
"Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir."
I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me
of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker.
"Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid
at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered,
by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young
prospector—"
Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this
marsh-duck stuffed."
"Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The
old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong
compartment—'"
"If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm
awfully busy. I don't have any time for—"
"The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then
answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'"
"I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered
something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to
hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very
pink and flustered.
So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack
a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it
was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a
decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret.
All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day
out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from
the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no
such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the
Leo
, even though
she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled
along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least
ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around
Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block
began.
That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches.
Captain Slops was responsible for both.
For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist.
It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut
loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels
who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a
boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was
"Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish!
But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command
and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy.
When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we
could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and
refused.
"Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds!
I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party
to it. Worms—Ugh!"
"Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And
ugh!
to you,
too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad
dreams and goose-flesh!"
Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish
about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever
against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong.
He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from
ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room
practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the
cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not
only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next
nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which
before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the
title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops."
I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows
he created enough of it!
"It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and
over again.
"O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full
of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you
usually are. But I'm in command of the
Leo
, and you ain't. Now, run
along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad."
So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out
of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember
that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with
Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar
theme.
"I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in
with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple
syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much
afraid this is our last chance to change course—"
"And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son.
Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way
of Iris. Mmmm! Good!"
"Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is
extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?"
"Keep your pants on, Slops!"
"Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?"
"I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions.
There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up
with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them!
"Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we
do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear
sailing all the way to Callisto."
"But—but if there should be more than one, sir?"
"Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?"
"Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich
ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another,
because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will
favor a concentration of raiders."
The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated
pancake.
"Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in
the Belt, Captain."
"I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about
the ekalastron deposits?"
"Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—"
"Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged
lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible
answer! If you'd told me
that
instead of just yipping and yapping
about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it
is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the
most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!"
He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant
Wainwright on the bridge.
"Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through
the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—"
What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished
that sentence. At that moment the
Leo
rattled like a Model AA
spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk
on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was
unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had
been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor
beam!
What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and
Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew
their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the
Leo
had
been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the
repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had
hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came
a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge,
sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern
and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous
groooom!
from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a
plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself....
Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of
sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The
voice of the Alliance commander.
"Ahoy the
Leo
! Calling the captain of the
Leo
!"
O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of
the
Leo
answering. What do you want?"
"Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist.
You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in
our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your
immediate destruction!"
From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with
'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the
Leo
angry
voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a
heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense
moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening.
"It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I
can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He
faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good,
sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!"
The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the
Leo
.
It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway
like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech.
"You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're
going to do?"
The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance
would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more
impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively.
"Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but
surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is
always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission
to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands."
"But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what
will they do with us?"
"A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta."
"And the
Leo
?"
"Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in
command."
"That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're
marked with the Federation tricolor!"
A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered
it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me
the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been
right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our
cost; now he was right on this other score.
The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us,
it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the
Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to
greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the
enemy...."
I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the
fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late.
Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we
now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open,
and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.
Question and Possible Answers:
What is the most likely meaning of the slang O.Q.? (in twentieth-century American English)
(A) cool
(B) no worries
(C) my bad
(D) O.K./OK
Answer:
| D | 195 | 27,077 | 27,079 | 27,252 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
52855_MV65I88C_9 | 52855_MV65I88C_9_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
THE STAR-SENT KNAVES
BY KEITH LAUMER
Illustrated by Gaughan
When the Great Galactic Union first encounters
Earth ... is this what is going to happen?
I
Clyde W. Snithian was a bald eagle of a man, dark-eyed, pot-bellied,
with the large, expressive hands of a rug merchant. Round-shouldered
in a loose cloak, he blinked small reddish eyes at Dan Slane's
travel-stained six foot one.
"Kelly here tells me you've been demanding to see me." He nodded toward
the florid man at his side. He had a high, thin voice, like something
that needed oiling. "Something about important information regarding
safeguarding my paintings."
"That's right, Mr. Snithian," Dan said. "I believe I can be of great
help to you."
"Help how? If you've got ideas of bilking me...." The red eyes bored
into Dan like hot pokers.
"Nothing like that, sir. Now, I know you have quite a system of guards
here—the papers are full of it—"
"Damned busybodies! Sensation-mongers! If it wasn't for the press,
I'd have no concern for my paintings today!"
"Yes sir. But my point is, the one really important spot has been left
unguarded."
"Now, wait a minute—" Kelly started.
"What's that?" Snithian cut in.
"You have a hundred and fifty men guarding the house and grounds day
and night—"
"Two hundred and twenty-five," Kelly snapped.
"—but no one at all in the vault with the paintings," Slane finished.
"Of course not," Snithian shrilled. "Why should I post a man in the
vault? It's under constant surveillance from the corridor outside."
"The Harriman paintings were removed from a locked vault," Dan said.
"There was a special seal on the door. It wasn't broken."
"By the saints, he's right," Kelly exclaimed. "Maybe we ought to have a
man in that vault."
"Another idiotic scheme to waste my money," Snithian snapped. "I've
made you responsible for security here, Kelly! Let's have no more
nonsense. And throw this nincompoop out!" Snithian turned and stalked
away, his cloak flapping at his knees.
"I'll work cheap," Dan called after him as Kelly took his arm. "I'm an
art lover."
"Never mind that," Kelly said, escorting Dan along the corridor. He
turned in at an office and closed the door.
"Now, as the old buzzard said, I'm responsible for security here. If
those pictures go, my job goes with them. Your vault idea's not bad.
Just how cheap would you work?"
"A hundred dollars a week," Dan said promptly. "Plus expenses," he
added.
Kelly nodded. "I'll fingerprint you and run a fast agency check. If
you're clean, I'll put you on, starting tonight. But keep it quiet."
Dan looked around at the gray walls, with shelves stacked to the low
ceiling with wrapped paintings. Two three-hundred-watt bulbs shed a
white glare over the tile floor, a neat white refrigerator, a bunk,
an arm-chair, a bookshelf and a small table set with paper plates,
plastic utensils and a portable radio—all hastily installed at Kelly's
order. Dan opened the refrigerator, looked over the stock of salami,
liverwurst, cheese and beer. He opened a loaf of bread, built up a
well-filled sandwich, keyed open a can of beer.
It wasn't fancy, but it would do. Phase one of the plan had gone off
without a hitch.
Basically, his idea was simple. Art collections had been disappearing
from closely guarded galleries and homes all over the world. It was
obvious that no one could enter a locked vault, remove a stack of large
canvases and leave, unnoticed by watchful guards—and leaving the locks
undamaged.
Yet the paintings were gone. Someone had been in those vaults—someone
who hadn't entered in the usual way.
Theory failed at that point; that left the experimental method. The
Snithian collection was the largest west of the Mississippi. With
such a target, the thieves were bound to show up. If Dan sat in the
vault—day and night—waiting—he would see for himself how they
operated.
He finished his sandwich, went to the shelves and pulled down one of
the brown-paper bundles. Loosening the string binding the package, he
slid a painting into view. It was a gaily colored view of an open-air
cafe, with a group of men and women in gay-ninetyish costumes gathered
at a table. He seemed to remember reading something about it in a
magazine. It was a cheerful scene; Dan liked it. Still, it hardly
seemed worth all the effort....
He went to the wall switch and turned off the lights. The orange glow
of the filaments died, leaving only a faint illumination from the
night-light over the door. When the thieves arrived, it might give him
a momentary advantage if his eyes were adjusted to the dark. He groped
his way to the bunk.
So far, so good, he reflected, stretching out. When they showed up,
he'd have to handle everything just right. If he scared them off
there'd be no second chance. He would have lost his crack at—whatever
his discovery might mean to him.
But he was ready. Let them come.
Eight hours, three sandwiches and six beers later, Dan roused suddenly
from a light doze and sat up on the cot. Between him and the crowded
shelving, a palely luminous framework was materializing in mid-air.
The apparition was an open-work cage—about the size and shape of an
out-house minus the sheathing, Dan estimated breathlessly. Two figures
were visible within the structure, sitting stiffly in contoured chairs.
They glowed, if anything, more brightly than the framework.
A faint sound cut into the stillness—a descending whine. The cage
moved jerkily, settling toward the floor. Long blue sparks jumped,
crackling, to span the closing gap; with a grate of metal, the cage
settled against the floor. The spectral men reached for ghostly
switches....
The glow died.
Dan was aware of his heart thumping painfully under his ribs. His mouth
was dry. This was the moment he'd been planning for, but now that it
was here—
Never mind. He took a deep breath, ran over the speeches he had
prepared for the occasion:
Greeting, visitors from the Future....
Hopelessly corny. What about:
Welcome to the Twentieth Century....
No good; it lacked spontaneity. The men were rising, their backs to
Dan, stepping out of the skeletal frame. In the dim light it now
looked like nothing more than a rough frame built of steel pipe, with
a cluster of levers in a console before the two seats. And the thieves
looked ordinary enough: Two men in gray coveralls, one slender and
balding, the other shorter and round-faced. Neither of them noticed
Dan, sitting rigid on the cot. The thin man placed a lantern on the
table, twiddled a knob. A warm light sprang up. The visitors looked at
the stacked shelves.
"Looks like the old boy's been doing all right," the shorter man said.
"Fathead's gonna be pleased."
"A very gratifying consignment," his companion said. "However, we'd
best hurry, Manny. How much time have we left on this charge?"
"Plenty. Fifteen minutes anyway."
The thin man opened a package, glanced at a painting.
"Ah, magnificent. Almost the equal of Picasso in his puce period."
Manny shuffled through the other pictures in the stack.
"Like always," he grumbled. "No nood dames. I like nood dames."
"Look at this, Manny! The textures alone—"
Manny looked. "Yeah, nice use of values," he conceded. "But I still
prefer nood dames, Fiorello."
"And this!" Fiorello lifted the next painting. "Look at that gay play
of rich browns!"
"I seen richer browns on Thirty-third Street," Manny said. "They was
popular with the sparrows."
"Manny, sometimes I think your aspirations—"
"Whatta ya talkin? I use a roll-on." Manny, turning to place a painting
in the cage, stopped dead as he caught sight of Dan. The painting
clattered to the floor. Dan stood, cleared his throat. "Uh...."
"Oh-oh," Manny said. "A double-cross."
"I've—ah—been expecting you gentlemen," Dan said. "I—"
"I told you we couldn't trust no guy with nine fingers on each hand,"
Manny whispered hoarsely. He moved toward the cage. "Let's blow,
Fiorello."
"Wait a minute," Dan said. "Before you do anything hasty—"
"Don't start nothing, Buster," Manny said cautiously. "We're plenty
tough guys when aroused."
"I want to talk to you," Dan insisted. "You see, these paintings—"
"Paintings? Look, it was all a mistake. Like, we figured this was the
gent's room—"
"Never mind, Manny," Fiorello cut in. "It appears there's been a leak."
Dan shook his head. "No leak. I simply deduced—"
"Look, Fiorello," Manny said. "You chin if you want to; I'm doing a
fast fade."
"Don't act hastily, Manny. You know where you'll end."
"Wait a minute!" Dan shouted. "I'd like to make a deal with you
fellows."
"Ah-hah!" Kelly's voice blared from somewhere. "I knew it! Slane, you
crook!"
Dan looked about wildly. The voice seemed to be issuing from a speaker.
It appeared Kelly hedged his bets.
"Mr. Kelly, I can explain everything!" Dan called. He turned back to
Fiorello. "Listen, I figured out—"
"Pretty clever!" Kelly's voice barked. "Inside job. But it takes more
than the likes of you to out-fox an old-timer like Eddie Kelly."
"Perhaps you were right, Manny," Fiorello said. "Complications are
arising. We'd best depart with all deliberate haste." He edged toward
the cage.
"What about this ginzo?" Manny jerked a thumb toward Dan. "He's on to
us."
"Can't be helped."
"Look—I want to go with you!" Dan shouted.
"I'll bet you do!" Kelly's voice roared. "One more minute and I'll have
the door open and collar the lot of you! Came up through a tunnel, did
you?"
"You can't go, my dear fellow," Fiorello said. "Room for two, no more."
Dan whirled to the cot, grabbed up the pistol Kelly had supplied. He
aimed it at Manny. "You stay here, Manny! I'm going with Fiorello in
the time machine."
"Are you nuts?" Manny demanded.
"I'm flattered, dear boy," Fiorello said, "but—"
"Let's get moving. Kelly will have that lock open in a minute."
"You can't leave me here!" Manny spluttered, watching Dan crowd into
the cage beside Fiorello.
"We'll send for you," Dan said. "Let's go, Fiorello."
The balding man snatched suddenly for the gun. Dan wrestled with him.
The pistol fell, bounced on the floor of the cage, skidded into the
far corner of the vault. Manny charged, reaching for Dan as he twisted
aside; Fiorello's elbow caught him in the mouth. Manny staggered back
into the arms of Kelly, bursting red-faced into the vault.
"Manny!" Fiorello released his grip on Dan, lunged to aid his
companion. Kelly passed Manny to one of three cops crowding in on his
heels. Dan clung to the framework as Fiorello grappled with Kelly. A
cop pushed past them, spotted Dan, moved in briskly for the pinch. Dan
grabbed a lever at random and pulled.
Sudden silence fell as the walls of the room glowed blue. A spectral
Kelly capered before the cage, fluorescing in the blue-violet. Dan
swallowed hard and nudged a second lever. The cage sank like an
elevator into the floor, vivid blue washing up its sides.
Hastily he reversed the control. Operating a time machine was tricky
business. One little slip, and the Slane molecules would be squeezing
in among brick and mortar particles....
But this was no time to be cautious. Things hadn't turned out just the
way he'd planned, but after all, this was what he'd wanted—in a way.
The time machine was his to command. And if he gave up now and crawled
back into the vault, Kelly would gather him in and pin every art theft
of the past decade on him.
It couldn't be
too
hard. He'd take it slowly, figure out the
controls....
Dan took a deep breath and tried another lever. The cage rose gently,
in eerie silence. It reached the ceiling and kept going. Dan gritted
his teeth as an eight-inch band of luminescence passed down the cage.
Then he was emerging into a spacious kitchen. A blue-haloed cook
waddled to a luminous refrigerator, caught sight of Dan rising slowly
from the floor, stumbled back, mouth open. The cage rose, penetrated a
second ceiling. Dan looked around at a carpeted hall.
Cautiously he neutralized the control lever. The cage came to rest an
inch above the floor. As far as Dan could tell, he hadn't traveled so
much as a minute into the past or future.
He looked over the controls. There should be one labeled "Forward"
and another labeled "Back", but all the levers were plain, unadorned
black. They looked, Dan decided, like ordinary circuit-breaker type
knife-switches. In fact, the whole apparatus had the appearance of
something thrown together hastily from common materials. Still, it
worked. So far he had only found the controls for maneuvering in the
usual three dimensions, but the time switch was bound to be here
somewhere....
Dan looked up at a movement at the far end of the hall.
A girl's head and shoulders appeared, coming up a spiral staircase. In
another second she would see him, and give the alarm—and Dan needed
a few moments of peace and quiet in which to figure out the controls.
He moved a lever. The cage drifted smoothly sideways, sliced through
the wall with a flurry of vivid blue light. Dan pushed the lever
back. He was in a bedroom now, a wide chamber with flouncy curtains, a
four-poster under a flowered canopy, a dressing table—
The door opened and the girl stepped into the room. She was young. Not
over eighteen, Dan thought—as nearly as he could tell with the blue
light playing around her face. She had long hair tied with a ribbon,
and long legs, neatly curved. She wore shorts and carried a tennis
racquet in her left hand and an apple in her right. Her back to Dan and
the cage, she tossed the racquet on a table, took a bite of the apple,
and began briskly unbuttoning her shirt.
Dan tried moving a lever. The cage edged toward the girl. Another;
he rose gently. The girl tossed the shirt onto a chair and undid the
zipper down the side of the shorts. Another lever; the cage shot toward
the outer wall as the girl reached behind her back....
Dan blinked at the flash of blue and looked down. He was hovering
twenty feet above a clipped lawn.
He looked at the levers. Wasn't it the first one in line that moved the
cage ahead? He tried it, shot forward ten feet. Below, a man stepped
out on the terrace, lit a cigarette, paused, started to turn his face
up—
Dan jabbed at a lever. The cage shot back through the wall. He was in a
plain room with a depression in the floor, a wide window with a planter
filled with glowing blue plants—
The door opened. Even blue, the girl looked graceful as a deer as she
took a last bite of the apple and stepped into the ten-foot-square
sunken tub. Dan held his breath. The girl tossed the apple core aside,
seemed to suddenly become aware of eyes on her, whirled—
With a sudden lurch that threw Dan against the steel bars, the
cage shot through the wall into the open air and hurtled off with
an acceleration that kept him pinned, helpless. He groped for the
controls, hauled at a lever. There was no change. The cage rushed
on, rising higher. In the distance, Dan saw the skyline of a town,
approaching with frightful speed. A tall office building reared up
fifteen stories high. He was headed dead for it—
He covered his ears, braced himself—
With an abruptness that flung him against the opposite side of the
cage, the machine braked, shot through the wall and slammed to a stop.
Dan sank to the floor of the cage, breathing hard. There was a loud
click!
and the glow faded.
With a lunge, Dan scrambled out of the cage. He stood looking around at
a simple brown-painted office, dimly lit by sunlight filtered through
elaborate venetian blinds. There were posters on the wall, a potted
plant by the door, a heap of framed paintings beside it, and at the far
side of the room a desk. And behind the desk—Something.
II
Dan gaped at a head the size of a beachball, mounted on a torso like a
hundred-gallon bag of water. Two large brown eyes blinked at him from
points eight inches apart. Immense hands with too many fingers unfolded
and reached to open a brown paper carton, dip in, then toss three
peanuts, deliberately, one by one, into a gaping mouth that opened just
above the brown eyes.
"Who're you?" a bass voice demanded from somewhere near the floor.
"I'm ... I'm ... Dan Slane ... your honor."
"What happened to Manny and Fiorello?"
"They—I—There was this cop. Kelly—"
"Oh-oh." The brown eyes blinked deliberately. The many-fingered hands
closed the peanut carton and tucked it into a drawer.
"Well, it was a sweet racket while it lasted," the basso voice said. "A
pity to terminate so happy an enterprise. Still...." A noise like an
amplified Bronx cheer issued from the wide mouth.
"How ... what...?"
"The carrier returns here automatically when the charge drops below a
critical value," the voice said. "A necessary measure to discourage
big ideas on the part of wisenheimers in my employ. May I ask how you
happen to be aboard the carrier, by the way?"
"I just wanted—I mean, after I figured out—that is, the police ... I
went for help," Dan finished lamely.
"Help? Out of the picture, unfortunately. One must maintain one's
anonymity, you'll appreciate. My operation here is under wraps at
present. Ah, I don't suppose you brought any paintings?"
Dan shook his head. He was staring at the posters. His eyes,
accustoming themselves to the gloom of the office, could now make out
the vividly drawn outline of a creature resembling an alligator-headed
giraffe rearing up above scarlet foliage. The next poster showed a face
similar to the beachball behind the desk, with red circles painted
around the eyes. The next was a view of a yellow volcano spouting fire
into a black sky.
"Too bad." The words seemed to come from under the desk. Dan squinted,
caught a glimpse of coiled purplish tentacles. He gulped and looked up
to catch a brown eye upon him. Only one. The other seemed to be busily
at work studying the ceiling.
"I hope," the voice said, "that you ain't harboring no reactionary
racial prejudices."
"Gosh, no," Dan reassured the eye. "I'm crazy about—uh—"
"Vorplischers," the voice said. "From Vorplisch, or Vega, as you call
it." The Bronx cheer sounded again. "How I long to glimpse once more my
native fens! Wherever one wanders, there's no pad like home."
"That reminds me," Dan said. "I have to be running along now." He
sidled toward the door.
"Stick around, Dan," the voice rumbled. "How about a drink? I can
offer you Chateau Neuf du Pape, '59, Romance Conte, '32, goat's milk,
Pepsi—"
"No, thanks."
"If you don't mind, I believe I'll have a Big Orange." The Vorplischer
swiveled to a small refrigerator, removed an immense bottle fitted with
a nipple and turned back to Dan. "Now, I got a proposition which may be
of some interest to you. The loss of Manny and Fiorello is a serious
blow, but we may yet recoup the situation. You made the scene at a most
opportune time. What I got in mind is, with those two clowns out of the
picture, a vacancy exists on my staff, which you might well fill. How
does that grab you?"
"You mean you want me to take over operating the time machine?"
"Time machine?" The brown eyes blinked alternately. "I fear some
confusion exists. I don't quite dig the significance of the term."
"That thing," Dan jabbed a thumb toward the cage. "The machine I came
here in. You want me—"
"Time machine," the voice repeated. "Some sort of chronometer, perhaps?"
"Huh?"
"I pride myself on my command of the local idiom, yet I confess the
implied concept snows me." The nine-fingered hands folded on the desk.
The beachball head leaned forward interestedly. "Clue me, Dan. What's a
time machine?"
"Well, it's what you use to travel through time."
The brown eyes blinked in agitated alternation. "Apparently I've loused
up my investigation of the local cultural background. I had no idea
you were capable of that sort of thing." The immense head leaned back,
the wide mouth opening and closing rapidly. "And to think I've been
spinning my wheels collecting primitive 2-D art!"
"But—don't you have a time machine? I mean, isn't that one?"
"That? That's merely a carrier. Now tell me more about your time
machines. A fascinating concept! My superiors will be delighted at
this development—and astonished as well. They regard this planet as
Endsville."
"Your superiors?" Dan eyed the window; much too far to jump. Maybe he
could reach the machine and try a getaway—
"I hope you're not thinking of leaving suddenly," the beachball said,
following Dan's glance. One of the eighteen fingers touched a six-inch
yellow cylinder lying on the desk. "Until the carrier is fueled, I'm
afraid it's quite useless. But, to put you in the picture, I'd best
introduce myself and explain my mission here. I'm Blote, Trader Fourth
Class, in the employ of the Vegan Confederation. My job is to develop
new sources of novelty items for the impulse-emporiums of the entire
Secondary Quadrant."
"But the way Manny and Fiorello came sailing in through the wall! That
has
to be a time machine they were riding in. Nothing else could just
materialize out of thin air like that."
"You seem to have a time-machine fixation, Dan," Blote said. "You
shouldn't assume, just because you people have developed time travel,
that everyone has. Now—" Blote's voice sank to a bass whisper—"I'll
make a deal with you, Dan. You'll secure a small time machine in good
condition for me. And in return—"
"
I'm
supposed to supply
you
with a time machine?"
Blote waggled a stubby forefinger at Dan. "I dislike pointing it out,
Dan, but you are in a rather awkward position at the moment. Illegal
entry, illegal possession of property, trespass—then doubtless some
embarrassment exists back at the Snithian residence. I daresay Mr.
Kelly would have a warm welcome for you. And, of course, I myself would
deal rather harshly with any attempt on your part to take a powder."
The Vegan flexed all eighteen fingers, drummed his tentacles under the
desk, and rolled one eye, bugging the other at Dan.
"Whereas, on the other hand," Blote's bass voice went on, "you and me
got the basis of a sweet deal. You supply the machine, and I fix you up
with an abundance of the local medium of exchange. Equitable enough, I
should say. What about it, Dan?"
"Ah, let me see," Dan temporized. "Time machine. Time machine—"
"Don't attempt to weasel on me, Dan," Blote rumbled ominously.
"I'd better look in the phone book," Dan suggested.
Silently, Blote produced a dog-eared directory. Dan opened it.
"Time, time. Let's see...." He brightened. "Time, Incorporated; local
branch office. Two twenty-one Maple Street."
"A sales center?" Blote inquired. "Or a manufacturing complex?"
"Both," Dan said. "I'll just nip over and—"
"That won't be necessary, Dan," Blote said. "I'll accompany you." He
took the directory, studied it.
"Remarkable! A common commodity, openly on sale, and I failed to notice
it. Still, a ripe nut can fall from a small tree as well as from a
large." He went to his desk, rummaged, came up with a handful of fuel
cells. "Now, off to gather in the time machine." He took his place in
the carrier, patted the seat beside him with a wide hand. "Come, Dan.
Get a wiggle on."
Hesitantly, Dan moved to the carrier. The bluff was all right up to a
point—but the point had just about been reached. He took his seat.
Blote moved a lever. The familiar blue glow sprang up. "Kindly direct
me, Dan," Blote demanded. "Two twenty-one Maple Street, I believe you
said."
"I don't know the town very well," Dan said, "but Maple's over that
way."
Blote worked levers. The carrier shot out into a ghostly afternoon sky.
Faint outlines of buildings, like faded negatives, spread below. Dan
looked around, spotted lettering on a square five-story structure.
"Over there," he said. Blote directed the machine as it swooped
smoothly toward the flat roof Dan indicated.
"Better let me take over now," Dan suggested. "I want to be sure to
get us to the right place."
"Very well, Dan."
Dan dropped the carrier through the roof, passed down through a dimly
seen office. Blote twiddled a small knob. The scene around the cage
grew even fainter. "Best we remain unnoticed," he explained.
The cage descended steadily. Dan peered out, searching for identifying
landmarks. He leveled off at the second floor, cruised along a barely
visible corridor. Blote's eyes rolled, studying the small chambers
along both sides of the passage at once.
"Ah, this must be the assembly area," he exclaimed. "I see the machines
employ a bar-type construction, not unlike our carriers."
"That's right," Dan said, staring through the haziness. "This is where
they do time...." He tugged at a lever suddenly; the machine veered
left, flickered through a barred door, came to a halt. Two nebulous
figures loomed beside the cage. Dan cut the switch. If he'd guessed
wrong—
The scene fluoresced, sparks crackling, then popped into sharp focus.
Blote scrambled out, brown eyes swivelling to take in the concrete
walls, the barred door and—
"You!" a hoarse voice bellowed.
"Grab him!" someone yelled.
Blote recoiled, threshing his ambulatory members in a fruitless attempt
to regain the carrier as Manny and Fiorello closed in. Dan hauled at a
lever. He caught a last glimpse of three struggling, blue-lit figures
as the carrier shot away through the cell wall.
III
Dan slumped back against the seat with a sigh. Now that he was in the
clear, he would have to decide on his next move—fast. There was no
telling what other resources Blote might have. He would have to hide
the carrier, then—
A low growling was coming from somewhere, rising in pitch and volume.
Dan sat up, alarmed. This was no time for a malfunction.
The sound rose higher, into a penetrating wail. There was no sign of
mechanical trouble. The carrier glided on, swooping now over a nebulous
landscape of trees and houses. Dan covered his ears against the
deafening shriek, like all the police sirens in town blaring at once.
If the carrier stopped it would be a long fall from here. Dan worked
the controls, dropping toward the distant earth.
The noise seemed to lessen, descending the scale. Dan slowed, brought
the carrier in to the corner of a wide park. He dropped the last few
inches and cut the switch.
As the glow died, the siren faded into silence.
Dan stepped from the carrier and looked around. Whatever the noise
was, it hadn't attracted any attention from the scattered pedestrians
in the park. Perhaps it was some sort of burglar alarm. But if so, why
hadn't it gone into action earlier? Dan took a deep breath. Sound or no
sound, he would have to get back into the carrier and transfer it to a
secluded spot where he could study it at leisure. He stepped back in,
reached for the controls—
There was a sudden chill in the air. The bright surface of the dials
before him frosted over. There was a loud
pop!
like a flashbulb
exploding. Dan stared from the seat at an iridescent rectangle
which hung suspended near the carrier. Its surface rippled, faded
to blankness. In a swirl of frosty air, a tall figure dressed in a
tight-fitting white uniform stepped through.
Dan gaped at the small rounded head, the dark-skinned long-nosed face,
the long, muscular arms, the hands, their backs tufted with curly
red-brown hair, the strange long-heeled feet in soft boots. A neat
pillbox cap with a short visor was strapped low over the deep-set
yellowish eyes, which turned in his direction. The wide mouth opened in
a smile which showed square yellowish teeth.
"
Alors, monsieur
," the new-comer said, bending his knees and back in
a quick bow. "
Vous ete une indigine, n'est ce pas?
"
"No compree," Dan choked out "Uh ... juh no parlay Fransay...."
"My error. This is the Anglic colonial sector, isn't it? Stupid of me.
Permit me to introduce myself. I'm Dzhackoon, Field Agent of Class
five, Inter-dimensional Monitor Service."
"That siren," Dan said. "Was that you?"
Dzhackoon nodded. "For a moment, it appeared you were disinclined to
stop. I'm glad you decided to be reasonable."
"What outfit did you say you were with?" Dan asked.
"The Inter-dimensional Monitor Service."
"Inter-what?"
"Dimensional. The word is imprecise, of course, but it's the best our
language coder can do, using the Anglic vocabulary."
"What do you want with me?"
Question and Possible Answers:
What is the author's purpose in providing such detailed descriptions of Blote and Dzhackoon?
(A) To better familiarize the audience with the setting of the places Dan visited.
(B) To explain why Dan was so intrigued by these characters.
(C) To show that people in the future do not look as human as a character like Dan.
(D) To show that these characters are unlike the human ones on Earth.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 29,885 | 29,887 | 30,313 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
62085_C1SL2YBE_3 | 62085_C1SL2YBE_3_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Pied Piper of Mars
By FREDERIC ARNOLD KUMMER, Jr.
Elath Taen made mad music for the men of Mars.
The red planet lived and would die to the
soul-tearing tunes of his fiendish piping.
In all the solar system there is no city quite like Mercis, capital
of Mars. Solis, on Venus, is perhaps more beautiful, some cities of
Earth certainly have more drive and dynamitism, but there is a strange
inscrutable air about Mercis which even terrestials of twenty years'
residence cannot explain. Outwardly a tourists' mecca, with white
plastoid buildings, rich gardens, and whispering canals, it has another
and darker side, ever present, ever hidden. While earthmen work and
plan, building, repairing, bringing their vast energy and progress
to decadent Mars, the silent little reddies go their devious ways,
following ancient laws which no amount of terrestial logic can shake.
Time-bound ritual, mysterious passions and hates, torturous, devious
logic ... all these, like dark winding underground streams run beneath
the tall fair city that brings such thrilled superlatives to the lips
of the terrestial tourists.
Steve Ranson, mounting the steps of the old house facing the Han
canal, was in no mood for the bizarre beauties of Martian scenery. For
one thing, Mercis was an old story to him; his work with Terrestial
Intelligence had brought him here often in the past, on other strange
cases. And for another thing, his mission concerned more vital matters.
Jared Haller, as head of the state-owned Martian Broadcasting System,
was next in importance to the august Governor Winship himself. As
far back as the Hitlerian wars on earth it had been known that he
who controls propaganda, controls the nation ... or planet. Martian
Broadcasting was an important factor in controlling the fierce warlike
little reddies, keeping the terrestial-imposed peace on the red
planet. And when Jared Haller sent to Earth for one of the Terrestial
Intelligence, that silent efficient corps of trouble-shooters,
something was definitely up.
The house was provided with double doors as protection against the
sudden fierce sandstorms which so often, in the month of Tol, sweep
in from the plains of Psidis to engulf Mercis in a red choking haze.
Ranson passed the conventional electric eye and a polite robot voice
asked his name. He gave it, and the inner door opened.
A smiling little Martian butler met him in the hall, showed him into
Haller's study. The head of M.B.C. stood at one end of the big library,
the walls of which were lined with vivavox rolls and old-fashioned
books. As Ranson entered, he swung about, frowning, one hand dropping
to a pocket that bulged unmistakably.
"Ranson, Terrestial Intelligence." The special agent offered his card.
"You sent to Earth a while ago for an operator?"
Jared Haller nodded. He was a big, rough-featured individual with gray
leonine hair. A battering-ram of a man, one would think, who hammered
his way through life by sheer force and drive. But as Ranson looked
closer, he could see lines of worry, of fear, etched about the strong
mouth, and a species of terror within the shaggy-browed eyes.
"Yes," said Jared Haller. "I sent for an operator. You got here
quickly, Mr. Ranson!"
"Seven days out of earth on the express-liner
Arrow
." Ranson wondered
why Haller didn't come to the point. Even Terrestial Intelligence
headquarters in New York hadn't known why a T.I. man was wanted on
Mars ... but Haller was one of the few persons sufficiently important
to have an operator sent without explanation as to why he was wanted.
Ranson put it directly. "Why did you require the help of T.I., Mr.
Haller?" he asked.
"Because we're up against something a little too big for the Mercian
police force to handle." Jared Haller's strong hands tapped nervously
upon the desk. "No one has greater respect for our local authorities
than myself. Captain Maxwell is a personal friend of mine. But I
understood that T.I. men had the benefit of certain amazing devices,
remarkable inventions, which make it easy for them to track down
criminals."
Ranson nodded. That was true. T.I. didn't allow its secret devices
to be used by any other agency, for fear they might become known to
the criminals and outlaws of the solar system. But Haller still hadn't
told what crime had taken place. This time Ranson applied the spur of
silence. It worked.
"Mr. Ranson," Haller leaned forward, his face a gray grim mask,
"someone, something, is working to gain control of the Martian
Broadcasting Company! And I don't have to tell you that whoever
controls M.B.C. controls Mars! Here's the set-up! Our company, although
state owned, is largely free from red-tape, so long as we stress the
good work we terrestials are doing on Mars and keep any revolutionary
propaganda off the air-waves. Except for myself, and half a dozen other
earthmen in responsible positions, our staff is largely Martian.
That's in line with our policy of teaching Mars our civilization until
it's ready for autonomy. Which it isn't yet, by quite some. As you
know."
Ranson nodded, eyes intent as the pattern unfolded.
"All right." Haller snapped. "You see the situation. Remove us ... the
few terrestials at the top of M.B.C ... and Martian staff would carry
on until new men came out from Earth to take our places. But suppose
during that period with no check on their activities, they started
to dish out nationalist propaganda? One hour's program, with the old
Martian war-songs being played and some rabble-rouser yelling 'down
with the terrestial oppressors' and there'd be a revolution. Millions
of reddies against a few police, a couple of regiments of the Foreign
Legion. It'd be a cinch."
"But," ... Ranson frowned ... "this is only an interesting supposition.
The reddies are civilized, peaceful."
"Outwardly," Haller snapped. "But what do you or any other earthmen
know about what goes on in their round red heads? And the proof that
some revolt is planned lies in what's been happening the past few
weeks! Look here!" Haller bent forward, the lines about his mouth
tighter than ever. "Three weeks ago my technical advisor, Rawlins,
committed suicide. Not a care in the world, but he killed himself. A
week later Harris, head of the television department, went insane.
Declared a feud with the whole planet, began shooting at everyone he
saw. The police rayed him in the struggle. The following week Pegram,
the musical director, died of a heart attack. Died with the most
terrorized expression on his face I've ever seen. Fear, causing the
heart attack, his doctor said. You begin to see the set-up? Three men,
each a vital power in M.B.C. gone within three weeks! And who's next?
Who?" Jared Haller's eyes were bright with fear.
"Suicide, insanity, heart attack." Ranson shrugged. "All perfectly
normal. Coincidence that they should happen within three weeks. What
makes you think there's been foul play?"
For a long brittle moment Jared Haller stared out at the graceful white
city, wan in the light of the twin moons. When he turned to face
Ranson again, his eyes were bleak as a lunar plain.
"One thing," he said slowly. "The music."
"Music?" Ranson echoed. "Look here, Mr. Haller, you...."
"It's all right." Jared Haller grinned crookedly. "I'm not insane. Yet.
Look, Mr. Ranson! There's just one clue to these mysterious deaths!
And that's the music! In each instance the servants told of hearing,
very faintly, a strange melody. Music that did queer things to them,
even though they could hear it only vaguely. Music like none they'd
ever heard. Like the devil's pipes, playing on their souls, while....
Almighty God!"
Jared Haller froze, his face gray as lead, his eyes blue horror. Ranson
was like a man in a trance, bent forward, lips pressed tight until they
resembled a livid scar. The room was silent as a tomb; outside, they
could hear the vague rumbling of the city, with the distant swish of
canal boats, the staccato roar of rockets as some earth-bound freighter
leaped from the spaceport. Familiar, homey sounds, these, but beneath
them, like an undercurrent of madness, ran the macabre melody.
There was, there had never been, Ranson knew, any music like this.
It was the pipes of Pan, the chant of robots, the crying of souls in
torment. It was a cloudy purple haze that engulfed the mind, it was a
silver knife plucking a cruel obligato on taut nerves, it was a thin
dark snake writhing its endless coils into the room.
Neither man moved. Ranson knew all the tricks of visual hypnotism, the
whirling mirror, the waving hands, the pool of ink ... but this was
the hypnotism of sound. Louder and clearer the music sounded, in eerie
overtones, quavering sobbing minors, fierce reverberating bass. Sharp
shards of sound pierced their ears, deep throbbing underrhythm shook
them as a cat shakes a mouse.
"God!" Haller snarled. "What ... what is it?"
"Don't know." Ranson felt a queer irritation growing within him. He
strode stiffly to the window, peered out. In the darkness, the broad
Han canal lay placid; the stars caught in its jet meshes gently
drifted toward the bank, shattered on the white marble. Along the
embankment were great fragrant clumps of
fayeh
bushes. It was among
these, he decided, that their unknown serenader lay concealed.
Suddenly the elfin melody changed. Fierce, harsh, it rose, until Ranson
felt as though a file were rasping his nerves. He knew that he should
dash down, seize the invisible musician below ... but logic, facts and
duty, all were fading from his mind. The music was a spur, goading him
to wild unreasoning anger. The red mists of hate swirled through his
brain, a strange unreasoning bloodlust grew with the savage beat of the
wild music. Berserk rage sounded in each shivering note and Ranson felt
an insane desire to run amok. To inflict pain, to see red blood flow,
to kill ... kill! Blindly he whirled, groping for his gun, as the music
rose in a frenzied death-wail.
Turning, Ranson found himself face to face with Jared Haller. But the
tall flinty magnate was now another person. Primitive, atavistic rage
distorted his features, insane murder lurked in his eyes. The music was
his master, and it was driving him to frenzy. "Kill!" the weird rhythm
screamed, "Kill!" And Jared Haller obeyed. He snatched the flame-gun
from his pocket, levelled it at Ranson.
Whether it was the deadly melody outside, or the instinct of
self-preservation, Ranson never knew, but he drove at Haller with grim
fury. The flame-gun hissed, filling the room with a greenish glare, its
beam passing so close to Ranson's hair as to singe it. Ranson came up,
grinning furiously, and in a moment both men were struggling, teeth
bared in animalistic grins, breath coming in choked gasps, whirling
in a mad dance of death as the macabre music distilled deadly poison
within their brains.
The end came with startling suddenness. Ranson, twisting his opponent's
arm back, felt the searing blast of the flame-gun past his hand. Jared
Haller, a ghastly blackened corpse, toppled to the floor.
At that moment the lethal rhythm outside changed abruptly. From the
fierce maddening beat of a few minutes before, the chords took on a
yearning seductive tone. A call, it seemed, irresistible, soft, with
a thousand promises. This was the song the sirens sang to Ulysses,
the call of the Pied Piper, the chant of the houris in paradise. It
conjured up pictures in Ranson's mind ... pictures of fairyland, of
exquisitely beautiful scenes, of women lovely beyond imagination. All
of man's hopes, man's dreams, were in that music, and it drew Ranson as
a moth is drawn to a flame. The piping of Pan, the fragile fantasies of
childhood, the voices of those beyond life.... Ranson walked stiffly
toward the source of the music, like a man drugged.
As he approached the window the melody grew louder. The hypnotism of
sound, he knew, but he didn't care. It was enthralling, irresistible.
Like a sleepwalker he climbed to the sill, stood outlined in the tall
window. Twenty feet to the ground, almost certain death ... but Ranson
was lost in the golden world that the elfin melody conjured up. He
straightened his shoulders, was about to step out.
Then suddenly there was a roar of atomic motors, a flashing of lights.
A police boat, flinging up clouds of spray, swept up the canal,
stopped. Ranson shook himself, like a man awakening from a nightmare,
saw uniformed figures leaping to the bank. From the shadow of the
fayeh
bushes a slight form sprang, dodged along the embankment.
Flame-guns cut the gloom but the slight figure swung to the left,
disappeared among the twisting narrow streets. Bathed in cold sweat,
Ranson stepped back into the room, where the still, terrible form of
Jared Haller lay. Ranson stared at it, as though seeing it for the
first time. Outside, there were pounding feet; the canal-patrolmen
raced through the house, toward the study. And then, his brain weary as
if it had been cudgelled, Ranson slid limply to the floor.
Headquarters of the Martian Canal-Patrol was brilliantly lighted by a
dozen big
astralux
arcs. Captain Maxwell chewed at his gray mustache,
staring curiously at Ranson.
"Then you admit killing Haller?" he demanded.
"Yes." Ranson nodded sombrely. "In the struggle. Self-defense. But even
if it hadn't been self-defense, I probably would have fought with him.
That music was madness, I tell you! Madness! Nobody's responsible when
under its influence! I...."
"You killed Haller," Captain Maxwell said. "And you blame it on this
alleged music. I might believe you, Ranson, but how many other people
would? Even members of Terrestial Intelligence aren't sacro sanct. I'll
have to hold you for trial."
"Hold me for trial?" Ranson leaned forward, his gaunt face intent.
"While the real killer, the person playing that music, gets away? Look!
Let me out of here for twelve hours! That's all I ask! And if I don't
track down whoever was outside Haller's house, you can...."
"Sorry." Captain Maxwell shook his head. "You know I'd like to, Ranson.
But this is murder. To let a confessed murderer, even though he is a
T.I. man, go free, is impossible." The captain drew a deep breath,
motioned to the two gray-uniformed patrolmen. "Take Mr. Ranson."
And then Steve Ranson went into action. In one blinding burst of
speed, he lunged across the desk, tore Captain Maxwell's pistol from
its holster. Before the captain and the two patrolmen knew what had
happened, they were staring into the ugly muzzle of the flame-gun.
"Sorry." Ranson said tightly. "But it had to be done. There's hell
loose on Mars, the devil's melody! And it's got to be stopped before it
turns this planet upside down!"
"You can't get away with this, Ranson!" Captain Maxwell shook his head.
"It'll only make it tougher for you when we nab you again! Be sensible!
Put down that gun."
"No good. Got to work fast." Ranson backed toward the door, gun
in hand. "Let this mad music go unchecked and it's death to all
terrestials on Mars! And I'm going to stop it! So long, captain! You
can try me for murder if you want, after I've done my job here!"
Ranson took the key from the massive plastic door as he backed
through the entrance. Once in the hall, he slammed the door shut,
locked Maxwell and his men in the room. Then, dropping the gun into
his pocket, he ran swiftly down the corridor to the main entrance of
headquarters. In the hall a patrolman glanced at him suspiciously,
halted him, but a wave of Ranson's T.I. card put the man aside.
Free of headquarters, Ranson began to run. Only a few moments, he
knew, before Maxwell and his men blasted a way to freedom, set out in
pursuit. Like a lean gray shadow Ranson ran, twisting, dodging, among
the narrow streets, heading toward Haller's house. Mercis was a dream
city in the wan light of the moons. One in either side of the heavens,
they threw weird double shadows across the rippling canals, the aimless
streets. Sleek canal-cabs roared along the dark waterways, throwing
up clouds of spray, and on the embankments, green-eyed, bulge-headed
little reddies padded, silent, inscrutable, themselves a part of the
eternal mystery of Mars.
Haller's house stood dark and brooding beside the canal. Captain
Maxwell's men had completed their examination and the place was
deserted. Ranson stepped into the shadow of the clump of fragrant
fayeh
bushes, where the unknown musician had stood; there was little
danger, he felt, of patrolmen hunting for him at Haller's house.
The captain had little faith in copybook maxims about the murderer
returning to the scene of the crime.
Ranson stood motionless for a moment as a canal boat swept by, then
drew from his pocket a heavy black tube. He tugged, and it extended
telescopically to a cane some four feet long. The cane was hollow, a
tube, and the head of it was large as a man's two fists and covered
with small dials, gauges. This was the T.I.'s most cherished secret,
the famous "electric bloodhound," by which criminals could be tracked.
Ranson touched a lever and a tiny electric motor in the head of the
cane hummed, drawing air up along the tube. He tapped the bank where
the unknown musician had stood, eyes on the gauges. Molecules of
matter, left by the mysterious serenader, were sucked up the tube,
registered on a sensitive plate, just as delicate color shades register
on the plate of a color camera.
Ranson tapped the cane carefully upon the ground, avoiding those places
where he had stood. Few people crossed this overgrown embankment, and
it was a safe bet that no one other than the strange musician had
been there recently. The scent was a clear one, and the dials on the
head of the cane read R-2340-B, the numerical classification of the
tiny bits of matter left behind by the unknown. The theory behind it
was quite simple. The T.I. scientists had reasoned that the sense of
smell is merely the effect of suspended molecules in the air acting
upon sensitive nerve filaments, and they knew that any normal human
can follow a trail of some strong odor such as perfumes, or gasoline,
while animals, possessing more sensitive perceptions, can follow
less distinct trails. To duplicate this mechanically had proven more
difficult than an electric eye or artificial hearing device, but in
the end they had triumphed. Their efforts had resulted in the machine
Ranson now carried.
The trial was, at the start, clear. Ranson tapped the long tube on the
ground like a blind man, eyes on the dial. Along the embankment, into a
side street, he made his way. There were few abroad in this old quarter
of the city; from the spaceport came the roar of freighters, the rumble
of machinery, but here in the narrow winding streets there was only the
faint murmur of voices behind latticed windows, the rustle of the wind,
the rattle of sand from the red desert beyond the city.
As Ranson plunged further into the old Martian quarter, the trail grew
more and more confused, crossed by scores of other trails left by
passersby. He was forced to stop, cast about like a bloodhound, tapping
every square foot of the street before the R-2340-B on the dial showed
that he had once more picked up the faint elusive scent.
Deeper and deeper Ranson plunged into the dark slums of Mercis. Smoky
gambling dens, dives full of drunken spacehands and slim red-skinned
girls, maudlin singing ... even the yellow glare of the forbidden
san-rays, as they filtered through drawn windows. Unsteady figures made
their way along the streets. Mighty-thewed Jovian blasters, languid
Venusians, boisterous earthmen ... and the little Martians padding
softly along, wrapped in their loose dust-robes.
At the end of an alley where the purple shadows lay like stagnant
pools, Ranson paused. The alley was a cul-de-sac, which meant that
the person he was trailing must have entered one of the houses. Very
softly he tapped the long tube on the ground. Again with a hesitant
swinging of dials, R-2340-B showed up, on the low step in front of one
of the dilapidated, dome-shaped houses. Ranson's eyes narrowed. So the
person who had played the mad murder melody had entered that house!
Might still be there! Quickly he telescoped the "electric bloodhound,"
dropped it into his pocket, and drew his flame-gun.
The old house was dark, with an air of morbid deadly calm about
it. Ranson tried the door, found it locked. A quick spurt from his
flame-gun melted the lock; he glanced about to make sure no one had
observed the greenish glare, then stepped inside.
The hallway was shadowy, its walls hung with ancient Martian tapestries
which, from their stilted symbolic ideographs must have dated back to
the days of the Canal-Builders. At the end of the hallway, however,
light jetted through a half-open door. Ranson moved toward it, silent
as a phantom, muscles tense. Gripping his flame-gun, he pushed the door
wide ... and a sudden exclamation broke from his lips.
Before him lay a gleaming laboratory, lined with vials of strange
liquids, shining test-tubes, and queer apparatus. Beside a table,
pouring a black fluid from a beaker into a test-tube, stood a man.
Half-terrestial, half-Martian, he seemed, with the large hairless head
of the red planet, and the clean features of an earthman. His eyes,
behind their glasses, were like green ice, and the hand pouring the
black fluid did not so much as waver at Ranson's entrance.
Ranson gasped. The bizarre figure was that of Dr. Elath Taen,
master-scientist, sought by the T.I. for years, in vain! Elath Taen,
outlaw and renegade, whose sole desire was the extermination of all
terrestials on Mars, a revival of the ancient glories of the red
planet. The tales told about him were fabulous; and this was the man
behind the unholy music!
"Good evening, Mr. Ranson," Elath Taen smiled. "Had I known T.I.
men were on Mars I should have taken infinitely more precautions.
However...."
As he spoke, his hand moved suddenly, as though to hurl the test tube
at Ranson. Quick as he was, the T.I. man was quicker. A spurt of
flame leapt from his gun, shattering the tube. The dark liquid hissed,
smoking, on to the floor.
"Well done, Mr. Ranson." Elath Taen nodded calmly. "Had the acid struck
you, it would have rendered you blind."
"That's about enough of your tricks!" Ranson grated. "Come along, Dr.
Taen! We're going to headquarters!"
"Since you insist." Elath Taen removed his chemist's smock, began, very
deliberately, to strip off his rubber gloves.
"Quit stalling!" Ranson snapped. "Get going! I...." The words faded on
the T.I. man's lips. Faintly, in the distance, came the strains of
soft eerie music!
"Good God!" Ranson's eyes darted about the laboratory. "That ... that's
the same as Haller and I...."
"Exactly, Mr. Ranson." Elath Taen smiled thinly. "Listen!"
The music was a caress, soft as a woman's skin. Slow, drowsy, like
the hum of bees on a hot summer's afternoon. Soothing, soporific, in
dreamy, crooning chords. A lullaby, that seemed to hang lead weights
upon the eyelids. Audible hypnotism, as potent as some drug. Clearer
with each second, the melody grew, coming nearer and nearer the
laboratory.
"Come ... come on," Ranson said thickly. "Got to get out of here."
But his words held no force, and Elath Taen was nodding sleepily under
the influence of the weird dream-music. Ranson knew he should act,
swiftly, while he could; but the movement of a single muscle seemed
an intolerable effort. His skin felt as though it were being rubbed
with velvet, a strange purring sensation filled his brain. He tried to
think, to move, but his will seemed in a padded vise. The music was
dragging him down, down, into the gray mists of oblivion.
Across the laboratory Elath Taen had slumped to the floor, a vague
smile of triumph on his face. Ranson turned to the direction of
the music, tried to raise his gun, but the weapon slipped from his
fingers, he fell to his knees. Sleep ... that was all that mattered ...
sleep. The music was like chloroform, its notes stroked his brain.
Through half-shut eyes he saw a door at the rear of the laboratory
open, saw a slim, dark, exotic girl step through into the room. Slung
about her neck in the manner of an accordian, was a square box, with
keys studding its top. For a long moment Ranson stared at the dark,
enigmatic girl, watched her hands dance over the keys to produce the
soft lulling music. About her head, he noticed, was a queer copper
helmet, of a type he had never before seen. And then the girl, Elath
Taen, the laboratory, all faded into a kaleidoscopic whirl. Ranson felt
himself falling down into the gray mists, and consciousness disappeared.
Question and Possible Answers:
What would best describe the terrestrials' attitudes towards the reddies on Mars?
(A) The terrestrials want to help the reddies claim their own freedom.
(B) The terrestrials have complete disdain for the reddies and want to completely eradicate them.
(C) The terrestrials want to help them be successful on Mars, so they provide motivating propaganda for them.
(D) The terrestrials want to control the reddies so that the terrestrials can stay in control of Mars.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 25,621 | 25,623 | 26,122 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63616_MQ1O9T2Q_6 | 63616_MQ1O9T2Q_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
HAGERTY'S ENZYMES
By A. L. HALEY
There's a place for every man and a man for
every place, but on robot-harried Mars the
situation was just a little different.
Harper Breen sank down gingerly into the new Relaxo-Lounge. He placed
twitching hands on the arm-rests and laid his head back stiffly. He
closed his fluttering eyelids and clamped his mouth to keep the corner
from jumping.
"Just lie back, Harp," droned his sister soothingly. "Just give in and
let go of everything."
Harper tried to let go of everything. He gave in to the chair. And
gently the chair went to work. It rocked rhythmically, it vibrated
tenderly. With velvety cushions it massaged his back and arms and legs.
For all of five minutes Harper stood it. Then with a frenzied lunge
he escaped the embrace of the Relaxo-Lounge and fled to a gloriously
stationary sofa.
"Harp!" His sister, Bella, was ready to weep with exasperation. "Dr.
Franz said it would be just the thing for you! Why won't you give it a
trial?"
Harper glared at the preposterous chair. "Franz!" he snarled. "That
prize fathead! I've paid him a fortune in fees. I haven't slept for
weeks. I can't eat anything but soup. My nerves are jangling like
a four-alarm fire. And what does he prescribe? A blasted jiggling
baby carriage! Why, I ought to send him the bill for it!" Completely
outraged, he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.
"Now, Harp, you know you've never obeyed his orders. He told you
last year that you'd have to ease up. Why do you have to try to run
the whole world? It's the strain of all your business worries that's
causing your trouble. He told you to take a long vacation or you'd
crack up. Don't blame him for your own stubbornness."
Harper snorted. His large nose developed the sound magnificently.
"Vacation!" he snorted. "Batting a silly ball around or dragging a hook
after a stupid fish! Fine activities for an intelligent middle-aged
man! And let me correct you. It isn't business worries that are driving
me to a crack-up. It's the strain of trying to get some sensible,
reasonable coöperation from the nincompoops I have to hire! It's the
idiocy of the human race that's got me whipped! It's the—"
"Hey, Harp, old man!" His brother-in-law, turning the pages of the
new colorama magazine, INTERPLANETARY, had paused at a double-spread.
"Didn't you have a finger in those Martian equatorial wells they sunk
twenty years ago?"
Harper's hands twitched violently. "Don't mention that fiasco!" he
rasped. "That deal nearly cost me my shirt! Water, hell! Those wells
spewed up the craziest conglomeration of liquids ever tapped!"
Scribney, whose large, phlegmatic person and calm professorial brain
were the complete antithesis of Harper's picked-crow physique and
scheming financier's wits, looked severely over his glasses. Harp's
nervous tribulations were beginning to bore him, as well as interfere
with the harmony of his home.
"You're away behind the times, Harp," he declared. "Don't you know
that those have proved to be the most astoundingly curative springs
ever discovered anywhere? Don't you know that a syndicate has built
the largest extra-terrestial hotel of the solar system there and that
people are flocking to it to get cured of whatever ails 'em? Old man,
you missed a bet!"
Leaping from the sofa, Harper rudely snatched the magazine from
Scribney's hands. He glared at the spread which depicted a star-shaped
structure of bottle-green glass resting jewel-like on the rufous rock
of Mars. The main portion of the building consisted of a circular
skyscraper with a glass-domed roof. Between its star-shaped annexes,
other domes covered landscaped gardens and noxious pools which in the
drawing looked lovely and enticing.
"Why, I remember now!" exclaimed Bella. "That's where the Durants went
two years ago! He was about dead and she looked like a hag. They came
back in wonderful shape. Don't you remember, Scrib?"
Dutifully Scribney remembered and commented on the change the Martian
springs had effected in the Durants. "It's the very thing for you,
Harp," he advised. "You'd get a good rest on the way out. This gas
they use in the rockets nowadays is as good as a rest-cure; it sort of
floats you along the time-track in a pleasant daze, they tell me. And
you can finish the cure at the hotel while looking it over. And not
only that." Confidentially he leaned toward his insignificant looking
brother-in-law. "The chemists over at Dade McCann have just isolated an
enzyme from one species of Martian fungus that breaks down crude oil
into its components without the need for chemical processing. There's a
fortune waiting for the man who corners that fungus market and learns
to process the stuff!"
Scribney had gauged his victim's mental processes accurately. The
magazine sagged in Harp's hands, and his sharp eyes became shrewd and
calculating. He even forgot to twitch. "Maybe you're right, Scrib," he
acknowledged. "Combine a rest-cure with business, eh?"
Raising the magazine, he began reading the advertisement. And that
was when he saw the line about the robots. "—the only hotel staffed
entirely with robot servants—"
"Robots!" he shrilled. "You mean they've developed the things to that
point? Why hasn't somebody told me? I'll have Jackson's hide! I'll
disfranchise him! I'll—"
"Harp!" exploded Bella. "Stop it! Maybe Jackson doesn't know a thing
about it, whatever it is! If it's something at the Emerald Star Hotel,
why don't you just go and find out for yourself instead of throwing a
tantrum? That's the only sensible way!"
"You're right, Bella," agreed Harper incisively. "I'll go and find out
for myself. Immediately!" Scooping up his hat, he left at his usual
lope.
"Well!" remarked his sister. "All I can say is that they'd better turn
that happy-gas on extra strong for Harp's trip out!"
The trip out did Harper a world of good. Under the influence of the
soporific gas that permeated the rocket, he really relaxed for the
first time in years, sinking with the other passengers into a hazy
lethargy with little sense of passing time and almost no memory of the
interval.
It seemed hardly more than a handful of hours until they were strapping
themselves into deceleration hammocks for the landing. And then Harper
was waking with lassitude still heavy in his veins. He struggled out of
the hammock, made his way to the airlock, and found himself whisked by
pneumatic tube directly into the lobby of the Emerald Star Hotel.
Appreciatively he gazed around at the half-acre of moss-gray carpeting,
green-tinted by the light sifting through the walls of Martian
copper-glass, and at the vistas of beautiful domed gardens framed by a
dozen arches. But most of all, the robots won his delighted approval.
He could see at once that they had been developed to an amazingly high
state of perfection. How, he wondered again, had this been done without
his knowledge? Was Scrib right? Was he slipping? Gnawing at the doubt,
he watched the robots moving efficiently about, pushing patients in
wheelchairs, carrying trays, guiding newcomers, performing janitorial
duties tirelessly, promptly, and best of all, silently.
Harper was enthralled. He'd staff his offices with them. Hang the
expense! There'd be no more of that obnoxious personal friction and
proneness to error that was always deviling the most carefully trained
office staffs! He'd investigate and find out the exact potentialities
of these robots while here, and then go home and introduce them into
the field of business. He'd show them whether he was slipping! Briskly
he went over to the desk.
He was immediately confronted with a sample of that human obstinacy
that was slowly driving him mad. Machines, he sighed to himself.
Wonderful silent machines! For a woman was arguing stridently with the
desk clerk who, poor man, was a high strung fellow human instead of a
robot. Harper watched him shrinking and turning pale lavender in the
stress of the argument.
"A nurse!" shouted the woman. "I want a nurse! A real woman! For what
you charge, you should be able to give me a television star if I want
one! I won't have another of those damnable robots in my room, do you
hear?"
No one within the confines of the huge lobby could have helped hearing.
The clerk flinched visibly. "Now, Mrs. Jacobsen," he soothed. "You know
the hotel is staffed entirely with robots. They're much more expensive,
really, than human employees, but so much more efficient, you know.
Admit it, they give excellent service, don't they, now?" Toothily he
smiled at the enraged woman.
"That's just it!" Mrs. Jacobsen glared. "The service is
too
good.
I might just as well have a set of push buttons in the room. I want
someone to
hear
what I say! I want to be able to change my mind once
in awhile!"
Harper snorted. "Wants someone she can devil," he diagnosed. "Someone
she can get a kick out of ordering around." With vast contempt he
stepped to the desk beside her and peremptorily rapped for the clerk.
"One moment, sir," begged that harassed individual. "Just one moment,
please." He turned back to the woman.
But she had turned her glare on Harper. "You could at least be civil
enough to wait your turn!"
Harper smirked. "My good woman, I'm not a robot. Robots, of course,
are always civil. But you should know by now that civility isn't a
normal human trait." Leaving her temporarily quashed, he beckoned
authoritatively to the clerk.
"I've just arrived and want to get settled. I'm here merely for a
rest-cure, no treatments. You can assign my quarters before continuing
your—ah—discussion with the lady."
The clerk sputtered. Mrs. Jacobsen sputtered. But not for nothing was
Harper one of the leading business executives of the earth. Harper's
implacable stare won his point. Wiping beads of moisture from his
forehead, the clerk fumbled for a card, typed it out, and was about to
deposit it in the punch box when a fist hit the desk a resounding blow
and another voice, male, roared out at Harper's elbow.
"This is a helluva joint!" roared the voice. "Man could rot away to the
knees while he's waitin' for accommodations. Service!" Again his fist
banged the counter.
The clerk jumped. He dropped Harper's card and had to stoop for it.
Absently holding it, he straightened up to face Mrs. Jacobsen and the
irate newcomer. Hastily he pushed a tagged key at Harper.
"Here you are, Mr. Breen. I'm sure you'll find it comfortable." With a
pallid smile he pressed a button and consigned Harper to the care of a
silent and efficient robot.
The room was more than comfortable. It was beautiful. Its bank of clear
windows set in the green glass wall framed startling rubicund views of
the Martian hinterland where, Harper affectionately thought, fungi were
busy producing enzymes that were going to be worth millions for him and
his associates. There remained only the small detail of discovering how
to extract them economically and to process them on this more than arid
and almost airless planet. Details for his bright young laboratory men;
mere details....
Leaving his luggage to be unpacked by the robot attendant, he went up
to the domed roof restaurant. Lunching boldly on broiled halibut with
consomme, salad and a bland custard, he stared out at the dark blue
sky of Mars, with Deimos hanging in the east in three-quarter phase
while Phobos raced up from the west like a meteor behind schedule.
Leaning back in his cushioned chair, he even more boldly lit a slim
cigar—his first in months—and inhaled happily. For once old Scribney
had certainly been right, he reflected. Yes sir, Scrib had rung the
bell, and he wasn't the man to forget it. With a wonderful sense of
well-being he returned to his room and prepared to relax.
Harper opened his eyes. Two robots were bending over him. He saw that
they were dressed in white, like hospital attendants. But he had no
further opportunity to examine them. With brisk, well-co-ordinated
movements they wheeled a stretcher along-side his couch, stuck a hypo
into his arm, bundled him onto the stretcher and started wheeling him
out.
Harper's tongue finally functioned. "What's all this?" he demanded.
"There's nothing wrong with me. Let me go!"
He struggled to rise, but a metal hand pushed him firmly on the chest.
Inexorably it pushed him flat.
"You've got the wrong room!" yelled Harp. "Let me go!" But the hypo
began to take effect. His yells became weaker and drowsier. Hazily, as
he drifted off, he thought of Mrs. Jacobsen. Maybe she had something,
at that.
There was a tentative knock on the door. "Come in," called Harper
bleakly. As soon as the door opened he regretted his invitation, for
the opening framed the large untidy man who had noisily pounded on the
desk demanding service while he, Harp, was being registered.
"Say, pardner," he said hoarsely, "you haven't seen any of them robots
around here, have you?"
Harper scowled. "Oh, haven't I?" he grated. "Robots! Do you know what
they did to me." Indignation lit fires in his pale eyes. "Came in here
while I was lying down peacefully digesting the first meal I've enjoyed
in months, dragged me off to the surgery, and pumped it all out! The
only meal I've enjoyed in months!" Blackly he sank his chin onto his
fist and contemplated the outrage.
"Why didn't you stop 'em?" reasonably asked the visitor.
"Stop a robot?" Harper glared pityingly. "How? You can't reason with
the blasted things. And as for using force—it's man against metal. You
try it!" He ground his teeth together in futile rage. "And to think I
had the insane notion that robots were the last word! Why, I was ready
to staff my offices with the things!"
The big man placed his large hands on his own capacious stomach and
groaned. "I'm sure sorry it was you and not me, pardner. I could use
some of that treatment right now. Musta been that steak and onions I
ate after all that tundra dope I've been livin' on."
"Tundra?" A faint spark of alertness lightened Harper's dull rage. "You
mean you work out here on the tundra?"
"That's right. How'd you think I got in such a helluva shape? I'm
superintendent of one of the fungus plants. I'm Jake Ellis of Hagerty's
Enzymes. There's good money in it, but man, what a job! No air worth
mentionin'. Temperature always freezin' or below. Pressure suits. Huts.
Factory. Processed food. Nothin' else. Just nothin'. That's where they
could use some robots. It sure ain't no job for a real live man. And in
fact, there ain't many men left there. If old man Hagerty only knew it,
he's about out of business."
Harper sat up as if he'd been needled. He opened his mouth to speak.
But just then the door opened briskly and two robots entered. With a
horrified stare, Harper clutched his maltreated stomach. He saw a third
robot enter, wheeling a chair.
"A wheel chair!" squeaked the victim. "I tell you, there's nothing
wrong with me! Take it away! I'm only here for a rest-cure! Believe me!
Take it away!"
The robots ignored him. For the first time in his spectacular and
ruthless career Harper was up against creatures that he could neither
bribe, persuade nor browbeat, inveigle nor ignore. It shattered his
ebbing self-confidence. He began waving his hands helplessly.
The robots not only ignored Harper. They paid no attention at all to
Jake Ellis, who was plucking at their metallic arms pleading, "Take
me, boys. I need the treatment bad, whatever it is. I need all the
treatment I can get. Take me! I'm just a wreck, fellers—"
Stolidly they picked Harper up, plunked him into the chair, strapped
him down and marched out with him.
Dejectedly Ellis returned to his own room. Again he lifted the receiver
of the room phone; but as usual a robot voice answered sweetly,
mechanically, and meaninglessly. He hung up and went miserably to bed.
There was something nagging at Harper's mind. Something he should do.
Something that concerned robots. But he was too exhausted to think it
out.
For five days now his pet robots had put him through an ordeal that
made him flinch every time he thought about it. Which wasn't often,
since he was almost past thinking. They plunked him into stinking
mud-baths and held him there until he was well-done to the bone, he
was sure. They soaked him in foul, steaming irradiated waters until he
gagged. They brought him weird concoctions to eat and drink and then
stood over him until he consumed them. They purged and massaged and
exercised him.
Whenever they let him alone, he simply collapsed into bed and slept.
There was nothing else to do anyway. They'd taken his clothes; and the
phone, after an announcement that he would have no more service for two
weeks, gave him nothing but a busy signal.
"Persecution, that's what it is!" he moaned desperately. And he turned
his back to the mirror, which showed him that he was beginning to look
flesh-colored instead of the parchment yellow to which he had become
accustomed. He closed his mind to the fact that he was sleeping for
hours on end like the proverbial baby, and that he was getting such an
appetite that he could almost relish even that detestable mush they
sent him for breakfast. He was determined to be furious. As soon as he
could wake up enough to be.
He hadn't been awake long this time before Jake Ellis was there again,
still moaning about his lack of treatments. "Nothin' yet," he gloomily
informed Harp. "They haven't been near me. I just can't understand it.
After I signed up for the works and paid 'em in advance! And I can't
find any way out of this section. The other two rooms are empty and the
elevator hasn't got any button. The robots just have to come and get a
man or he's stuck."
"Stuck!" snarled Harp. "I'm never stuck! And I'm damned if I'll wait
any longer to break out of this—this jail! Listen, Jake. I've been
thinking. Or trying to, with what's left of me. You came in just when
that assinine clerk was registering me. I'll bet that clerk got rattled
and gave me the wrong key. I'll bet you're supposed to have this room
and I'm getting your treatments. Why don't we switch rooms and see what
happens?"
"Say, maybe you're right!" Jake's eyes gleamed at last with hope. "I'll
get my clothes."
Harp's eyebrows rose. "You mean they left you your clothes?"
"Why, sure. You mean they took yours?"
Harp nodded. An idea began to formulate. "Leave your things, will you?
I'm desperate! I'm going to see the manager of this madhouse if I have
to go down dressed in a sheet. Your clothes would be better than that."
Jake, looking over Harper's skimpy frame, grunted doubtfully. "Maybe
you could tie 'em on so they wouldn't slip. And roll up the cuffs. It's
okay with me, but just don't lose something when you're down there in
that fancy lobby."
Harper looked at his watch. "Time to go. Relax, old man. The robots
will be along any minute now. If you're the only man in the room, I'm
sure they'll take you. They aren't equipped to figure it out. And don't
worry about me. I'll anchor your duds all right."
Harper had guessed right. Gleefully from the doorway of his new room
he watched the robots wheel away his equally delighted neighbor for
his first treatment. Then he closed the door and began to don Jake's
clothing.
The result was unique. He looked like a small boy in his father's
clothes, except for the remarkably aged and gnome-like head sticking
up on a skinny neck from a collar three sizes too big. And he was
shoeless. He was completely unable to navigate in Jake's number
twelves. But Harper was a determined man. He didn't even flinch from
his image in the mirror. Firmly he stepped over to Jake's telephone.
"This is room 618," he said authoritatively. "Send up the elevator for
me. I want to go down to the lobby."
He'd guessed right again. "It will be right up, sir," responded the
robot operator. Hopefully he stepped out into the hall and shuffled to
the elevator.
Only the robots were immune to Harper Breen's progress across the huge
suave lobby.
He was a blot on its rich beauty, a grotesque enigma that rooted the
other visitors into paralyzed staring groups. Stepping out of the
elevator, he had laid a course for the desk which loomed like an island
in a moss-gray lake, and now he strode manfully toward it, ignoring the
oversize trousers slapping around his stocking feet. Only the robots
shared his self control.
The clerk was the first to recover from the collective stupor.
Frantically he pushed the button that would summon the robot guard.
With a gasp of relief he saw the two massive manlike machines moving
inexorably forward. He pointed to Harper. "Get that patient!" he
ordered. "Take him to the—to the mud-baths!"
"No you don't!" yelled Harper. "I want to see the manager!" Nimbly he
circled the guard and leaped behind the desk. He began to throw things
at the robots. Things like inkwells and typewriters and card indexes.
Especially, card indexes.
"Stop it!" begged the clerk. "You'll wreck the system! We'll never get
it straight again! Stop it!"
"Call them off!" snarled Harper. "Call them off or I'll ruin your
switchboard!" He put a shoulder against it and prepared to heave.
With one last appalled glare at the madman, the clerk picked up an
electric finger and pointed it at the approaching robots. They became
oddly inanimate.
"That's better!" Harper straightened up and meticulously smoothed the
collar of his flapping coat. "Now—the manager, please."
"This—this way, sir." With shrinking steps the clerk led Harper across
the width of the lobby among the fascinated guests. He was beyond
speech. Opening the inconspicuous door, he waved Harper inside and
returned doggedly to his desk, where he began to pick up things and at
the same time phrase his resignation in his mind.
Brushing aside the startled secretary in the outer cubicle, Harper
flapped and shuffled straight into the inner sanctum. The manager, who
was busy chewing a cigar to shreds behind his fortress of gun metal
desk, jerked hastily upright and glared at the intruder. "My good
man—" he began.
"Don't 'my-good-man' me!" snapped Harper. He glared back at the
manager. Reaching as far across the expanse of desktop as he could
stretch, he shook his puny fist. "Do you know who I am? I'm Harper
S. Breen, of Breen and Helgart, Incorporated! And do you know why I
haven't even a card to prove it? Do you know why I have to make my way
downstairs in garb that makes a laughing stock of me? Do you know why?
Because that assinine clerk of yours put me in the wrong room and those
damnable robots of yours then proceeded to make a prisoner of me! Me,
Harper S. Breen! Why, I'll sue you until you'll be lucky if you have a
sheet of writing-paper left in this idiot's retreat!"
Hayes, the manager, blanched. Then he began to mottle in an apoplectic
pattern. And suddenly with a gusty sigh, he collapsed into his chair.
With a shaking hand he mopped his forehead. "
My
robots!" he muttered.
"As if I invented the damned things!"
Despondently he looked at Harper. "Go ahead and sue, Mr. Breen. If you
don't, somebody else will. And if nobody sues, we'll go broke anyway,
at the rate our guest list is declining. I'm ready to hand in my
resignation."
Again he sighed. "The trouble," he explained, "is that those fool
robots are completely logical, and people aren't. There's no way to mix
the two. It's dynamite. Maybe people can gradually learn to live with
robots, but they haven't yet. Only we had to find it out the hard way.
We—" he grimaced disgustedly—"had to pioneer in the use of robots.
And it cost us so much that we can't afford to reconvert to human help.
So—Operation Robot is about to bankrupt the syndicate."
Listening, an amazing calm settled on Harper. Thoughtfully now he
hooked a chair to the desk with his stockinged foot, sat down and
reached for the cigar that Hayes automatically offered him. "Oh, I
don't know," he said mildly.
Hayes leaned forward like a drowning man sighting a liferaft. "What
do you mean, you don't know? You're threatening to take our shirts,
aren't you?"
Meticulously Harper clipped and lit his cigar. "It seems to me that
these robots might be useful in quite another capacity. I might even
make a deal with your syndicate to take them off your hands—at a
reasonable price, of course—and forget the outrages I've suffered at
your establishment."
Hayes leaned toward him incredulous. "You mean you want these robots
after what you've seen and experienced?"
Placidly Harper puffed a smoke ring. "Of course, you'd have to take
into consideration that it would be an experiment for me, too. And
there's the suit I'm clearly justified in instituting. However, I'm
willing to discuss the matter with your superiors."
With hope burgeoning for the first time in weeks, Hayes lifted his
head. "My dear Mr. Breen, to get rid of these pestiferous robots, I'll
back you to the hilt! I'll notify the owners at once. At once, Mr.
Breen! And while we wait for them, allow me to put you up as a guest of
the hotel." Coming around to Harper, he effusively shook Harp's scrawny
hand, and then personally escorted him not merely to the door but
across the lobby to the elevator.
Harper gazed out at the stunned audience. This was more like the
treatment he was accustomed to! Haughtily he squared his bony shoulders
inside the immense jacket and stepped into the elevator. He was ready
for the second step of his private Operation Robot.
Back on Earth it was a warm, misty spring day—the kind of day unknown
to the planet Mars. Bella and Scribney, superb in new spring outfits,
waited restlessly while the rocket cooled and the passengers recovered
from deceleration.
"Look, Scrib!" Bella clutched Scribney's substantial arm. "It's finally
opening."
They watched the airlock open and the platform wheel into place. They
watched the passengers descend, looking a trifle dazed.
"There he is!" cried Bella. "Why, doesn't he look wonderful! Scrib,
it's amazing! Look at him!
And indeed, Harper was stepping briskly downward, looking spry and fit
and years younger. He came across to them actually beaming. It was the
first pleasant expression they had seen on his face in years.
"Well, you old dog!" exclaimed Scribney affectionately. "So you did it
again!"
Harper smirked. "Yep, I turned a neat little deal. I bought out
Hagerty's Enzymes and staffed the plant with the hotel's robots. Got
both of 'em dirt cheap. Both concerns going bankrupt because they
didn't have sense enough to swap their workers. Feel I owe you a bit
for that tip about enzymes, Scrib, so I made out a block of stock to
you. All right?"
"All right?" Scribney gulped. Why, the dried-up little turnip was human
after all. "All right! Yes, sir! But aren't you going to use some of
those robots for office help? Aren't they efficient and all that?"
Harper's smile vanished. "Don't even mention such a thing!" he yelped.
"You don't know what you're saying! I lived with those things for
weeks. I wouldn't have one around! Keep 'em in the factory where they
belong!"
He glimpsed the composed, wonderfully human face of his secretary,
waiting patiently in the background. "Oh there you are, Smythe." He
turned to his relatives. "Busy day ahead. See you later, folks—"
"Same old Harp," observed Scribney. Then he thought of the block of
stock. "What say we celebrate our rise to a position in the syndicate,
honey?"
"Wonderful!" She squeezed his arm, and smiling at each other, they left
the port.
Question and Possible Answers:
Why was Harper able to buy the hotel's robots for such a cheap price?
(A) Harper befriended the hotel manager and convinced him to sell the robots to him for cheap.
(B) The hotel could not find anyone other than Harper to sell the robots to.
(C) Harper had threatened to put the hotel out of business if they did not sell the robots to him.
(D) The hotel was failing, so the company was happy to get rid of the robots.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 28,645 | 28,647 | 29,101 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63833_V187YO4H_2 | 63833_V187YO4H_2_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Jinx Ship To The Rescue
By ALFRED COPPEL, JR.
Stand by for
T.R.S. Aphrodite
, butt of the Space
Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only
her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her!
Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the
Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the
viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a
jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport
for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a
miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across
the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was
dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find
the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus.
Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth
of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together
they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor.
The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship
Aphrodite
loomed
unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the
ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the
fat spaceship.
"It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp."
Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in
agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship
with the poison personality." Cob was the
Aphrodite's
Executive,
and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs
on the
Aphrodite
. She generally sent them Earthside with nervous
breakdowns in half that time.
"Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen
that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I
thought...."
"You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski.
Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?"
"The same."
"Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's
a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the
Ganymede
. And,
after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come
this?" He indicated the monitor expressively.
Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with
me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you
wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp
operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with
tradition.
"The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish
immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional
Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the
abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United
Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ...
me.
"From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something
happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of
them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you.
"In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the
wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too
much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the
Ganymede
because I left my station where I was supposed to be running
section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in
danger...."
"The Procyon A people?" asked Cob.
"So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical
astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my
routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No
nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the
Ganymede
. Gorman gave it
to his former aide. I got this."
Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too."
"Me again. The
Ganymede's
whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig.
We celebrated a bit too freely."
Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night
after the
Ganymede
broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run,
wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...."
"Canalopolis?"
Whitley nodded.
"That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian
Embassy Ball."
"I begin to see what you mean, Captain."
"Strike's the name, Cob."
Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like
our old tin pot here." He patted the
Aphrodite's
nether belly
affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to
meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either."
Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek
Ganymede
. "She'll
carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her."
Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket
fuel, anyway. Deep space?"
Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars."
Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work."
Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior.
"A surge-circuit monitor, so help me."
Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class."
And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed
Aphrodite
was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten
years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation
Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a
surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the
planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its
formative stage, and at the time of the
Aphrodite's
launching the
surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives.
Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit
for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed
of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The
Artemis
, the
Andromeda
, and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The
three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid
had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine.
All three were miserable failures.
The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit
too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way,
wrongly.
The
Artemis
exploded. The
Andromeda
vanished in the general
direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a
ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions.
And the
Aphrodite's
starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her
store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under
20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a
tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull.
The
Aphrodite
was refitted for space. And because it was an integral
part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became
a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She
carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and
tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from
Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation.
Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet
required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see
to it that she did....
The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted
smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve.
Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a
third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet
Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship
of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere.
Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign.
Radar Officer. She's good, too."
Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me
uncomfortable."
Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our
ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know."
"No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named
this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?"
Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent.
Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge
bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle
of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an
acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit
rheostat.
"Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob.
Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the
Ganymede's
flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway."
The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship,
hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike
reached for the squawk-box control.
"Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying
bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will
recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...."
Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner.
"Orders, Captain?"
"We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here.
They're sending someone down from the
Antigone
, and I expect him by
600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See
to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start
loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all."
"Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he
paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?"
Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant
Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say."
Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V.
Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him."
The other officers of the
T.R.S. Aphrodite
were in conference with
the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying
bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale
blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the
shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the
obvious trimness of her figure.
Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others.
"... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles
of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition,
we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm
certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who
designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are
specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your
astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or
minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be
certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins,
especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important."
"That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather
leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He
nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist
chronograph, "... in an hour and five."
The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room.
"Captain?"
"Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed
girl in the doorway.
Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his
eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant
I-vy
Hendricks?"
Strike looked blankly at the girl.
"Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley.
"Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find
to say.
The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her
voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your
permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I
may
be able to
convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem
to think ... a senile incompetent."
Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ...
Miss ... but why should you be so...."
The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan
Hendricks, Captain, is my father."
A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship.
Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous
Aphrodite
had burned a
steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall
while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected
repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running
ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation
Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the
orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall.
The
Aphrodite
rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury....
For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike
and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in
space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between
them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her
father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was
little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy
spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit
that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman.
And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike
did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was
dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong.
There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy.
At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the
Aphrodite's
refrigeration
units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable
temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of
the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded,
insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and
spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the
sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to
their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing.
Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham
called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The
IFF showed the pips to be the
Lachesis
and the
Atropos
. The two
dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely
routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath
was Celia Graham's notation that the
Atropos
carried none other than
Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan.
Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into
Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so.
And she agreed.
Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The
thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia
Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's
weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without
speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression.
Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist,
in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California
womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food....
And then it happened.
Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the
scrambler. It was a distress signal from the
Lachesis
. The
Atropos
had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun.
Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the
Atropos
skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star.
The
Lachesis
had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly
trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering
power of the
Lachesis'
mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's
deathgrip on the battleship.
A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport,
but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that
even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled
Atropos
away from a fiery end.
Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the
flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of
Strykalski's face.
"Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!"
"Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the
message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head.
She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is
it
! This is
the chance I've been praying for, Strike!"
He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall
I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those
ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the
Lachesis
, he won't let go
that line even if he fries himself."
Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it!
I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat.
"That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that
you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that
the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of
the woodwork ... very messily, too."
"Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you
are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying
to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown
skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat."
There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded
desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I
know
we can! My
father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off
Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially
trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in
and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are
you afraid?"
"Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so
certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ...
it'll be the last. For all of us."
"We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply.
Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in
here?"
Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me."
Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon.
And me so young and pretty."
Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!"
"Evans here," came the reply.
"Have Sparks get a DF fix on the
Atropos
and hold it. We'll home on
their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot
the course."
"Yes, Captain."
Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the
black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges
of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts."
"Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone.
Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!"
"Graham here," replied Celia from her station.
"Get a radar fix on the
Lachesis
and hold it. Send your dope up to
Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate."
"Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply.
"Gun deck!"
"Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice.
"Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool
of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range."
"Yes, sir!" The girl switched off.
"And now you, Miss Hendricks."
"Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low.
"Take over Control ... and Ivy...."
"Yes?"
"Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her.
She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly
she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward....
Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable,
the
Lachesis
and the
Atropos
fell helplessly toward the sun. The
frantic flame that lashed out from the
Lachesis'
tube was fading, her
fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms.
Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she
save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles
of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences
that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for
the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins,
the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning
to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants
on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were
dying.
Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her
flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in
the darkened viewport.
The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell
of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with
perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped
for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with
apprehension.
Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on
the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the
Atropos
. It plunged
straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against
the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly,
a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure.
Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three
spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge
together.
They were diving into the sun.
The heat in the
Aphrodite's
bridge was unbearable. The thermometer
showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by
comparison.
Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came
out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field
of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit
rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious,
but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument
panel.
"
Ivy!
" Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm.
"I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the
show ... after ... all."
Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the
control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on
the surge-circuit.
Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within
old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the
circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the
tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in
space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line.
More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail.
Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's
fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat."
"We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The
gauges showed the accumulators full. "
Now!
" He spun the rheostat to
the stops, and black space burst over his brain....
The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And
it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And
that was all.
The space-tug
Scylla
found them.
The three ships ...
Atropos
,
Lachesis
, and old Aphrodisiac ...
lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out
cold from the acceleration, and
Aphrodite's
tanks bone dry. But they
were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol....
The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob
leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the
Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded
with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the
broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled.
"All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind,
Cob? Something's eating you."
Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I
understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the
Ganymede
back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...."
"All I said to him...."
"I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But
you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't
want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what
about Ivy?"
"Ivy?"
Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that
when we got back ... well...."
Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a
designing job."
Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...."
"The answer is
no
. Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and
sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...."
He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?"
"Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent;
then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to
the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars."
And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut
Strykalski III was doing the same.
Question and Possible Answers:
How are the events of the story best summated?
(A) A delivery ship discovers and saves two other ships
(B) A passenger ship transiting Earth - Venus accidentally starts falling into the sun
(C) Strike’s ship breaks down and has to be rescued from being pulled into the sun
(D) A war ship disguised as a cargo ship changes course and saves lives from pulling into sun’s gravity
Answer:
| A | 195 | 26,688 | 26,690 | 27,102 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63392_7YS4HHFI_6 | 63392_7YS4HHFI_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Doorway to Kal-Jmar
By Stuart Fleming
Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns
to give him the key to the ancient city of
Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of
robots that made desires instant commands.
The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes
impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed.
Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape,
and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more.
Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the
translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the
stars shone dimly.
Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he
had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass
himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city,
after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would
not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he
had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet
Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country,
and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only
safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had
to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough.
They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the
crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they
didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared
raider in the System. In that was his only advantage.
He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and
then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the
short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over
the top of the ramp, and then followed.
The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel.
Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and
started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite
young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather,
and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw.
"All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?"
"I don't understand," Syme said.
"The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?"
"Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you.
I—"
The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said
finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can
clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again."
Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes
on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next
street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side
a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the
intersection, and then followed again more cautiously.
It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data,
even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands
on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite,
glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be
imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill.
Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The
boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation
platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in
the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the
machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket
went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator
whisked him up.
The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level
of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close
overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the
platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred
a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside.
The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance
away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim,
deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the
silent figure.
It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by
some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still
air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift,
instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its
silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a
minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest.
Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into
his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms
and thrust it over the parapet.
It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist.
Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late,
he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's
harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was
falling, linked to the body of his victim!
Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm,
felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His
body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the
corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a
little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion.
Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into
play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body.
Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the
sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms
felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook
slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished.
The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost
lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the
spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below.
He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He
tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on
the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold
on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off.
He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge
at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken
only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up."
Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other
pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed
to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety.
"Are you all right?"
Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His
rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy
hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a
humorous wide mouth. He was still panting.
"I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his
dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand."
"You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I
thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly.
"That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand,
and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it."
The man sighed. "I need a drink.
You
need a drink. Come on." He
picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the
elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about
that?"
"Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it
wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now."
They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a
cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just
killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on
the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be
found until morning.
And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of
culcha
, he
took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There
it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even
friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was
the
culcha
, of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning
he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there
were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and
it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone.
He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall,
graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat.
"Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped,
caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he
said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer,
but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment,
but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to
tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I
need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?"
"Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG
plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting
in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their
delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk
after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow
of
culcha
inside him.
"I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate.
Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense,
a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big
was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector.
"Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?"
Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms,
he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been
right; it was big.
Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining
city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had
risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines,
the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly
preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many
thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached.
For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected
Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis
as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both
above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew
what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of
the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew
anything about them or about Kal-Jmar.
In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth
scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it
from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots
that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they
had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall.
Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a
bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid
dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped
in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any
Earthman to go near the place.
Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate.
Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical
in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a
force that would break it down.
And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four
hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme
Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits
on his sleek, tigerish head.
Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild.
For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not
occur to him that he had been indiscreet.
"This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better
strap on your gun."
"Why. Are they really dangerous?"
"They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and
they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns
where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that
way."
"Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting
metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and
strapped it on absently.
Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous
hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They
eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the
deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to
xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never
come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial.
When the first colonists came here, they had to learn
their
crazy
language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different
things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some,
but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same."
"So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously.
"They
might
do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it."
The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars'
deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a
wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on
sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again
on the other side.
Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared
across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow
it?"
Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess,"
he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we
cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more."
Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he
pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail
of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep
into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike
was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over
the edge.
As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind
revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire
cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical
incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides
as they descended.
Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the
metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground
again and the cable reeled in.
Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But
how do we get up again?"
"Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want
or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that
shoots the anchor up on top."
"Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my
natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of
almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his
head.
Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their
harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and
the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper
blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted,
"Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever.
The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the
gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash
that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into
the ground immediately to their left.
When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread
of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition.
Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate
said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and
caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully
toward them.
"My God!" he said. "What are those?"
Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians."
The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all
Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs
they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or,
more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large
as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge
that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with
a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the
bloodstream.
Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the
lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black
fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of
white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise;
or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which
helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now
they were mostly black.
The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand
car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears,
although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to
Martians.
Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he
swallowed audibly.
One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and
motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and
then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience,
could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same
spot long enough.
"Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit,
and Tate followed him.
"What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I
know. They're unpredictable."
"Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car
whooshed
into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out.
The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and
started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded
along under the weak gravity.
They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a
half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down
it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps,
they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker
and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine
kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture.
The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a
phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't
decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though.
"There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He
switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane
on the outside of the helmet. "
Kalis methra
," he began haltingly,
"
seltin guna getal.
"
"Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not
enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets."
Syme swore amazedly.
"I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme
ignored him.
"We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said.
"But how—?"
"We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on
its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to
ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for
several thousand years."
He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face
was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're
right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn
is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you."
Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?"
"You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply.
Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves
because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?"
"Yes."
Tate thought again. "But—"
"No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our
civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours
is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you
thought you were taking it from equals or not."
"Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with
us?"
The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect.
Unfortunately, you must die."
It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet
he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep
the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian
must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood,
holding himself in check with an effort.
"Will you tell us why?" Tate asked.
"You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception
of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to
know."
Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of
the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the
leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away
from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to
think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like
trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus."
Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently
unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he
began.
"There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a
very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform
Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere."
"I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim
all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then
we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out.
You couldn't have that, of course."
He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked
at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the
Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that
one."
"Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a
separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our
ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors."
"Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make
itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves
into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to
the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem
was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for
we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained
its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes.
"You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural
confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we."
"And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with
an—inferior—culture."
"We hope to win yet," the Martian said.
Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged.
"Will our two races ever live together in amity?"
The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He
looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man,"
he said. "I am sorry."
Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the
sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in
him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before
he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the
Martian.
It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly
strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't
tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost
feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the
swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern.
He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every
muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with
power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's
iron grip!
He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the
weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped
his lance and fell without a sound.
The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way
barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and
swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of
the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor.
Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the
trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely
to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped
his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His
right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And
all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths,
seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes,
dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of
his powerful lungs.
At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down
the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped
the weapon from blistered fingers.
He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from
the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency
kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out
a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing
it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the
burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid
formed an airtight patch.
Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind
him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I
could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even
to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us."
Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He
turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly,
but with his feral, tigerish head held high.
He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed
him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something
that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and
didn't know what to do about it.
Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the
same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black
suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around
to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which
might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That
was that.
Question and Possible Answers:
If Syme weren't initially helped by Harold, what would've probably happened to him?
(A) Syme would've been protected by the building's safety net.
(B) Syme would've gotten help from someone else.
(C) Syme would've fallen to his death.
(D) Syme would've caught himself with his two backup harpoons.
Answer:
| C | 195 | 28,603 | 28,605 | 28,938 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63473_1VIHQ8TY_4 | 63473_1VIHQ8TY_4_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
DUST UNTO DUST
By LYMAN D. HINCKLEY
It was alien but was it dead, this towering, sinister
city of metal that glittered malignantly before the
cautious advance of three awed space-scouters.
Martin set the lifeboat down carefully, with all the attention one
usually exercises in a situation where the totally unexpected has
occurred, and he and his two companions sat and stared in awed silence
at the city a quarter-mile away.
He saw the dull, black walls of buildings shouldering grimly into the
twilight sky, saw the sheared edge where the metal city ended and the
barren earth began ... and he remembered observing, even before they
landed, the too-strict geometry imposed on the entire construction.
He frowned. The first impression was ... malignant.
Wass, blond and slight, with enough nose for three or four men,
unbuckled his safety belt and stood up. "Shall we, gentlemen?" and with
a graceful movement of hand and arm he indicated the waiting city.
Martin led Wass, and the gangling, scarecrow-like Rodney, through the
stillness overlaying the barren ground. There was only the twilight
sky, and harsh and black against it, the convoluted earth. And the
city. Malignant. He wondered, again, what beings would choose to build
a city—even a city like this one—in such surroundings.
The men from the ship knew only the surface facts about this waiting
geometric discovery. Theirs was the eleventh inter-planetary flight,
and the previous ten, in the time allowed them for exploration while
this planet was still close enough to their own to permit a safe return
in their ships, had not spotted the city. But the eleventh expedition
had, an hour ago, with just thirteen hours left during which a return
flight could be safely started. So far as was known, this was the only
city on the planet—the planet without any life at all, save tiny
mosses, for a million years or more. And no matter which direction from
the city a man moved, he would always be going north.
"Hey, Martin!" Rodney called through his helmet radio. Martin paused.
"Wind," Rodney said, coming abreast of him. He glanced toward the black
pile, as if sharing Martin's thoughts. "That's all we need, isn't it?"
Martin looked at the semi-transparent figures of wind and dust
cavorting in the distance, moving toward them. He grinned a little,
adjusting his radio. "Worried?"
Rodney's bony face was without expression. "Gives me the creeps, kind
of. I wonder what they were like?"
Wass murmured, "Let us hope they aren't immortal."
Three feet from the edge of the city Martin stopped and stubbed at the
sand with the toe of his boot, clearing earth from part of a shining
metal band.
Wass watched him, and then shoved aside more sand, several feet away.
"It's here, too."
Martin stood up. "Let's try farther on. Rodney, radio the ship, tell
them we're going in."
Rodney nodded.
After a time, Wass said, "Here, too. How far do you think it goes?"
Martin shrugged. "Clear around the city? I'd like to know what it
is—was—for."
"Defense," Rodney, several yards behind, suggested.
"Could be," Martin said. "Let's go in."
The three crossed the metal band and walked abreast down a street,
their broad soft soled boots making no sound on the dull metal. They
passed doors and arches and windows and separate buildings. They moved
cautiously across five intersections. And they stood in a square
surrounded by the tallest buildings in the city.
Rodney broke the silence, hesitantly. "Not—not very big. Is it?"
Wass looked at him shrewdly. "Neither were the—well, shall we call
them, people? Have you noticed how low everything is?"
Rodney's laughter rose, too. Then, sobering—"Maybe they crawled."
A nebulous image, product of childhood's vivid imagination, moved
slowly across Martin's mind. "All right!" he rapped out—and the image
faded.
"Sorry," Rodney murmured, his throat working beneath his lantern jaw.
Then—"I wonder what it's like here in the winter when there's no light
at all?"
"I imagine they had illumination of some sort," Martin answered, dryly.
"If we don't hurry up and get through this place and back to the ship,
we're very likely to find out."
Rodney said quickly, "I mean outside."
"Out there, too, Rodney, they must have had illumination." Martin
looked back along the straight, metal street they'd walked on, and past
that out over the bleak, furrowed slopes where the ship's lifeboat
lay ... and he thought everything outside the city seemed, somehow,
from here, a little dim, a little hazy.
He straightened his shoulders. The city was alien, of course, and that
explained most of it ... most of it. But he felt the black city was
something familiar, yet twisted and distorted.
"Well," Wass said, his nose wrinkling a bit, "now that we're here...."
"Pictures," Martin decided. "We have twelve hours. We'll start here.
What's the matter, Wass?"
The blond man grinned ruefully. "I left the camera in the lifeboat."
There was a pause. Then Wass, defensively—"It's almost as if the city
didn't want to be photographed."
Martin ignored the remark. "Go get it. Rodney and I will be somewhere
along this street."
Wass turned away. Martin and Rodney started slowly down the wide metal
street, at right angles to their path of entrance.
Again Martin felt a tug of twisted, distorted familiarity. It was
almost as if ... they were human up to a certain point, the point
being, perhaps, some part of their minds.... Alien things, dark and
subtle, things no man could ever comprehend.
Parallel evolution on two inner planets of the same system? Somewhere,
sometime, a common ancestor? Martin noted the shoulder-high doors, the
heavier gravity, remembered the inhabitants of the city vanished before
the thing that was to become man ever emerged from the slime, and he
decided to grin at himself, at his own imagination.
Rodney jerked his scarecrow length about quickly, and a chill sped up
Martin's spine. "What's the matter?"
The bony face was white, the gray eyes were wide. "I saw—I thought I
saw—something—moving—"
Anger rose in Martin. "You didn't," he said flatly, gripping the
other's shoulder cruelly. "You couldn't have. Get hold of yourself,
man!"
Rodney stared. "The wind. Remember? There isn't any, here."
"... How could there be? The buildings protect us now. It was blowing
from the other direction."
Rodney wrenched free of Martin's grip. He gestured wildly. "That—"
"Martin!" Wass' voice came through the receivers in both their radios.
"Martin, I can't get out!"
Rodney mumbled something, and Martin told him to shut up.
Wass said, more quietly, "Remember that metal band? It's all clear now,
and glittering, as far as I can see. I can't get across it; it's like a
glass wall."
"We're trapped, we're trapped, they are—"
"Shut up, Rodney! Wass, I'm only two sections from the edge. I'll check
here."
Martin clapped a hand on Rodney's shoulder again, starting him moving,
toward the city's edge, past the black, silent buildings.
The glittering band was here, too, like a halo around a silhouette.
"No go," Martin said to Wass. He bit at his lower lip. "I think it must
be all around us." He was silent for a time, exploring the consequences
of this. Then—"We'll meet you in the middle of the city, where we
separated."
Walking with Rodney, Martin heard Wass' voice, flat and metallic
through the radio receiver against his ear. "What do you suppose caused
this?"
He shook his head angrily, saying, "Judging by reports of the rest of
the planet, it must have been horribly radioactive at one time. All of
it."
"Man-made radiation, you mean."
Martin grinned faintly. Wass, too, had an active imagination. "Well,
alien-made, anyhow. Perhaps they had a war."
Wass' voice sounded startled. "Anti-radiation screen?"
Rodney interrupted, "There hasn't been enough radiation around here for
hundreds of thousands of years to activate such a screen."
Wass said coldly, "He's right, Martin."
Martin crossed an intersection, Rodney slightly behind him. "You're
both wrong," he said. "We landed here today."
Rodney stopped in the middle of the metal street and stared down at
Martin. "The wind—?"
"Why not?"
"That would explain why it stopped so suddenly, then." Rodney stood
straighter. When he walked again, his steps were firmer.
They reached the center of the city, ahead of the small, slight Wass,
and stood watching him labor along the metal toward them.
Wass' face, Martin saw, was sober. "I tried to call the ship. No luck."
"The shield?"
Wass nodded. "What else?"
"I don't know—"
"If we went to the roof of the tallest building," Rodney offered, "we
might—"
Martin shook his head. "No. To be effective, the shield would have to
cover the city."
Wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it.
"I wonder where it gets its power?"
"Down below, probably. If there is a down below." Martin hesitated. "We
may have to...."
"What?" Rodney prompted.
Martin shrugged. "Let's look."
He led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall
buildings surrounding the square. The corridor inside was dim and
plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately
following his example. The walls and the rounded ceiling of the
corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and
the streets. There were a multitude of doors and arches set into
either side of the corridor.
It was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive.
Martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted
downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch.
A call from Rodney halted him. "Back here," the tall man repeated. "It
looks like a switchboard."
The three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a
great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures Martin had
come to associate with the city builders. The three torches, shining
through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick
rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal
roof.
"Is this it," Wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?"
Martin shrugged. "The whole city's no more than a machine, apparently."
"Another assumption," Wass said. "We have done nothing but make
assumptions ever since we got here."
"What would you suggest, instead?" Martin asked calmly.
Rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch.
"No!" Martin said, sharply. That was one assumption they dared not make.
Rodney turned. "But—"
"No. Wass, how much time have we?"
"The ship leaves in eleven hours."
"Eleven hours," Rodney repeated. "Eleven hours!" He reached out for the
switch again. Martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly.
He directed his flashlight at Rodney's thin, pale face. "What do you
think you're doing?"
"We have to find out what all this stuff's for!"
"Going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves."
"We've got to—"
"No!" Then, more quietly—"We still have eleven hours to find a way
out."
"Ten hours and forty-five minutes," Wass disagreed softly. "Minus the
time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow
it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet.
And Captain Morgan can't wait for us, Martin."
"You too, Wass?"
"Up to the point of accuracy, yes."
Martin said, "Not necessarily. You go the way the wind does, always
thinking of your own tender hide, of course."
Rodney cursed. "And every second we stand here doing nothing gives us
that much less time to find a way out. Martin—"
"Make one move toward that switchboard and I'll stop you where you
stand!"
Wass moved silently through the darkness beyond the torches. "We all
have guns, Martin."
"I'm holding mine." Martin waited.
After a moment, Wass switched his flashlight back on. He said quietly,
"He's right, Rodney. It would be sure death to monkey around in here."
"Well...." Rodney turned quickly toward the black arch. "Let's get out
of here, then!"
Martin hung back waiting for the others to go ahead of him down the
metal hall. At the other arch, where the ramp led downward, he called a
halt. "If the dome, or whatever it is, is a radiation screen there must
be at least half-a-dozen emergency exits around the city."
Rodney said, "To search every building next to the dome clean around
the city would take years."
Martin nodded. "But there must be central roads beneath this main level
leading to them. Up here there are too many roads."
Wass laughed rudely.
"Have you a better idea?"
Wass ignored that, as Martin hoped he would. He said slowly, "That
leads to another idea. If the band around the city is responsible for
the dome, does it project down into the ground as well?"
"You mean
dig
out?" Martin asked.
"Sure. Why not?"
"We're wearing heavy suits and bulky breathing units. We have no
equipment."
"That shouldn't be hard to come by."
Martin smiled, banishing Wass' idea.
Rodney said, "They may have had their digging equipment built right in
to themselves."
"Anyway," Martin decided, "we can take a look down below."
"In the pitch dark," Wass added.
Martin adjusted his torch, began to lead the way down the metal ramp.
The incline was gentle, apparently constructed for legs shorter, feet
perhaps less broad than their own. The metal, without mark of any sort,
gleamed under the combined light of the torches, unrolling out of the
darkness before the men.
At length the incline melted smoothly into the next level of the city.
Martin shined his light upward, and the others followed his example.
Metal as smooth and featureless as that on which they stood shone down
on them.
Wass turned his light parallel with the floor, and then moved slowly in
a circle. "No supports. No supports anywhere. What keeps all that up
there?"
"I don't know. I have no idea." Martin gestured toward the ramp with
his light. "Does all this, this whole place, look at all familiar to
you?"
Rodney's gulp was clearly audible through the radio receivers. "Here?"
"No, no," Martin answered impatiently, "not just here. I mean the whole
city."
"Yes," Wass said dryly, "it does. I'm sure this is where all my
nightmares stay when they're not on shift."
Martin turned on his heel and started down a metal avenue which, he
thought, paralleled the street above. And Rodney and Wass followed him
silently. They moved along the metal, past unfamiliar shapes made more
so by gloom and moving shadows, past doors dancing grotesquely in the
three lights, past openings in the occasional high metal partitions,
past something which was perhaps a conveyor belt, past another
something which could have been anything at all.
The metal street ended eventually in a blank metal wall.
The edge of the city—the city which was a dome of force above and a
bowl of metal below.
After a long time, Wass sighed. "Well, skipper...?"
"We go back, I guess," Martin said.
Rodney turned swiftly to face him. Martin thought the tall man was
holding his gun. "To the switchboard, Martin?"
"Unless someone has a better idea," Martin conceded. He waited. But
Rodney was holding the gun ... and Wass was.... Then—"I can't think of
anything else."
They began to retrace their steps along the metal street, back past
the same dancing shapes of metal, the partitions, the odd windows, all
looking different now in the new angles of illumination.
Martin was in the lead. Wass followed him silently. Rodney, tall,
matchstick thin, even in his cumbersome suit, swayed with jaunty
triumph in the rear.
Martin looked at the metal street lined with its metal objects and he
sighed. He remembered how the dark buildings of the city looked at
surface level, how the city itself looked when they were landing, and
then when they were walking toward it. The dream was gone again for
now. Idealism died in him, again and again, yet it was always reborn.
But—The only city, so far as anyone knew, on the first planet they'd
ever explored. And it had to be like this. Nightmares, Wass said, and
Martin thought perhaps the city was built by a race of beings who at
some point twisted away from their evolutionary spiral, plagued by a
sort of racial insanity.
No, Martin thought, shaking his head. No, that couldn't be.
Viewpoint ... his viewpoint. It was the haunting sense of familiarity,
a faint strain through all this broad jumble, the junkpile of alien
metal, which was making him theorize so wildly.
Then Wass touched his elbow. "Look there, Martin. Left of the ramp."
Light from their torches was reflected, as from glass.
"All right," Rodney said belligerently into his radio. "What's holding
up the procession?"
Martin was silent.
Wass undertook to explain. Why not, after all? Martin asked himself. It
was in Wass' own interest. In a moment, all three were standing before
a bank of glass cases which stretched off into the distance as far as
the combined light of their torches would reach.
"Seeds!" Wass exclaimed, his faceplate pressed against the glass.
Martin blinked. He thought how little time they had. He wet his lips.
Wass' gloved hands fumbled awkwardly at a catch in the nearest section
of the bank.
Martin thought of the dark, convoluted land outside the city. If they
wouldn't grow there.... Or had they, once? "Don't, Wass!"
Torchlight reflected from Wass' faceplate as he turned his head. "Why
not?"
They were like children.... "We don't know, released, what they'll do."
"Skipper," Wass said carefully, "if we don't get out of this place by
the deadline we may be eating these."
Martin raised his arm tensely. "Opening a seed bank doesn't help us
find a way out of here." He started up the ramp. "Besides, we've no
water."
Rodney came last up the ramp, less jaunty now, but still holding the
gun. His mind, too, was taken up with childhood's imaginings. "For
a plant to grow in this environment, it wouldn't need much water.
Maybe—" he had a vision of evil plants attacking them, growing with
super-swiftness at the air valves and joints of their suits "—only the
little moisture in the atmosphere."
They stood before the switchboard again. Martin and Wass side by side,
Rodney, still holding his gun, slightly to the rear.
Rodney moved forward a little toward the switches. His breathing was
loud and rather uneven in the radio receivers.
Martin made a final effort. "Rodney, it's still almost nine hours to
take off. Let's search awhile first. Let this be a last resort."
Rodney jerked his head negatively. "No. Now, I know you, Martin.
Postpone and postpone until it's too late, and the ship leaves without
us and we're stranded here to eat seeds and gradually dehydrate
ourselves and God only knows what else and—"
He reached out convulsively and yanked a switch.
Martin leaped, knocking him to the floor. Rodney's gun skittered away
silently, like a live thing, out of the range of the torches.
The radio receivers impersonally recorded the grating sounds of
Rodney's sobs.
"Sorry," Martin said, without feeling. He turned quickly. "Wass?"
The slight, blond man stood unmoving. "I'm with you, Martin, but, as
a last resort it might be better to be blown sky high than to die
gradually—"
Martin was watching Rodney, struggling to get up. "I agree. As a last
resort. We still have a little time."
Rodney's tall, spare figure looked bowed and tired in the torchlight,
now that he was up again. "Martin, I—"
Martin turned his back. "Skip it, Rodney," he said gently.
"Water," Wass said thoughtfully. "There must be reservoirs under this
city somewhere."
Rodney said, "How does water help us get out?"
Martin glanced at Wass, then started out of the switchboard room, not
looking back. "It got in and out of the city some way. Perhaps we can
leave the same way."
Down the ramp again.
"There's another ramp," Wass murmured.
Rodney looked down it. "I wonder how many there are, all told."
Martin placed one foot on the metal incline. He angled his torch down,
picking out shadowy, geometrical shapes, duplicates of the ones on the
present level. "We'll find out," he said, "how many there are."
Eleven levels later Rodney asked, "How much time have we now?"
"Seven hours," Wass said quietly, "until take-off."
"One more level," Martin said, ignoring the reference to time. "I ...
think it's the last."
They walked down the ramp and stood together, silent in a dim pool of
artificial light on the bottom level of the alien city.
Rodney played his torch about the metal figures carefully placed about
the floor. "Martin, what if there are no reservoirs? What if there are
cemeteries instead? Or cold storage units? Maybe the switch I pulled—"
"Rodney! Stop it!"
Rodney swallowed audibly. "This place scares me...."
"The first time I was ever in a rocket, it scared me. I was thirteen."
"This is different," Wass said. "Built-in traps—"
"They had a war," Martin said.
Wass agreed. "And the survivors retired here. Why?"
Martin said, "They wanted to rebuild. Or maybe this was already built
before the war as a retreat." He turned impatiently. "How should I
know?"
Wass turned, too, persistent. "But the planet was through with them."
"In a minute," Martin said, too irritably, "we'll have a sentient
planet." From the corner of his eye he saw Rodney start at that. "Knock
it off, Wass. We're looking for reservoirs, you know."
They moved slowly down the metal avenue, between the twisted shadow
shapes, looking carefully about them.
Rodney paused. "We might not recognize one."
Martin urged him on. "You know what a man-hole cover looks like." He
added dryly, "Use your imagination."
They reached the metal wall at the end of the avenue and paused again,
uncertain.
Martin swung his flashlight, illuminating the distorted metal shapes.
Wass said, "All this had a purpose, once...."
"We'll disperse and search carefully," Martin said.
"I wonder what the pattern was."
"... The reservoirs, Wass. The pattern will still be here for later
expeditions to study. So will we if we don't find a way to get out."
Their radios recorded Rodney's gasp. Then—"Martin! Martin! I think
I've found something!"
Martin began to run. After a moment's hesitation, Wass swung in behind
him.
"Here," Rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "Here. See?
Right here."
Three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more
from the floor.
"Well, they had hands." With his torch Wass indicated a small wheel of
the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk.
From its design Martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped
and turned. He wondered what precisely they were standing over.
"Well, Skipper, are you going to do the honors?"
Martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. It turned easily—almost too
easily—rotating the disk as it turned.
Suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed
hinge.
The three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the
six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that
drifted and eddied directly beneath them.
Rodney's sudden grip on Martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone.
"Martin! It's all alive! It's moving!"
Martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the
opening. Then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down.
He was shaking.
After a time he said, "Rodney, Wass, it's dust, down there. Remember
the wind? Air currents are moving it."
Rodney sat down on the metal flooring. For a long time he said nothing.
Then—"It wasn't.... Why did you close the hatch then?"
Martin did not say he thought the other two would have shot him,
otherwise. He said merely, "At first I wasn't sure myself."
Rodney stood up, backing away from the closed hatch. He held his gun
loosely, and his hand shook. "Then prove it. Open it again."
Martin went to the wheel. He noticed Wass was standing behind Rodney
and he, too, had drawn his gun.
The hatch rose again at Martin's direction. He stood beside it,
outlined in the light of two torches.
For a little while he was alone.
Then—causing a gasp from Wass, a harsh expletive from Rodney—a
tenuous, questing alien limb edged through the hatch, curling about
Martin, sparkling in ten thousand separate particles in the torchlight,
obscuring the dimly seen backdrop of geometrical processions of strange
objects.
Martin raised an arm, and the particles swirled in stately, shimmering
spirals.
Rodney leaned forward and looked over the edge of the hatch. He said
nothing. He eyed the sparkling particles swirling about Martin, and
now, himself.
"How deep," Wass said, from his safe distance.
"We'll have to lower a flashlight," Martin answered.
Rodney, all eagerness to be of assistance now, lowered a rope with a
torch swinging wildly on the end of it.
The torch came to rest about thirty feet down. It shone on gently
rolling mounds of fine, white stuff.
Martin anchored the rope soundly, and paused, half across the lip
of the hatch to stare coldly at Wass. "You'd rather monkey with the
switches and blow yourself to smithereens?"
Wass sighed and refused to meet Martin's gaze. Martin looked at him
disgustedly, and then began to descend the rope, slowly, peering into
the infinite, sparkling darkness pressing around him. At the bottom
of the rope he sank to his knees in dust, and then was held even. He
stamped his feet, and then, as well as he was able, did a standing
jump. He sank no farther than his knees.
He sighted a path parallel with the avenue above, toward the nearest
edge of the city. "I think we'll be all right," he called out, "as long
as we avoid the drifts."
Rodney began the descent. Looking up, Martin saw Wass above Rodney.
"All right, Wass," Martin said quietly, as Rodney released the rope and
sank into the dust.
"Not me," the answer came back quickly. "You two fools go your way,
I'll go mine."
"Wass!"
There was no answer. The light faded swiftly away from the opening.
The going was hard. The dust clung like honey to their feet, and eddied
and swirled about them until the purifying systems in their suits were
hard-pressed to remove the fine stuff working in at joints and valves.
"Are we going straight?" Rodney asked.
"Of course," Martin growled.
There was silence again, the silence of almost-exhausted determination.
The two men lifted their feet out of the dust, and then laboriously
plunged forward, to sink again to the knees, repeated the act, times
without number.
Then Wass broke his silence, taunting. "The ship leaves in two hours,
Martin. Two hours. Hear me, Rodney?"
Martin pulled his left foot from the sand and growled deep in his
throat. Ahead, through the confusing patterns of the sparkling dust,
his flashlight gleamed against metal. He grabbed Rodney's arm, pointed.
A grate.
Rodney stared. "Wass!" he shouted. "We've found a way out!"
Their radios recorded Wass' laughter. "I'm at the switchboard now,
Martin. I—"
There was a tinkle of breaking glass, breaking faceplate.
The grate groaned upward and stopped.
Wass babbled incoherently into the radio for a moment, and then he
began to scream.
Martin switched off his radio, sick.
He turned it on again when they reached the opening in the metal wall.
"Well?"
"I've been trying to get you," Rodney said, frantically. "Why didn't
you answer?"
"We couldn't do anything for him."
Rodney's face was white and drawn. "But he did this for us."
"So he did," Martin said, very quietly.
Rodney said nothing.
Then Martin said, "Did you listen until the end?"
Rodney nodded, jerkily. "He pulled three more switches. I couldn't
understand it all. But—Martin, dying alone like that in a place like
this—!"
Martin crawled into the circular pipe behind the grate. It tilted up
toward the surface. "Come on, Rodney. Last lap."
An hour later they surfaced about two hundred yards away from the
edge of the city. Behind them the black pile rose, the dome of force
shimmering, almost invisible, about it.
Ahead of them were the other two scoutships from the mother ship.
Martin called out faintly, pulling Rodney out of the pipe. Crew members
standing by the scoutships, and at the edge of the city, began to run
toward them.
"Radio picked you up as soon as you entered the pipe," someone said. It
was the last thing Martin heard before he collapsed.
Question and Possible Answers:
Why does Wass end up being sent back to the lifeboat?
(A) He cannot be trusted, and the others make him leave.
(B) He must make contact with the mother ship because one of the others was injured.
(C) He forgot the camera and has to go back to get it.
(D) His attitude is bringing the rest of them down, so they make him leave.
Answer:
| C | 195 | 30,201 | 30,203 | 30,565 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
51650_B3KKWWD1_7 | 51650_B3KKWWD1_7_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
INNOCENT AT LARGE
By POUL AND KAREN ANDERSON
Illustrated by WOOD
A hayseed Martian among big-planet slickers ... of course
he would get into trouble. But that was nothing compared
to the trouble he would be in if he did not get into trouble!
The visiphone chimed when Peri had just gotten into her dinner gown.
She peeled it off again and slipped on a casual bathrobe: a wisp of
translucence which had set the president of Antarctic Enterprise—or
had it been the chairman of the board?—back several thousand dollars.
Then she pulled a lock of lion-colored hair down over one eye, checked
with a mirror, rumpled it a tiny bit more and wrapped the robe loosely
on top and tight around the hips.
After all, some of the men who knew her private number were important.
She undulated to the phone and pressed its Accept. "Hello-o, there,"
she said automatically. "So sorry to keep you waiting. I was just
taking a bath and—Oh. It's you."
Gus Doran's prawnlike eyes popped at her. "Holy Success," he whispered
in awe. "You sure the wires can carry that much voltage?"
"Well, hurry up with whatever it is," snapped Peri. "I got a date
tonight."
"I'll say you do! With a Martian!"
Peri narrowed her silver-blue gaze and looked icily at him. "You must
have heard wrong, Gus. He's the heir apparent of Indonesia, Inc.,
that's who, and if you called up to ask for a piece of him, you can
just blank right out again. I saw him first!"
Doran's thin sharp face grinned. "You break that date, Peri. Put it off
or something. I got this Martian for you, see?"
"So? Since when has all Mars had as much spending money as one big-time
marijuana rancher? Not to mention the heir ap—"
"Sure, sure. But how much are those boys going to spend on any girl,
even a high-level type like you? Listen, I need you just for tonight,
see? This Martian is strictly from gone. He is here on official
business, but he is a yokel and I do mean hayseed. Like he asked me
what the Christmas decorations in all the stores were! And here is the
solar nexus of it, Peri, kid."
Doran leaned forward as if to climb out of the screen. "He has got a
hundred million dollars expense money, and they are not going to audit
his accounts at home. One hundred million good green certificates,
legal tender anywhere in the United Protectorates. And he has about
as much backbone as a piece of steak alga. Kid, if I did not happen to
have experience otherwise with a small nephew, I would say this will be
like taking candy from a baby."
Peri's peaches-and-cream countenance began to resemble peaches and
cream left overnight on Pluto. "Badger?" she asked.
"Sure. You and Sam Wendt handle the routine. I will take the go-between
angle, so he will think of me as still his friend, because I have other
plans for him too. But if we can't shake a million out of him for this
one night's work, there is something akilter. And your share of a
million is three hundred thirty-three—"
"Is five hundred thousand flat," said Peri. "Too bad I just got an
awful headache and can't see Mr. Sastro tonight. Where you at, Gus?"
The gravity was not as hard to take as Peter Matheny had expected.
Three generations on Mars might lengthen the legs and expand the chest
a trifle, but the genes had come from Earth and the organism readjusts.
What set him gasping was the air. It weighed like a ton of wool and had
apparently sopped up half the Atlantic Ocean. Ears trained to listen
through the Martian atmosphere shuddered from the racket conducted by
Earth's. The passport official seemed to bellow at him.
"Pardon me for asking this. The United Protectorates welcome all
visitors to Earth and I assure you, sir, an ordinary five-year visa
provokes no questions. But since you came on an official courier boat
of your planet, Mr. Matheny, regulations force me to ask your business."
"Well—recruiting."
The official patted his comfortable stomach, iridescent in neolon, and
chuckled patronizingly. "I am afraid, sir, you won't find many people
who wish to leave. They wouldn't be able to see the Teamsters Hour on
Mars, would they?"
"Oh, we don't expect immigration," said Matheny shyly. He was a fairly
young man, but small, with a dark-thatched, snub-nosed, gray-eyed
head that seemed too large for his slender body. "We learned long ago
that no one is interested any more in giving up even second-class
citizenship on Earth to live in the Republic. But we only wanted to
hire——uh, I mean engage—an, an advisor. We're not businessmen. We
know our export trade hasn't a chance among all your corporations
unless we get some—a five-year contract...?"
He heard his words trailing off idiotically, and swore at himself.
"Well, good luck." The official's tone was skeptical. He stamped the
passport and handed it back. "There, now, you are free to travel
anywhere in the Protectorates. But I would advise you to leave the
capital and get into the sticks—um, I mean the provinces. I am sure
there must be tolerably competent sales executives in Russia or
Congolese Belgium or such regions. Frankly, sir, I do not believe you
can attract anyone out of Newer York."
"Thanks," said Matheny, "but, you see, I—we need—that is.... Oh,
well. Thanks. Good-by."
He backed out of the office.
A dropshaft deposited him on a walkway. The crowd, a rainbow of men in
pajamas and robes, women in Neo-Sino dresses and goldleaf hats, swept
him against the rail. For a moment, squashed to the wire, he stared a
hundred feet down at the river of automobiles.
Phobos!
he thought
wildly.
If the barrier gives, I'll be sliced in two by a dorsal fin
before I hit the pavement!
The August twilight wrapped him in heat and stickiness. He could see
neither stars nor even moon through the city's blaze. The forest of
multi-colored towers, cataracting half a mile skyward across more
acreage than his eyes reached, was impressive and all that, but—he
used to stroll out in the rock garden behind his cottage and smoke a
pipe in company with Orion. On summer evenings, that is, when the
temperature wasn't too far below zero.
Why did they tap me for this job?
he asked himself in a surge of
homesickness.
What the hell is the Martian Embassy here for?
He, Peter Matheny, was no more than a peaceful professor of
sociodynamics at Devil's Kettle University. Of course, he had advised
his government before now—in fact, the Red Ankh Society had been his
idea—but still he was at ease only with his books and his chess and
his mineral collection, a faculty poker party on Tenthday night and an
occasional trip to Swindletown—
My God
, thought Matheny,
here I am, one solitary outlander in the
greatest commercial empire the human race has ever seen, and I'm
supposed to find my planet a con man!
He began walking, disconsolately, at random. His lizardskin shirt and
black culottes drew glances, but derisive ones: their cut was forty
years out of date. He should find himself a hotel, he thought drearily,
but he wasn't tired; the spaceport would pneumo his baggage to him
whenever he did check in. The few Martians who had been to Earth had
gone into ecstasies over the automation which put any service you could
name on a twenty-four-hour basis. But it would be a long time before
Mars had such machines. If ever.
The city roared at him.
He fumbled after his pipe.
Of course
, he told himself,
that's why
the Embassy can't act. I may find it advisable to go outside the law.
Please, sir, where can I contact the underworld?
He wished gambling were legal on Earth. The Constitution of the Martian
Republic forbade sumptuary and moral legislation; quite apart from the
rambunctious individualism which that document formulated, the article
was a practical necessity. Life was bleak enough on the deserts,
without being denied the pleasure of trying to bottom-deal some friend
who was happily trying to mark the cards. Matheny would have found a
few spins of roulette soothing: it was always an intellectual challenge
to work out the system by which the management operated a wheel. But
more, he would have been among people he understood.
The frightful thing about the Earthman was the way he seemed to
exist only in organized masses. A gypsy snake oil peddler, plodding
his syrtosaur wagon across Martian sands, just didn't have a prayer
against, say, the Grant, Harding & Adams Public Relations Agency.
Matheny puffed smoke and looked around. His feet ached from the weight
on them. Where could a man sit down? It was hard to make out any
individual sign through all that flimmering neon. His eye fell on one
that was distinguished by relative austerity.
THE CHURCH OF CHOICE
Enter, Play, Pray
That would do. He took an upward slideramp through several hundred feet
of altitude, stepped past an aurora curtain, and found himself in a
marble lobby next to an inspirational newsstand.
"Ah, brother, welcome," said a red-haired usherette in demure black
leotards. "The peace that passeth all understanding be with you. The
restaurant is right up those stairs."
"I—I'm not hungry," stammered Matheny. "I just wanted to sit in—"
"To your left, sir."
The Martian crossed the lobby. His pipe went out in the breeze from an
animated angel. Organ music sighed through an open doorway. The series
of rooms beyond was dim, Gothic, interminable.
"Get your chips right here, sir," said the girl in the booth.
"Hm?" said Matheny.
She explained. He bought a few hundred-dollar tokens, dropped a
fifty-buck coin down a slot marked CONTRIBUTIONS, and sipped the
martini he got back while he strolled around studying the games.
He stopped, frowned. Bingo? No, he didn't want to bother learning
something new. He decided that the roulette wheels were either honest
or too deep for him. He'd have to relax with a crap game instead.
He had been standing at the table for some time before the rest of the
congregation really noticed him. Then it was with awe. The first few
passes he had made were unsuccessful. Earth gravity threw him off.
But when he got the rhythm of it, he tossed a row of sevens. It was a
customary form of challenge on Mars. Here, though, they simply pushed
chips toward him. He missed a throw, as anyone would at home: simple
courtesy. The next time around, he threw for a seven just to get the
feel. He got a seven. The dice had not been substituted on him.
"I say!" he exclaimed. He looked up into eyes and eyes, all around the
green table. "I'm sorry. I guess I don't know your rules."
"You did all right, brother," said a middle-aged lady with an obviously
surgical bodice.
"But—I mean—when do we start actually
playing
? What happened to the
cocked dice?"
The lady drew herself up and jutted an indignant brow at him. "Sir!
This is a church!"
"Oh—I see—excuse me, I, I, I—" Matheny backed out of the crowd,
shuddering. He looked around for some place to hide his burning ears.
"You forgot your chips, pal," said a voice.
"Oh. Thanks. Thanks ever so much. I, I, that is—" Matheny cursed
his knotting tongue.
Damn it, just because they're so much more
sophisticated than I, do I have to talk like a leaky boiler?
The helpful Earthman was not tall. He was dark and chisel-faced and
sleekly pomaded, dapper in blue pajamas with a red zigzag, a sleighbell
cloak and curly-toed slippers.
"You're from Mars, aren't you?" he asked in the friendliest tone
Matheny had yet heard.
"Yes. Yes, I am. M-my name's Peter Matheny. I, I—" He stuck out his
hand to shake and chips rolled over the floor. "Damn! Oh, excuse me, I
forgot this was a church. Never mind the chips. No, please. I just want
to g-g-get the hell out of here."
"Good idea. How about a drink? I know a bar downshaft."
Matheny sighed. "A drink is what I need the very most."
"My name's Doran. Gus Doran. Call me Gus."
They walked back to the deaconette's booth and Matheny cashed what
remained of his winnings.
"I don't want to—I mean if you're busy tonight, Mr. Doran—"
"Nah. I am not doing one thing in particular. Besides, I have never met
a Martian. I am very interested."
"There aren't many of us on Earth," agreed Matheny. "Just a small
embassy staff and an occasional like me."
"I should think you would do a lot of traveling here. The old mother
planet and so on."
"We can't afford it," said Matheny. "What with gravitation and
distance, such voyages are much too expensive for us to make them for
pleasure. Not to mention our dollar shortage." As they entered the
shaft, he added wistfully: "You Earth people have that kind of money,
at least in your more prosperous brackets. Why don't you send a few
tourists to us?"
"I always wanted to," said Doran. "I would like to see the what they
call City of Time, and so on. As a matter of fact, I have given my
girl one of those Old Martian rings last Ike's Birthday and she was
just gazoo about it. A jewel dug out of the City of Time, like,
made a million years ago by a, uh, extinct race ... I tell you, she
appreciated
me for it!" He winked and nudged.
"Oh," said Matheny.
He felt a certain guilt. Doran was too pleasant a little man to
deserve—
"Of course," Matheny said ritually, "I agree with all the archeologists
it's a crime to sell such scientifically priceless artifacts, but what
can we do? We must live, and the tourist trade is almost nonexistent."
"Trouble with it is, I hear Mars is not so comfortable," said Doran. "I
mean, do not get me wrong, I don't want to insult you or anything, but
people come back saying you have given the planet just barely enough
air to keep a man alive. And there are no cities, just little towns and
villages and ranches out in the bush. I mean you are being pioneers and
making a new nation and all that, but people paying half a megabuck for
their ticket expect some comfort and, uh, you know."
"I do know," said Matheny. "But we're poor—a handful of people trying
to make a world of dust and sand and scrub thorn into fields and woods
and seas. We can't do it without substantial help from Earth, equipment
and supplies—which can only be paid for in Earth dollars—and we can't
export enough to Earth to earn those dollars."
By that time, they were entering the Paul Bunyan Knotty Pine Bar &
Grill, on the 73rd Level. Matheny's jaw clanked down.
"Whassa matter?" asked Doran. "Ain't you ever seen a ecdysiastic
technician before?"
"Uh, yes, but—well, not in a 3-D image under ten magnifications."
Matheny followed Doran past a sign announcing that this show was for
purely artistic purposes, into a booth. There a soundproof curtain
reduced the noise level enough so they could talk in normal voices.
"What'll you have?" asked Doran. "It's on me."
"Oh, I couldn't let you. I mean—"
"Nonsense. Welcome to Earth! Care for a thyle and vermouth?"
Matheny shuddered. "Good Lord, no!"
"Huh? But they make thyle right on Mars, don't they?"
"Yes. And it all goes to Earth and sells at 2000 dollars a fifth. But
you don't think we'd
drink
it, do you? I mean—well, I imagine it
doesn't absolutely
ruin
vermouth. But we don't see those Earthside
commercials about how sophisticated people like it so much."
"Well, I'll be a socialist creeper!" Doran's face split in a grin. "You
know, all my life I've hated the stuff and never dared admit it!" He
raised a hand. "Don't worry, I won't blabbo. But I am wondering, if you
control the thyle industry and sell all those relics at fancy prices,
why do you call yourselves poor?"
"Because we are," said Matheny. "By the time the shipping costs have
been paid on a bottle, and the Earth wholesaler and jobber and sales
engineer and so on, down to the retailer, have taken their percentage,
and the advertising agency has been paid, and about fifty separate
Earth taxes—there's very little profit going back to the distillery
on Mars. The same principle is what's strangling us on everything. Old
Martian artifacts aren't really rare, for instance, but freight charges
and the middlemen here put them out of the mass market."
"Have you not got some other business?"
"Well, we do sell a lot of color slides, postcards, baggage labels and
so on to people who like to act cosmopolitan, and I understand our
travel posters are quite popular as wall decoration. But all that has
to be printed on Earth, and the printer and distributor keep most of
the money. We've sold some books and show tapes, of course, but only
one has been really successful—
I Was a Slave Girl on Mars
.
"Our most prominent novelist was co-opted to ghostwrite that one.
Again, though, local income taxes took most of the money; authors
never have been protected the way a businessman is. We do make a high
percentage of profit on those little certificates you see around—you
know, the title deeds to one square inch of Mars—but expressed
absolutely, in dollars, it doesn't amount to much when we start
shopping for bulldozers and thermonuclear power plants."
"How about postage stamps?" inquired Doran. "Philately is a big
business, I have heard."
"It was our mainstay," admitted Matheny, "but it's been overworked.
Martian stamps are a drug on the market. What we'd like to operate is a
sweepstakes, but the anti-gambling laws on Earth forbid that."
Doran whistled. "I got to give your people credit for enterprise,
anyway!" He fingered his mustache. "Uh, pardon me, but have you tried
to, well, attract capital from Earth?"
"Of course," said Matheny bitterly. "We offer the most liberal
concessions in the Solar System. Any little mining company or transport
firm or—or anybody—who wanted to come and actually invest a few
dollars in Mars—why, we'd probably give him the President's daughter
as security. No, the Minister of Ecology has a better-looking one.
But who's interested? We haven't a thing that Earth hasn't got more
of. We're only the descendants of a few scientists, a few political
malcontents, oddballs who happen to prefer elbow room and a bill of
liberties to the incorporated state—what could General Nucleonics
hope to get from Mars?"
"I see. Well, what are you having to drink?"
"Beer," said Matheny without hesitation.
"Huh? Look, pal, this is on me."
"The only beer on Mars comes forty million miles, with interplanetary
freight charges tacked on," said Matheny. "Heineken's!"
Doran shrugged, dialed the dispenser and fed it coins.
"This is a real interesting talk, Pete," he said. "You are being very
frank with me. I like a man that is frank."
Matheny shrugged. "I haven't told you anything that isn't known to
every economist."
Of course I haven't. I've not so much as mentioned the Red Ankh, for
instance. But, in principle, I have told him the truth, told him of our
need; for even the secret operations do not yield us enough.
The beer arrived. Matheny engulfed himself in it. Doran sipped at a
whiskey sour and unobtrusively set another full bottle in front of the
Martian.
"Ahhh!" said Matheny. "Bless you, my friend."
"A pleasure."
"But now you must let me buy you one."
"That is not necessary. After all," said Doran with great tact, "with
the situation as you have been describing—"
"Oh, we're not
that
poor! My expense allowance assumes I will
entertain quite a bit."
Doran's brows lifted a few minutes of arc. "You're here on business,
then?"
"Yes. I told you we haven't any tourists. I was sent to hire a business
manager for the Martian export trade."
"What's wrong with your own people? I mean, Pete, it is not your fault
there are so many rackets—uh, taxes—and middlemen and agencies and et
cetera. That is just the way Earth is set up these days."
Matheny's finger stabbed in the general direction of Doran's pajama
top. "Exactly. And who set it up that way? Earthmen. We Martians are
babes in the desert. What chance do we have to earn dollars on the
scale we need them, in competition with corporations which could buy
and sell our whole planet before breakfast? Why, we couldn't afford
three seconds of commercial time on a Lullaby Pillow 'cast. What we
need, what we have to hire, is an executive who knows Earth, who's an
Earthman himself. Let him tell us what will appeal to your people, and
how to dodge the tax bite and—and—well, you see how it goes, that
sort of, uh, thing."
Matheny felt his eloquence running down and grabbed for the second
bottle of beer.
"But where do I start?" he asked plaintively, for his loneliness smote
him anew. "I'm just a college professor at home. How would I even get
to see—"
"It might be arranged," said Doran in a thoughtful tone. "It just
might. How much could you pay this fellow?"
"A hundred megabucks a year, if he'll sign a five-year contract. That's
Earth years, mind you."
"I'm sorry to tell you this, Pete," said Doran, "but while that is not
bad money, it is not what a high-powered sales scientist gets in Newer
York. Plus his retirement benefits, which he would lose if he quit
where he is now at. And I am sure he would not want to settle on Mars
permanently."
"I could offer a certain amount of, uh, lagniappe," said Matheny. "That
is, well, I can draw up to a hundred megabucks myself for, uh, expenses
and, well ... let me buy you a drink!"
Doran's black eyes frogged at him. "You might at that," said the
Earthman very softly. "Yes, you might at that."
Matheny found himself warming. Gus Doran was an authentic bobber. A
hell of a swell chap. He explained modestly that he was a free-lance
business consultant and it was barely possible that he could arrange
some contacts....
"No, no, no commission, all done in the interest of interplanetary
friendship ... well, anyhow, let's not talk business now. If you have
got to stick to beer, Pete, make it a chaser to akvavit. What is
akvavit? Well, I will just take and show you."
A hell of a good bloke. He knew some very funny stories, too, and
he laughed at Matheny's, though they were probably too rustic for a
big-city taste like his.
"What I really want," said Matheny, "what I really want—I mean what
Mars really needs, get me?—is a confidence man."
"A what?"
"The best and slickest one on Earth, to operate a world-size con game
for us and make us some real money."
"Con man? Oh. A slipstring."
"A con by any other name," said Matheny, pouring down an akvavit.
Doran squinted through cigarette smoke. "You are interesting me
strangely, my friend. Say on."
"No." Matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. The walls of the booth
seemed odd, somehow. They were just leatheroid walls, but they had an
odd quality.
"No, sorry, Gus," he said. "I spoke too much."
"Okay. Forget it. I do not like a man that pries. But look, let's bomb
out of here, how about it? Go have a little fun."
"By all means." Matheny disposed of his last beer. "I could use some
gaiety."
"You have come to the right town then. But let us get you a hotel room
first and some more up-to-date clothes."
"
Allez
," said Matheny. "If I don't mean
allons
, or maybe
alors
."
The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered
him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more.
Oh, well
, he thought,
if I succeed in this job, no one at home will
quibble.
And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular
enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to
show the vertical incandescence of the towers.
"Whoof!" Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his
contours. He jumped. "What the dusty hell—Oh." He tried to grin, but
his face burned. "I see."
"That is a sexy type of furniture, all right," agreed Doran. He lowered
himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a
cigarette. "Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not
too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around
2100 hours earliest."
"What?"
"You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and
swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you."
"Me?" Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. "Me?
Exotic? Why, I'm just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is—"
His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened
uncertain lips.
"You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an
abandoned canal."
"What's a bushcat? And we don't have canals. The evaporation rate—"
"Look, Pete," said Doran patiently. "She don't have to know that, does
she?"
"Well—well, no. I guess not No."
"Let's order you some clothes on the pneumo," said Doran. "I recommend
you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive."
While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with
his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer.
"You said one thing, Pete," Doran remarked. "About needing a
slipstring. A con man, you would call it."
"Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn."
"Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And
maybe I have got a few contacts."
"What?" Matheny gaped out of the bathroom.
Doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him.
"I am not that man," he said frankly. "But in my line I get a lot of
contacts, and not all of them go topside. See what I mean? Like if,
say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, I could not
do it. I would not want to know anything about it. But I could tell you
a phone number."
He shrugged and gave the Martian a sidelong glance. "Sure, you may not
be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I
got tolerance. Like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have
got to think positively."
Matheny hesitated. If only he hadn't taken that last shot! It made him
want to say yes, immediately, without reservations. And therefore maybe
he became overcautious.
They had instructed him on Mars to take chances if he must.
"I could tell you a thing or two that might give you a better idea," he
said slowly. "But it would have to be under security."
"Okay by me. Room service can send us up an oath box right now."
"What? But—but—" Matheny hung onto himself and tried to believe that
he had landed on Earth less than six hours ago.
In the end, he did call room service and the machine was trundled in.
Doran swallowed the pill and donned the conditioner helmet without an
instant's hesitation.
"I shall never reveal to any person unauthorized by yourself whatever
you may tell me under security, now or at any other time," he
recited. Then, cheerfully: "And that formula, Pete, happens to be the
honest-to-zebra truth."
"I know." Matheny stared, embarrassed, at the carpet. "I'm sorry
to—to—I mean of course I trust you, but—"
"Forget it. I take a hundred security oaths a year, in my line of work.
Maybe I can help you. I like you, Pete, damn if I don't. And, sure,
I might stand to get an agent's cut, if I arrange—Go ahead, boy, go
ahead." Doran crossed his legs and leaned back.
"Oh, it's simple enough," said Matheny. "It's only that we already are
operating con games."
"On Mars, you mean?"
"Yes. There never were any Old Martians. We erected the ruins fifty
years ago for the Billingsworth Expedition to find. We've been
manufacturing relics ever since."
"
Huh?
Well, why, but—"
"In this case, it helps to be at the far end of an interplanetary
haul," said Matheny. "Not many Terrestrial archeologists get to Mars
and they depend on our people to—Well, anyhow—"
"I will be clopped! Good for you!"
Doran blew up in laughter. "That is one thing I would never spill, even
without security. I told you about my girl friend, didn't I?"
"Yes, and that calls to mind the Little Girl," said Matheny
apologetically. "She was another official project."
"Who?"
"Remember Junie O'Brien? The little golden-haired girl on Mars, a
mathematical prodigy, but dying of an incurable disease? She collected
Earth coins."
"Oh, that. Sure, I remember—Hey! You didn't!"
"Yes. We made about a billion dollars on that one."
"I will be double damned. You know, Pete, I sent her a hundred-buck
piece myself. Say, how is Junie O'Brien?"
"Oh, fine. Under a different name, she's now our finance minister."
Matheny stared out the wall, his hands twisting nervously behind his
back. "There were no lies involved. She really does have a fatal
disease. So do you and I. Every day we grow older."
"Uh!" exclaimed Doran.
"And then the Red Ankh Society. You must have seen or heard their ads.
'What mysterious knowledge did the Old Martians possess? What was
the secret wisdom of the Ancient Aliens? Now the incredibly powerful
semantics of the Red Ankh (not a religious organization) is available
to a select few—' That's our largest dollar-earning enterprise."
He would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but it
would have been too presumptuous. He was talking to an Earthman, who
had heard everything already.
Doran whistled.
"That's about all, so far," confessed Matheny. "Perhaps a con is our
only hope. I've been wondering, maybe we could organize a Martian
bucket shop, handling Martian securities, but—well, I don't know."
"I think—" Doran removed the helmet and stood up.
"Yes?" Matheny faced around, shivering with his own tension.
"I may be able to find the man you want," said Doran. "I just may. It
will take a few days and might get a little expensive."
"You mean.... Mr. Doran—Gus—you could actually—"
"I cannot promise anything yet except that I will try. Now you finish
dressing. I will be down in the bar. And I will call up this girl I
know. We deserve a celebration!"
Question and Possible Answers:
What effect did Earth's anti-gambling laws have on Mars?
(A) Gambling was not allowed on Mars
(B) Martians were not able to run a sweepstakes for Earthlings
(C) Earthlings were not allowed to gamble while on Mars
(D) Martians were not allowed to gamble while on Earth
Answer:
| B | 195 | 31,240 | 31,242 | 31,545 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
51274_8Q2YNHG5_6 | 51274_8Q2YNHG5_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
AMBITION
By WILLIAM L. BADE
Illustrated by L. WOROMAY
To the men of the future, the scientific
goals of today were as incomprehensible
as the ancient quest for the Holy Grail!
There was a thump. Maitland stirred, came half awake, and opened his
eyes. The room was dark except where a broad shaft of moonlight from
the open window fell on the foot of his bed. Outside, the residential
section of the Reservation slept silently under the pale illumination
of the full Moon. He guessed sleepily that it was about three o'clock.
What had he heard? He had a definite impression that the sound had come
from within the room. It had sounded like someone stumbling into a
chair, or—
Something moved in the darkness on the other side of the room. Maitland
started to sit up and it was as though a thousand volts had shorted his
brain....
This time, he awoke more normally. He opened his eyes, looked through
the window at a section of azure sky, listened to the singing of birds
somewhere outside. A beautiful day. In the middle of the process of
stretching his rested muscles, arms extended back, legs tensed, he
froze, looking up—for the first time really seeing the ceiling. He
turned his head, then rolled off the bed, wide awake.
This wasn't his room!
The lawn outside wasn't part of the Reservation! Where the labs and
the shops should have been, there was deep prairie grass, then a green
ocean pushed into waves by the breeze stretching to the horizon. This
wasn't the California desert! Down the hill, where the liquid oxygen
plant ought to have been, a river wound across the scene, almost hidden
beneath its leafy roof of huge ancient trees.
Shock contracted Maitland's diaphragm and spread through his body.
His breathing quickened.
Now
he remembered what had happened during
the night, the sound in the darkness, the dimly seen figure, and
then—what? Blackout....
Where was he? Who had brought him here? For what purpose?
He thought he knew the answer to the last of those questions. As
a member of the original atomic reaction-motor team, he possessed
information that other military powers would very much like to obtain.
It was absolutely incredible that anyone had managed to abduct him from
the heavily guarded confines of the Reservation, yet someone had done
it. How?
He pivoted to inspect the room. Even before his eyes could take in
the details, he had the impression that there was something wrong
about it. To begin with, the style was unfamiliar. There were no
straight lines or sharp corners anywhere. The walls were paneled in
featureless blue plastic and the doors were smooth surfaces of metal,
half ellipses, without knobs. The flowing lines of the chair and table,
built apparently from an aluminum alloy, somehow gave the impression
of arrested motion. Even after allowances were made for the outlandish
design, something about the room still was not right.
His eyes returned to the doors, and he moved over to study the nearer
one. As he had noticed, there was no knob, but at the right of this
one, at about waist level, a push-button projected out of the wall. He
pressed it; the door slid aside and disappeared. Maitland glanced in at
the disclosed bathroom, then went over to look at the other door.
There was no button beside this one, nor any other visible means of
causing it to open.
Baffled, he turned again and looked at the large open window—and
realized what it was that had made the room seem so queer.
It did not look like a jail cell. There were no bars....
Striding across the room, he lunged forward to peer out and violently
banged his forehead. He staggered back, grimacing with pain, then
reached forward cautious fingers and discovered a hard sheet of stuff
so transparent that he had not even suspected its presence. Not glass!
Glass was never this clear or strong. A plastic, no doubt, but one he
hadn't heard of. Security sometimes had disadvantages.
He looked out at the peaceful vista of river and prairie. The character
of the sunlight seemed to indicate that it was afternoon. He became
aware that he was hungry.
Where the devil could this place be? And—muscles tightened about his
empty stomach—what was in store for him here?
He stood trembling, acutely conscious that he was afraid and helpless,
until a flicker of motion at the bottom of the hill near the river drew
his attention. Pressing his nose against the window, he strained his
eyes to see what it was.
A man and a woman were coming toward him up the hill. Evidently they
had been swimming, for each had a towel; the man's was hung around his
neck, and the woman was still drying her bobbed black hair.
Maitland speculated on the possibility that this might be Sweden; he
didn't know of any other country where public bathing at this time
of year was customary. However, that prairie certainly didn't look
Scandinavian....
As they came closer, he saw that both of them had dark uniform suntans
and showed striking muscular development, like persons who had trained
for years with weights. They vanished below his field of view,
presumably into the building.
He sat down on the edge of the cot and glared helplessly at the floor.
About half an hour later, the door he couldn't open slid aside into the
wall. The man Maitland had seen outside, now clad in gray trunks and
sandals, stood across the threshold looking in at him. Maitland stood
up and stared back, conscious suddenly that in his rumpled pajamas he
made an unimpressive figure.
The fellow looked about forty-five. The first details Maitland noticed
were the forehead, which was quite broad, and the calm, clear eyes.
The dark hair, white at the temples, was combed back, still damp from
swimming. Below, there was a wide mouth and a firm, rounded chin.
This man was intelligent, Maitland decided, and extremely sure of
himself.
Somehow, the face didn't go with the rest of him. The man had the head
of a thinker, the body of a trained athlete—an unusual combination.
Impassively, the man said, "My name is Swarts. You want to know where
you are. I am not going to tell you." He had an accent, European, but
otherwise unidentifiable. Possibly German. Maitland opened his mouth
to protest, but Swarts went on, "However, you're free to do all the
guessing you want." Still there was no suggestion of a smile.
"Now, these are the rules. You'll be here for about a week. You'll have
three meals a day, served in this room. You will not be allowed to
leave it except when accompanied by myself. You will not be harmed in
any way, provided you cooperate. And you can forget the silly idea that
we want your childish secrets about rocket motors." Maitland's heart
jumped. "My reason for bringing you here is altogether different. I
want to give you some psychological tests...."
"Are you crazy?" Maitland asked quietly. "Do you realize that at this
moment one of the greatest hunts in history must be going on? I'll
admit I'm baffled as to where we are and how you got me here—but it
seems to me that you could have found someone less conspicuous to give
your tests to."
Briefly, then, Swarts did smile. "They won't find you," he said. "Now,
come with me."
After that outlandish cell, Swarts' laboratory looked rather
commonplace. There was something like a surgical cot in the center, and
a bench along one wall supported several electronics cabinets. A couple
of them had cathode ray tube screens, and they all presented a normal
complement of meters, pilot lights, and switches. Cables from them ran
across the ceiling and came to a focus above the high flat cot in the
center of the room.
"Lie down," Swarts said. When Maitland hesitated, Swarts added,
"Understand one thing—the more you cooperate, the easier things will
be for you. If necessary, I will use coercion. I can get all my results
against your will, if I must. I would prefer not to. Please don't make
me."
"What's the idea?" Maitland asked. "What is all this?"
Swarts hesitated, though not, Maitland astonishedly felt, to evade an
answer, but to find the proper words. "You can think of it as a lie
detector. These instruments will record your reactions to the tests I
give you. That is as much as you need to know. Now lie down."
Maitland stood there for a moment, deliberately relaxing his tensed
muscles. "Make me."
If Swarts was irritated, he didn't show it. "That was the first test,"
he said. "Let me put it another way. I would appreciate it a lot if
you'd lie down on this cot. I would like to test my apparatus."
Maitland shook his head stubbornly.
"I see," Swarts said. "You want to find out what you're up against."
He moved so fast that Maitland couldn't block the blow. It was to the
solar plexus, just hard enough to double him up, fighting for breath.
He felt an arm under his back, another behind his knees. Then he was on
the cot. When he was able to breathe again, there were straps across
his chest, hips, knees, ankles, and arms, and Swarts was tightening a
clamp that held his head immovable.
Presently, a number of tiny electrodes were adhering to his temples and
to other portions of his body, and a minute microphone was clinging to
the skin over his heart. These devices terminated in cables that hung
from the ceiling. A sphygmomanometer sleeve was wrapped tightly around
his left upper arm, its rubber tube trailing to a small black box
clamped to the frame of the cot. Another cable left the box and joined
the others.
So—Maitland thought—Swarts could record changes in his skin
potential, heartbeat, and blood pressure: the involuntary responses of
the body to stimuli.
The question was, what were the stimuli to be?
"Your name," said Swarts, "is Robert Lee Maitland. You are thirty-four
years old. You are an engineer, specialty heat transfer, particularly
as applied to rocket motors.... No, Mr. Maitland, I'm not going to
question you about your work; just forget about it. Your home town is
Madison, Wisconsin...."
"You seem to know everything about me," Maitland said defiantly,
looking up into the hanging forest of cabling. "Why this recital?"
"I do not know everything about you—yet. And I'm testing the
equipment, calibrating it to your reactions." He went on, "Your
favorite recreations are chess and reading what you term science
fiction. Maitland,
how would you like to go to the Moon
?"
Something eager leaped in Maitland's breast at the abrupt question, and
he tried to turn his head. Then he forced himself to relax. "What do
you mean?"
Swarts was chuckling. "I really hit a semantic push-button there,
didn't I? Maitland, I brought you here because you're a man who wants
to go to the Moon. I'm interested in finding out
why
."
In the evening a girl brought Maitland his meal. As the door slid
aside, he automatically stood up, and they stared at each other for
several seconds.
She had the high cheekbones and almond eyes of an Oriental, skin that
glowed like gold in the evening light, yet thick coiled braids of
blonde hair that glittered like polished brass. Shorts and a sleeveless
blouse of some thick, reddish, metallic-looking fabric clung to her
body, and over that she was wearing a light, ankle-length cloak of what
seemed to be white wool.
She was looking at him with palpable curiosity and something like
expectancy. Maitland sighed and said, "Hello," then glanced down
self-consciously at his wrinkled green pajamas.
She smiled, put the tray of food on the table, and swept out, her cloak
billowing behind her. Maitland remained standing, staring at the closed
door for a minute after she was gone.
Later, when he had finished the steak and corn on the cob and shredded
carrots, and a feeling of warm well-being was diffusing from his
stomach to his extremities, he sat down on the bed to watch the sunset
and to think.
There were three questions for which he required answers before he
could formulate any plan or policy.
Where was he?
Who was Swarts?
What was the purpose of the "tests" he was being given?
It was possible, of course, that this was all an elaborate scheme
for getting military secrets, despite Swarts' protestations to the
contrary. Maitland frowned. This place certainly didn't have the
appearance of a military establishment, and so far there had been
nothing to suggest the kind of interrogation to be expected from
foreign intelligence officers.
It might be better to tackle the first question first. He looked at
the Sun, a red spheroid already half below the horizon, and tried to
think of a region that had this kind of terrain. That prairie out there
was unique. Almost anywhere in the world, land like that would be
cultivated, not allowed to go to grass.
This might be somewhere in Africa....
He shook his head, puzzled. The Sun disappeared and its blood-hued
glow began to fade from the sky. Maitland sat there, trying to get
hold of the problem from an angle where it wouldn't just slip away.
After a while the western sky became a screen of clear luminous blue,
a backdrop for a pure white brilliant star. As always at that sight,
Maitland felt his worry drain away, leaving an almost mystical sense of
peace and an undefinable longing.
Venus, the most beautiful of the planets.
Maitland kept track of them all in their majestic paths through the
constellations, but Venus was his favorite. Time and time again he
had watched its steady climb higher and higher in the western sky,
its transient rule there as evening star, its progression toward the
horizon, and loved it equally in its
alter ego
of morning star. Venus
was an old friend. An old friend....
Something icy settled on the back of his neck, ran down his spine, and
diffused into his body. He stared at the planet unbelievingly, fists
clenched, forgetting to breathe.
Last night Venus hadn't been there.
Venus was a morning star just now....
Just now!
He realized the truth in that moment.
Later, when that jewel of a planet had set and the stars were out,
he lay on the bed, still warm with excitement and relief. He didn't
have to worry any more about military secrets, or who Swarts was.
Those questions were irrelevant now. And now he could accept the
psychological tests at their face value; most likely, they were what
they purported to be.
Only one question of importance remained:
What year was this?
He grimaced in the darkness, an involuntary muscular expression of
jubilation and excitement. The
future
! Here was the opportunity for
the greatest adventure imaginable to 20th Century man.
Somewhere, out there under the stars, there must be grand glittering
cities and busy spaceports, roaring gateways to the planets.
Somewhere, out there in the night, there must be men who had walked
beside the Martian canals and pierced the shining cloud mantle of
Venus—somewhere, perhaps, men who had visited the distant luring stars
and returned. Surely, a civilization that had developed time travel
could reach the stars!
And
he
had a chance to become a part of all that! He could spend
his life among the planets, a citizen of deep space, a voyager of the
challenging spaceways between the solar worlds.
"I'm adaptable," he told himself gleefully. "I can learn fast. There'll
be a job for me out there...."
If—
Suddenly sobered, he rolled over and put his feet on the floor, sat
in the darkness thinking. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would have to find a
way of breaking down Swarts' reticence. He would have to make the man
realize that secrecy wasn't necessary in this case. And if Swarts still
wouldn't talk, he would have to find a way of forcing the issue. The
fellow had said that he didn't need cooperation to get his results,
but—
After a while Maitland smiled to himself and went back to bed.
He woke in the morning with someone gently shaking his shoulder. He
rolled over and looked up at the girl who had brought him his meal the
evening before. There was a tray on the table and he sniffed the smell
of bacon. The girl smiled at him. She was dressed as before, except
that she had discarded the white cloak.
As he swung his legs to the floor, she started toward the door,
carrying the tray with the dirty dishes from yesterday. He stopped her
with the word, "Miss!"
She turned, and he thought there was something eager in her face.
"Miss, do you speak my language?"
"Yes," hesitantly. She lingered too long on the hiss of the last
consonant.
"Miss," he asked, watching her face intently, "what year is this?"
Startlingly, she laughed, a mellow peal of mirth that had nothing
forced about it. She turned toward the door again and said over her
shoulder, "You will have to ask Swarts about that. I cannot tell you."
"Wait! You mean you don't know?"
She shook her head. "I cannot tell you."
"All right; we'll let it go at that."
She grinned at him again as the door slid shut.
Swarts came half an hour later, and Maitland began his planned
offensive.
"What year is this?"
Swarts' steely eyes locked with his. "You know what the date is," he
stated.
"No, I don't. Not since yesterday."
"Come on," Swarts said patiently, "let's get going. We have a lot to
get through this morning."
"I
know
this isn't 1950. It's probably not even the 20th Century.
Venus was a morning star before you brought me here. Now it's an
evening star."
"Never mind that. Come."
Wordlessly, Maitland climbed to his feet, preceded Swarts to the
laboratory, lay down and allowed him to fasten the straps and attach
the instruments, making no resistance at all. When Swarts started
saying a list of words—doubtlessly some sort of semantic reaction
test—Maitland began the job of integrating "csc
3
x dx" in his head.
It was a calculation which required great concentration and frequent
tracing back of steps. After several minutes, he noticed that Swarts
had stopped calling words. He opened his eyes to find the other man
standing over him, looking somewhat exasperated and a little baffled.
"What year is this?" Maitland asked in a conversational tone.
"We'll try another series of tests."
It took Swarts nearly twenty minutes to set up the new apparatus. He
lowered a bulky affair with two cylindrical tubes like the twin stacks
of a binocular microscope over Maitland's head, so that the lenses at
the ends of the tubes were about half an inch from the engineer's
eyes. He attached tiny clamps to Maitland's eyelashes.
"These will keep you from holding your eyes shut," he said. "You can
blink, but the springs are too strong for you to hold your eyelids down
against the tension."
He inserted button earphones into Maitland's ears—
And then the show began.
He was looking at a door in a partly darkened room, and there were
footsteps outside, a peremptory knocking. The door flew open,
and outlined against the light of the hall, he saw a man with a
twelve-gauge shotgun. The man shouted, "Now I've got you, you
wife-stealer!" He swung the shotgun around and pulled the trigger.
There was a terrible blast of sound and the flash of smokeless
powder—then blackness.
With a deliberate effort, Maitland unclenched his fists and tried to
slow his breathing. Some kind of emotional reaction test—what was the
countermove? He closed his eyes, but shortly the muscles around them
declared excruciatingly that they couldn't keep that up.
Now he was looking at a girl. She....
Maitland gritted his teeth and fought to use his brain; then he had it.
He thought of a fat slob of a bully who had beaten him up one day
after school. He remembered a talk he had heard by a politician who had
all the intelligent social responsibility of a rogue gorilla, but no
more. He brooded over the damnable stupidity and short-sightedness of
Swarts in standing by his silly rules and not telling him about this
new world.
Within a minute, he was in an ungovernable rage. His muscles tightened
against the restraining straps. He panted, sweat came out on his
forehead, and he began to curse. Swarts! How he hated....
The scene was suddenly a flock of sheep spread over a green hillside.
There was blood hammering in Maitland's temples. His face felt hot and
swollen and he writhed against the restraint of the straps.
The scene disappeared, the lenses of the projector retreated from his
eyes and Swarts was standing over him, white-lipped. Maitland swore at
him for a few seconds, then relaxed and smiled weakly. His head was
starting to ache from the effort of blinking.
"What year is this?" he asked.
"All right," Swarts said. "A.D. 2634."
Maitland's smile became a grin.
"I really haven't the time to waste talking irrelevancies," Swarts said
a while later. "Honestly. Maitland, I'm working against a time limit.
If you'll cooperate, I'll tell Ching to answer your questions."'
"Ching?"
"Ingrid Ching is the girl who has been bringing you your meals."
Maitland considered a moment, then nodded. Swarts lowered the projector
to his eyes again, and this time the engineer did not resist.
That evening, he could hardly wait for her to come. Too excited to sit
and watch the sunset, he paced interminably about the room, sometimes
whistling nervously, snapping his fingers, sitting down and jittering
one leg. After a while he noticed that he was whistling the same theme
over and over: a minute's thought identified it as that exuberant
mounting phrase which recurs in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony.
He forgot about it and went on whistling. He was picturing himself
aboard a ship dropping in toward Mars, making planetfall at Syrtis
Major; he was seeing visions of Venus and the awesome beauty of Saturn.
In his mind, he circled the Moon, and viewed the Earth as a huge bright
globe against the constellations....
Finally the door slid aside and she appeared, carrying the usual tray
of food. She smiled at him, making dimples in her golden skin and
revealing a perfect set of teeth, and put the tray on the table.
"I think you are wonderful," she laughed. "You get everything you
want, even from Swarts, and I have not been able to get even a little
of what I want from him. I want to travel in time, go back to your 20th
Century. And I wanted to talk with you, and he would not let me." She
laughed again, hands on her rounded hips. "I have never seen him so
irritated as he was this noon."
Maitland urged her into the chair and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Eagerly he asked, "Why the devil do you want to go to the 20th Century?
Believe me, I've been there, and what I've seen of this world looks a
lot better."
She shrugged. "Swarts says that I want to go back to the Dark Age of
Technology because I have not adapted well to modern culture. Myself,
I think I have just a romantic nature. Far times and places look more
exciting...."
"How do you mean—" Maitland wrinkled his brow—"adapt to modern
culture? Don't tell me
you're
from another time!"
"Oh, no! But my home is Aresund, a little fishing village at the head
of a fiord in what you would call Norway. So far north, we are much
behind the times. We live in the old way, from the sea, speak the old
tongue."
He looked at her golden features, such a felicitous blend of
Oriental and European characteristics, and hesitantly asked, "Maybe
I shouldn't.... This is a little personal, but ... you don't look
altogether like the Norwegians of my time."
His fear that she would be offended proved to be completely
unjustified. She merely laughed and said, "There has been much
history since 1950. Five hundred years ago, Europe was overrun by
Pan-Orientals. Today you could not find anywhere a 'pure' European
or Asiatic." She giggled. "Swarts' ancestors from your time must be
cursing in their graves. His family is Afrikander all the way back, but
one of his great-grandfathers was pure-blooded Bantu. His full name is
Lassisi Swarts."
Maitland wrinkled his brow. "Afrikander?"
"The South Africans." Something strange came into her eyes. It might
have been awe, or even hatred; he could not tell. "The Pan-Orientals
eventually conquered all the world, except for North America—the
last remnant of the American World Empire—and southern Africa. The
Afrikanders had been partly isolated for several centuries then, and
they had developed technology while the rest of the world lost it. They
had a tradition of white supremacy, and in addition they were terrified
of being encircled." She sighed. "They ruled the next world empire and
it was founded on the slaughter of one and a half billion human beings.
That went into the history books as the War of Annihilation."
"So many? How?"
"They were clever with machines, the Afrikanders. They made armies
of them. Armies of invincible killing-machines, produced in robot
factories from robot-mined ores.... Very clever." She gave a little
shudder.
"And yet they founded modern civilization," she added. "The grandsons
of the technicians who built the Machine Army set up our robot
production system, and today no human being has to dirty his hands
raising food or manufacturing things. It could never have been done,
either, before the population was—reduced to three hundred million."
"Then the Afrikanders are still on top? Still the masters?"
She shook her head. "There are no more Afrikanders."
"Rebellion?"
"No. Intermarriage. Racial blending. There was a psychology of guilt
behind it. So huge a crime eventually required a proportionate
expiation. Afrikaans is still the world language, but there is only one
race now. No more masters or slaves."
They were both silent for a moment, and then she sighed. "Let us not
talk about them any more."
"Robot factories and farms," Maitland mused. "What else? What means of
transportation? Do you have interstellar flight yet?"
"Inter-what?"
"Have men visited the stars?"
She shook her head, bewildered.
"I always thought that would be a tough problem to crack," he agreed.
"But tell me about what men are doing in the Solar System. How is life
on Mars and Venus, and how long does it take to get to those places?"
He waited, expectantly silent, but she only looked puzzled. "I don't
understand. Mars? What are Mars?"
After several seconds, Maitland swallowed. Something seemed to be the
matter with his throat, making it difficult for him to speak. "Surely
you have space travel?"
She frowned and shook her head. "What does that mean—space travel?"
He was gripping the edge of the bed now, glaring at her. "A
civilization that could discover time travel and build robot factories
wouldn't find it hard to send a ship to Mars!"
"A
ship
? Oh, you mean something like a
vliegvlotter
. Why, no, I
don't suppose it would be hard. But why would anyone want to do a
thing like that?"
He was on his feet towering over her, fists clenched. She raised her
arms as if to shield her face if he should hit her. "Let's get this
perfectly clear," he said, more harshly than he realized. "So far as
you know, no one has ever visited the planets, and no one wants to. Is
that right?"
She nodded apprehensively. "I have never heard of it being done."
He sank down on the bed and put his face in his hands. After a while he
looked up and said bitterly, "You're looking at a man who would give
his life to get to Mars. I thought I would in my time. I was positive I
would when I knew I was in your time. And now I know I never will."
The cot creaked beside him and he felt a soft arm about his shoulders
and fingers delicately stroking his brow. Presently he opened his eyes
and looked at her. "I just don't understand," he said. "It seemed
obvious to me that whenever men were able to reach the planets, they'd
do it."
Her pitying eyes were on his face. He hitched himself around so that he
was facing her. "I've got to understand. I've got to know
why
. What
happened? Why don't men want the planets any more?"
"Honestly," she said, "I did not know they ever had." She hesitated.
"Maybe you are asking the wrong question."
He furrowed his brow, bewildered now by her.
"I mean," she explained, "maybe you should ask why people in the 20th
Century
did
want to go to worlds men are not suited to inhabit."
Maitland felt his face become hot. "Men can go anywhere, if they want
to bad enough."
"But
why
?"
Despite his sudden irrational anger toward her, Maitland tried to stick
to logic. "Living space, for one thing. The only permanent solution to
the population problem...."
"We have no population problem. A hundred years ago, we realized that
the key to social stability is a limited population. Our economic
system was built to take care of three hundred million people, and we
have held the number at that."
"Birth control," Maitland scoffed. "How do you make it work—secret
police?"
"No. Education. Each of us has the right to two children, and we
cherish that right so much that we make every effort to see that those
two are the best children we could possibly produce...."
She broke off, looking a little self-conscious. "You understand, what
I have been saying applies to
most
of the world. In some places like
Aresund, things are different. Backward. I still do not feel that I
belong here, although the people of the town have accepted me as one of
them."
"Even," he said, "granting that you have solved the population problem,
there's still the adventure of the thing. Surely, somewhere, there must
be men who still feel that.... Ingrid, doesn't it fire something in
your blood, the idea of going to Mars—just to go there and see what's
there and walk under a new sky and a smaller Sun? Aren't you interested
in finding out what the canals are? Or what's under the clouds of
Venus? Wouldn't you like to see the rings of Saturn from, a distance
of only two hundred thousand miles?" His hands were trembling as he
stopped.
She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Go into the past—yes! But go out
there? I still cannot see why."
"Has the spirit of adventure
evaporated
from the human race, or
what
?"
She smiled. "In a room downstairs there is the head of a lion. Swarts
killed the beast when he was a young man. He used a spear. And time
traveling is the greatest adventure there is. At least, that is the
way I feel. Listen, Bob." She laid a hand on his arm. "You grew up in
the Age of Technology. Everybody was terribly excited about what could
be done with machines—machines to blow up a city all at once, or fly
around the world, or take a man to Mars. We have had our fill of—what
is the word?—gadgets. Our machines serve us, and so long as they
function right, we are satisfied to forget about them.
"Because this is the Age of
Man
. We are terribly interested in what
can be done with people. Our scientists, like Swarts, are studying
human rather than nuclear reactions. We are much more fascinated by the
life and death of cultures than by the expansion or contraction of the
Universe. With us, it is the people that are important, not gadgets."
Maitland stared at her, his face blank. His mind had just manufactured
a discouraging analogy. His present position was like that of an
earnest 12th Century crusader, deposited by some freak of nature into
the year 1950, trying to find a way of reanimating the anti-Mohammedan
movement. What chance would he have? The unfortunate knight would argue
in vain that the atomic bomb offered a means of finally destroying the
infidel....
Maitland looked up at the girl, who was regarding him silently with
troubled eyes. "I think I'd like to be alone for a while," he said.
Question and Possible Answers:
What made Maitland realize he was in the future?
(A) A planet
(B) The terrain
(C) The people
(D) The sun
Answer:
| A | 195 | 33,123 | 33,125 | 33,265 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
20077_ZF5G55FD_1 | 20077_ZF5G55FD_1_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Grand Finale
Mike Leigh's
Topsy-Turvy
broadly recounts the creation of Gilbert
and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado at London's Savoy Theatre in 1885.
Perhaps "broadly" is putting too fine a point on it. The first hour, in which
Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) attempts to sever his ties with W.S. Gilbert
(Jim Broadbent) and the owner of the Savoy, Richard D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook), is
a mess: The order of scenes feels arbitrary, and characters pop up and vanish
with bewildering frequency. You might be tempted to vanish, too. (Friends of
mine did.) Be patient. Leigh's movies, born of actors' improvisations and
loosely shaped, always take a while to find their rhythm--and, frequently,
their point. This one finds everything. By the end of its two hours and 40
minutes, Topsy-Turvy has evolved into something extraordinary: a
monument to process--to the minutiae of making art. And to something more: the
fundamental sadness of people who labor to make beautiful things--who soar--and
then come down to a not-so-beautiful earth.
It would be charitable
to attribute the shapelessness of the early scenes to the characters' own lack
of focus, but it would also be inane. As Elvis Mitchell pointed out in
Slate
's "," Leigh's opening shot features an usher who moves
along a row of the Savoy Theatre lifting and peering under every seat. That's
every seat. You can almost hear Leigh cackling: "How's this for a fast
start?--you bourgeois slaves to narrative." Inevitably, something does happen:
Princess Ida , one of Gilbert and Sullivan's duds, has its premiere, and
Gilbert fumes over a review that calls him the monarch of "topsy-turvydom"--of
formulaic plots involving magical elixirs and coins. A heat wave has hit
London, theater attendance is down, and Sullivan is itching to go off and
become the English Mendelssohn--to write operas and symphonies instead of comic
"soufflés." Leigh evidently loves the bloodless formality of the scenes between
Gilbert and Sullivan, men of opposite tastes and temperaments who only overlap
in their work. He must also love that those scenes are narrative dead ends:
"How's this for conflict?--you bourgeois slaves to melodrama."
The wake-up call comes an hour into the movie. Gilbert
attends a popular exposition of Japanese culture at Knightsbridge and watches
Kabuki routines and women in kimonos pouring green tea ("spinach water"). When
a Japanese sword he has purchased falls off his wall, he hefts it; mimes a
fight while issuing strangled, samurailike cries; then has a brainstorm. We
hear the horns of The Mikado overture, then Leigh cuts to the fully
realized opening scene on stage at the Savoy: "We are gentlemen of Japan …"
Just that chorus is enough to reanimate the audience--to make people sit up and
grin. And Leigh's technique of leaping back and forth between the finished
Mikado and painstaking scenes of rehearsal has magic in it: You're
watching straw, then gold, then straw, then gold. And you see the
connection.
A central section of the
drama is missing. What exactly fired Sullivan up about doing The Mikado ?
What was different about this collaboration? No answer.
Topsy-Turvy turns into something other than the Gilbert and Sullivan
story: a portrait of life in the theater. A group portrait. D'Oyly Carte
becomes a quiet third protagonist, a humane businessman. He softly negotiates a
salary increase with the company's lead comic (Martin Savage), a neurasthenic
junkie. He gently seeks the assurance of a tipsy ingénue (the tremulous Shirley
Henderson) that her "little weakness" will not re-emerge. In the dressing room,
performers gossip and complain, drink and shoot themselves up with drugs.
Leigh's ensemble casts strive to be "microcosms" of society, so issues of class
are ever present. You see it in Sullivan's banter with the working-class
musicians in the pit and in Gilbert's with the uppity actors (the movie's
posturing middle class), whom he drills on pronunciation and poise. The chorus
is presented as some sort of collective folk conscience when it lobbies Gilbert
to restore the rashly cut solo ("A more humane Mikado never did in Japan
exist") of the sad, fat fellow (Timothy Spall) in the title role.
Who would have predicted that Leigh would make Gilbert and
Sullivan into Mike Leigh characters? Gilbert could be a stand-in for Leigh
himself--a haughty, ill-humored man with an obsession for tiny details and a
glowering dedication to process. Gilbert haggles with his actors over small
things that shouldn't resonate but which somehow add up. Leigh's small things
add up, too. The joke of The Mikado is that its Japanese lords are
thinly disguised English bureaucrats; the joke of Topsy-Turvy is that
the opera's English performers seem culturally incapable of playing Japanese.
They rehearse in long coats and top hats, and some of the women (and men!)
express horror at appearing on stage without corsets. Behind the satire,
however, is a reverence for Gilbert and Sullivan: The tempos are slower than
modern audiences are used to, and the staging has been stripped of high-camp
accretions. I saw a D'Oyly Carte production of The Mikado in the late
'70s: It was played fast and to the groundlings and made me never want to see a
G&S opera again. Now I can't wait for the next production.
Only a lunatic would
call Topsy-Turvy , with its lame first hour and host of loose ends, a
masterpiece, but by the finale I was ready to have myself committed. The finale
itself must have done it. Leigh's endings are often wondrous, and this one is
up there with the rooftop scene in High Hopes (1988). The Mikado
is a triumph--it would be the Savoy's biggest hit--but there's no
transformation in the lives of its makers. Gilbert can't bring himself to reach
out to his brokenhearted wife (Lesley Manville), and Sullivan has a melancholy
inkling that he has reached his artistic peak. The ingénue, Leonora, is
drinking again, toasting herself in the mirror and praising the loveliness of
Nature--a Nature that will, of course, destroy her. The final image is of Art:
Leonora on stage singing Yum-Yum's sublime "The sun whose rays are all ablaze
…" As Leigh's camera pulls back over the orchestra and the audience, this movie
feels like one of the saddest and loveliest tributes to the lives of artists
ever made. Topsy-Turvy leaves you upside down and breathless.
Like Mike Leigh, Errol Morris rarely begins a project with
a clear idea of what he wants it to be. Sometimes he doesn't end a project with
a clear idea of what he wants it to be, either. His newest documentary,
Mr. Death : The Rise and Fall of Fred D. Leuchter,
Jr.
, kicks up all sorts of messy emotions that his coolly ironic
technique can't begin to handle.
The director is in his
weird element only in the first half-hour, in which he sits his subject down
and gets out of his way. Leuchter, who looks a little like the archetypal movie
dweeb Charles Martin Smith and has a heavy exurbs-of-Boston accent, explains
how he became involved in redesigning problematic electric chairs. "Excess
current cooks the tissue," he says, barely suppressing a smirk at his own
expertise. "There've been occasions where a great amount of current has been
applied, and the meat actually will come off the executee's bone like the meat
coming off a cooked chicken." Leuchter set about making capital punishment more
"humane." He moves on to talking about his redesigns for lethal-injection
systems, gas chambers, and even a gallows, while underneath, Caleb Sampson
provides macabre funhouse music and wistful calliope waltzes. Morris' distance
from his subject implies condescension--Leuchter looks like something in a jar.
But that's OK, because the man is an interesting specimen. Is he a monster or a
humanist committed to eliminating the "deplawrable tawchaw" of capital
punishment? It could go either way.
M r. Death gets into deeper waters when it recounts
the trial of Ernst Zundel in Canada for proclaiming that the Holocaust never
happened. Zundel hired Leuchter to go to Auschwitz and examine the "alleged"
gas chambers: Footage (taken by Zundel's cameraman) shows the little man
chiseling at walls, vandalizing what even he admits are international shrines.
Leuchter smuggled specimens of rock and concrete back to the United States,
where chemical analysis revealed no cyanide gas. Furthermore, Leuchter can't
figure out how the gas would even have been administered without killing the
Nazis themselves--proof, he argues, that mass extermination at Auschwitz never
took place. The subsequent "Leuchter Report" became the backbone of Zundel's
defense (he lost anyway) and of the burgeoning revisionist movement led by
David Irving. But if Leuchter became a hero to neo-Nazis, he also became a
target of Jewish groups and a pariah even in the execution business. When
Morris hooks up with him for the last time, he's in hiding from creditors.
Is Leuchter a raving
anti-Semite or a pathetic pawn who thrived on having--for the first time in his
life--a bit of celebrity? The film suggests the latter. It certainly produces
no evidence of malice. Plenty of monstrous insensitivity and hubris, though.
Morris uses the Dutch historian Robert Jan van Pelt as a counternarrator: He
calls Leuchter "a fffool " who didn't have a clue what to look for in a
place that had changed enormously in 50 years. "If he had spent time in the
archives," says van Pelt, "he would have found evidence about ventilation
systems, ways to introduce Zyclon B into these buildings--but of course I don't
think he knows German so it wouldn't have helped very much." The most
devastating rebuttal is from the chemist in charge of the Auschwitz analysis,
who explains that the gas wouldn't have penetrated more than 10 microns into
the wall (a human hair is 100 microns thick), so by crushing the samples
(standard procedure), he had effectively diluted the cyanide 100,000 times.
Against all this, Morris shows footage of Leuchter chiseling at Auschwitz and
even adds some of his own, along with slow-motion shots of hammers bashing
rocks, walls, floors, etc. It's an obscenity.
After my rage at Leuchter had subsided, I began to get
angry at Morris for aestheticizing that violation--turning it into an ironic
art object. The director's beautiful detachment suggests a kind of cowardice.
His technique is based on standing back--maintaining a fixed distance--while
his subjects hang themselves, and for a while that works stunningly. But at a
certain point, isn't it only human to want to engage this man? You don't need
to play Mike Wallace and demolish Leuchter on camera. You could just ask him
what he makes of, say, van Pelt's assertion that the answer to the riddle of
the gas chambers was all over the archives, or what he thought of the chemist's
declaration that the test performed for cyanide was the wrong test. Morris can
be heard asking one question only: "Have you ever thought you might be wrong or
that you made a mistake?"--sufficiently broad that Leuchter can casually affirm
his own inanity.
My concern here isn't so much for Leuchter or even
the Holocaust revisionists, who'll just think he was sandbagged. The problem is
that when a documentary filmmaker seems too scared or cool or arty to violate
his own immaculate aesthetic, he ends up weakening his case. He also provides
no emotional release, which isn't a small matter when the subject is Holocaust
denial. Morris was close enough to Leuchter to have gotten something more, to
have gone a little deeper in search of a poison that does penetrate
surfaces.
Question and Possible Answers:
How is the beginning of Topsy-Turvy described?
(A) exciting and fast paced
(B) boring and slow
(C) dramatic and interesting
(D) sad and depressing
Answer:
| B | 195 | 11,754 | 11,756 | 11,940 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22579_RQ3GB4A1_3 | 22579_RQ3GB4A1_3_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Bread
Overhead
By FRITZ LEIBER
The Staff of Life suddenly and
disconcertingly sprouted wings
—and mankind had to eat crow!
Illustrated by WOOD
AS a blisteringly hot but
guaranteed weather-controlled
future summer day
dawned on the Mississippi Valley,
the walking mills of Puffy Products
("Spike to Loaf in One
Operation!") began to tread delicately
on their centipede legs
across the wheat fields of Kansas.
The walking mills resembled fat
metal serpents, rather larger than
those Chinese paper dragons animated
by files of men in procession.
Sensory robot devices in
their noses informed them that
the waiting wheat had reached ripe
perfection.
As they advanced, their heads
swung lazily from side to side, very
much like snakes, gobbling the yellow
grain. In their throats, it was
threshed, the chaff bundled and
burped aside for pickup by the
crawl trucks of a chemical corporation,
the kernels quick-dried
and blown along into the mighty
chests of the machines. There the
tireless mills ground the kernels
to flour, which was instantly sifted,
the bran being packaged and
dropped like the chaff for pickup.
A cluster of tanks which gave
the metal serpents a decidedly
humpbacked appearance added
water, shortening, salt and other
ingredients, some named and some
not. The dough was at the same
time infused with gas from a tank
conspicuously labeled "Carbon
Dioxide" ("No Yeast Creatures
in Your Bread!").
Thus instantly risen, the dough
was clipped into loaves and shot
into radionic ovens forming the
midsections of the metal serpents.
There the bread was baked in a
matter of seconds, a fierce heat-front
browning the crusts, and the
piping-hot loaves sealed in transparent
plastic bearing the proud
Puffyloaf emblem (two cherubs
circling a floating loaf) and ejected
onto the delivery platform at each
serpent's rear end, where a cluster
of pickup machines, like hungry
piglets, snatched at the loaves
with hygienic claws.
A few loaves would be hurried
off for the day's consumption,
the majority stored for winter in
strategically located mammoth
deep freezes.
But now, behold a wonder! As
loaves began to appear on the
delivery platform of the first walking
mill to get into action, they
did not linger on the conveyor
belt, but rose gently into the air
and slowly traveled off down-wind
across the hot rippling fields.
THE robot claws of the pickup
machines clutched in vain, and,
not noticing the difference, proceeded
carefully to stack emptiness,
tier by tier. One errant loaf,
rising more sluggishly than its fellows,
was snagged by a thrusting
claw. The machine paused, clumsily
wiped off the injured loaf, set
it aside—where it bobbed on one
corner, unable to take off again—and
went back to the work of
storing nothingness.
A flock of crows rose from the
trees of a nearby shelterbelt as the
flight of loaves approached. The
crows swooped to investigate and
then suddenly scattered, screeching
in panic.
The helicopter of a hangoverish
Sunday traveler bound for Wichita
shied very similarly from the
brown fliers and did not return for
a second look.
A black-haired housewife spied
them over her back fence, crossed
herself and grabbed her walkie-talkie
from the laundry basket.
Seconds later, the yawning correspondent
of a regional newspaper
was jotting down the lead of a humorous
news story which, recalling
the old flying-saucer scares, stated
that now apparently bread was to
be included in the mad aerial tea
party.
The congregation of an open-walled
country church, standing
up to recite the most familiar of
Christian prayers, had just reached
the petition for daily sustenance,
when a sub-flight of the loaves,
either forced down by a vagrant
wind or lacking the natural buoyancy
of the rest, came coasting silently
as the sunbeams between the
graceful pillars at the altar end of
the building.
Meanwhile, the main flight, now
augmented by other bread flocks
from scores and hundreds of walking
mills that had started work a
little later, mounted slowly and
majestically into the cirrus-flecked
upper air, where a steady
wind was blowing strongly toward
the east.
About one thousand miles farther
on in that direction, where a cluster
of stratosphere-tickling towers
marked the location of the metropolis
of NewNew York, a tender
scene was being enacted in the
pressurized penthouse managerial
suite of Puffy Products. Megera
Winterly, Secretary in Chief to the
Managerial Board and referred to
by her underlings as the Blonde
Icicle, was dealing with the advances
of Roger ("Racehorse")
Snedden, Assistant Secretary to the
Board and often indistinguishable
from any passing office boy.
"Why don't you jump out the
window, Roger, remembering to
shut the airlock after you?" the
Golden Glacier said in tones not
unkind. "When are your high-strung,
thoroughbred nerves going
to accept the fact that I would
never consider marriage with a
business inferior? You have about
as much chance as a starving
Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's
clapped on the interdict."
ROGER'S voice was calm, although
his eyes were feverishly
bright, as he replied, "A lot
of things are going to be different
around here, Meg, as soon as the
Board is forced to admit that only
my quick thinking made it possible
to bring the name of Puffyloaf in
front of the whole world."
"Puffyloaf could do with a little
of that," the business girl observed
judiciously. "The way sales have
been plummeting, it won't be long
before the Government deeds our
desks to the managers of Fairy
Bread and asks us to take the Big
Jump. But just where does your
quick thinking come into this, Mr.
Snedden? You can't be referring to
the helium—that was Rose Thinker's
brainwave."
She studied him suspiciously.
"You've birthed another promotional
bumble, Roger. I can see it
in your eyes. I only hope it's not
as big a one as when you put the
Martian ambassador on 3D and he
thanked you profusely for the gross
of Puffyloaves, assuring you that
he'd never slept on a softer mattress
in all his life on two planets."
"Listen to me, Meg. Today—yes,
today!—you're going to see
the Board eating out of my hand."
"Hah! I guarantee you won't
have any fingers left. You're bold
enough now, but when Mr. Gryce
and those two big machines come
through that door—"
"Now wait a minute, Meg—"
"Hush! They're coming now!"
Roger leaped three feet in the
air, but managed to land without a
sound and edged toward his stool.
Through the dilating iris of the
door strode Phineas T. Gryce,
flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin
Philosopher.
The man approached the conference
table in the center of the room
with measured pace and gravely
expressionless face. The rose-tinted
machine on his left did a couple
of impulsive pirouettes on the way
and twittered a greeting to Meg
and Roger. The other machine quietly
took the third of the high seats
and lifted a claw at Meg, who now
occupied a stool twice the height of
Roger's.
"Miss Winterly, please—our
theme."
The Blonde Icicle's face thawed
into a little-girl smile as she chanted
bubblingly:
"
Made up of tiny wheaten motes
And reinforced with sturdy oats,
It rises through the air and floats—
The bread on which all Terra dotes!
"
"THANK YOU, Miss Winterly,"
said Tin Philosopher.
"Though a purely figurative statement,
that bit about rising through
the air always gets me—here." He
rapped his midsection, which gave
off a high musical
clang
.
"Ladies—" he inclined his photocells
toward Rose Thinker and Meg—"and
gentlemen. This is a historic
occasion in Old Puffy's long history,
the inauguration of the helium-filled
loaf ('So Light It Almost Floats
Away!') in which that inert and
heaven-aspiring gas replaces old-fashioned
carbon dioxide. Later,
there will be kudos for Rose
Thinker, whose bright relays genius-sparked
the idea, and also for Roger
Snedden, who took care of the
details.
"By the by, Racehorse, that was
a brilliant piece of work getting the
helium out of the government—they've
been pretty stuffy lately
about their monopoly. But first I
want to throw wide the casement in
your minds that opens on the Long
View of Things."
Rose Thinker spun twice on her
chair and opened her photocells
wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to
limber up the diaphragm of his
speaker and continued:
"Ever since the first cave wife
boasted to her next-den neighbor
about the superior paleness and fluffiness
of her tortillas, mankind has
sought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed,
thinkers wiser than myself have
equated the whole upward course of
culture with this poignant quest.
Yeast was a wonderful discovery—for
its primitive day. Sifting the
bran and wheat germ from the flour
was an even more important advance.
Early bleaching and preserving
chemicals played their humble
parts.
"For a while, barbarous faddists—blind
to the deeply spiritual nature
of bread, which is recognized
by all great religions—held back
our march toward perfection with
their hair-splitting insistence on the
vitamin content of the wheat germ,
but their case collapsed when tasteless
colorless substitutes were
triumphantly synthesized and introduced
into the loaf, which for flawless
purity, unequaled airiness and
sheer intangible goodness was rapidly
becoming mankind's supreme
gustatory experience."
"I wonder what the stuff tastes
like," Rose Thinker said out of a
clear sky.
"I wonder what taste tastes like,"
Tin Philosopher echoed dreamily.
Recovering himself, he continued:
"Then, early in the twenty-first
century, came the epochal researches
of Everett Whitehead,
Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in
his paper 'The Structural Bubble
in Cereal Masses' and making possible
the baking of airtight bread
twenty times stronger (for its
weight) than steel and of a
lightness that would have been
incredible even to the advanced
chemist-bakers of the twentieth
century—a lightness so great that,
besides forming the backbone of
our own promotion, it has forever
since been capitalized on by our
conscienceless competitors of Fairy
Bread with their enduring slogan:
'It Makes Ghost Toast'."
"That's a beaut, all right, that
ecto-dough blurb," Rose Thinker
admitted, bugging her photocells
sadly. "Wait a sec. How about?—
"
There'll be bread
Overhead
When you're dead—
It is said.
"
PHINEAS T. GRYCE wrinkled
his nostrils at the pink machine
as if he smelled her insulation
smoldering. He said mildly, "A
somewhat unhappy jingle, Rose,
referring as it does to the end of
the customer as consumer. Moreover,
we shouldn't overplay the
figurative 'rises through the air'
angle. What inspired you?"
She shrugged. "I don't know—oh,
yes, I do. I was remembering
one of the workers' songs we machines
used to chant during the Big
Strike—
"
Work and pray,
Live on hay.
You'll get pie
In the sky
When you die—
It's a lie!
"I don't know why we chanted
it," she added. "We didn't want pie—or
hay, for that matter. And
machines don't pray, except Tibetan
prayer wheels."
Phineas T. Gryce shook his head.
"Labor relations are another topic
we should stay far away from.
However, dear Rose, I'm glad you
keep trying to outjingle those dirty
crooks at Fairy Bread." He scowled,
turning back his attention to Tin
Philosopher. "I get whopping mad,
Old Machine, whenever I hear that
other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory
one—'Untouched by Robot
Claws.' Just because they employ a
few filthy androids in their factories!"
Tin Philosopher lifted one of his
own sets of bright talons. "Thanks,
P.T. But to continue my historical
resume, the next great advance in
the baking art was the substitution
of purified carbon dioxide, recovered
from coal smoke, for the gas
generated by yeast organisms indwelling
in the dough and later
killed by the heat of baking, their
corpses remaining
in situ
. But even
purified carbon dioxide is itself a
rather repugnant gas, a product of
metabolism whether fast or slow,
and forever associated with those
life processes which are obnoxious
to the fastidious."
Here the machine shuddered
with delicate clinkings. "Therefore,
we of Puffyloaf are taking today
what may be the ultimate step
toward purity: we are aerating our
loaves with the noble gas helium,
an element which remains virginal
in the face of all chemical temptations
and whose slim molecules are
eleven times lighter than obese
carbon dioxide—yes, noble uncontaminable
helium, which, if it be a
kind of ash, is yet the ash only of
radioactive burning, accomplished
or initiated entirely on the Sun, a
safe 93 million miles from this
planet. Let's have a cheer for the
helium loaf!"
WITHOUT changing expression,
Phineas T. Gryce rapped
the table thrice in solemn applause,
while the others bowed their heads.
"Thanks, T.P.," P.T. then said.
"And now for the Moment of
Truth. Miss Winterly, how is the
helium loaf selling?"
The business girl clapped on a
pair of earphones and whispered
into a lapel mike. Her gaze grew
abstracted as she mentally translated
flurries of brief squawks into
coherent messages. Suddenly a single
vertical furrow creased her
matchlessly smooth brow.
"It isn't, Mr. Gryce!" she gasped
in horror. "Fairy Bread is outselling
Puffyloaves by an infinity factor.
So far this morning,
there has
not been one single delivery of
Puffyloaves to any sales spot
! Complaints
about non-delivery are pouring
in from both walking stores and
sessile shops."
"Mr. Snedden!" Gryce barked.
"What bug in the new helium
process might account for this
delay?"
Roger was on his feet, looking
bewildered. "I can't imagine, sir,
unless—just possibly—there's
been some unforeseeable difficulty
involving the new metal-foil wrappers."
"Metal-foil wrappers? Were
you
responsible for those?"
"Yes, sir. Last-minute recalculations
showed that the extra lightness
of the new loaf might be great
enough to cause drift during stackage.
Drafts in stores might topple
sales pyramids. Metal-foil wrappers,
by their added weight, took
care of the difficulty."
"And you ordered them without
consulting the Board?"
"Yes, sir. There was hardly time
and—"
"Why, you fool! I noticed that
order for metal-foil wrappers, assumed
it was some sub-secretary's
mistake, and canceled it last night!"
Roger Snedden turned pale.
"You canceled it?" he quavered.
"And told them to go back to the
lighter plastic wrappers?"
"Of course! Just what is behind
all this, Mr. Snedden?
What
recalculations
were you trusting, when
our physicists had demonstrated
months ago that the helium loaf
was safely stackable in light airs
and gentle breezes—winds up to
Beaufort's scale 3.
Why
should a
change from heavier to lighter
wrappers result in complete non-delivery?"
ROGER Snedden's paleness became
tinged with an interesting
green. He cleared his throat
and made strange gulping noises.
Tin Philosopher's photocells focused
on him calmly, Rose
Thinker's with unfeigned excitement.
P.T. Gryce's frown grew
blacker by the moment, while
Megera Winterly's Venus-mask
showed an odd dawning of dismay
and awe. She was getting new
squawks in her earphones.
"Er ... ah ... er...." Roger
said in winning tones. "Well, you
see, the fact is that I...."
"Hold it," Meg interrupted
crisply. "Triple-urgent from Public
Relations, Safety Division. Tulsa-Topeka
aero-express makes emergency
landing after being buffeted
in encounter with vast flight of
objects first described as brown
birds, although no failures reported
in airway's electronic anti-bird
fences. After grounding safely near
Emporia—no fatalities—pilot's
windshield found thinly plastered
with soft white-and-brown material.
Emblems on plastic wrappers embedded
in material identify it incontrovertibly
as an undetermined
number of Puffyloaves cruising at
three thousand feet!"
Eyes and photocells turned inquisitorially
upon Roger Snedden.
He went from green to Puffyloaf
white and blurted: "All right, I did
it, but it was the only way out!
Yesterday morning, due to the
Ukrainian crisis, the government
stopped sales and deliveries of all
strategic stockpiled materials, including
helium gas. Puffy's new
program of advertising and promotion,
based on the lighter loaf, was
already rolling. There was only one
thing to do, there being only one
other gas comparable in lightness
to helium. I diverted the necessary
quantity of hydrogen gas from the
Hydrogenated Oils Section of our
Magna-Margarine Division and
substituted it for the helium."
"You substituted ... hydrogen ... for
the ... helium?" Phineas
T. Gryce faltered in low mechanical
tones, taking four steps backward.
"Hydrogen is twice as light as
helium," Tin Philosopher remarked
judiciously.
"And many times cheaper—did
you know that?" Roger countered
feebly. "Yes, I substituted hydrogen.
The metal-foil wrapping would
have added just enough weight to
counteract the greater buoyancy of
the hydrogen loaf. But—"
"So, when this morning's loaves
began to arrive on the delivery
platforms of the walking mills...."
Tin Philosopher left the remark
unfinished.
"Exactly," Roger agreed dismally.
"Let me ask you, Mr. Snedden,"
Gryce interjected, still in low tones,
"if you expected people to jump to
the kitchen ceiling for their Puffybread
after taking off the metal
wrapper, or reach for the sky if
they happened to unwrap the stuff
outdoors?"
"Mr. Gryce," Roger said reproachfully,
"you have often assured
me that what people do with
Puffybread after they buy it is no
concern of ours."
"I seem to recall," Rose Thinker
chirped somewhat unkindly, "that
dictum was created to answer inquiries
after Roger put the famous
sculptures-in-miniature artist on 3D
and he testified that he always
molded his first attempts from
Puffybread, one jumbo loaf squeezing
down to approximately the size
of a peanut."
HER photocells dimmed and
brightened. "Oh, boy—hydrogen!
The loaf's unwrapped. After
a while, in spite of the crust-seal, a
little oxygen diffuses in. An explosive
mixture. Housewife in curlers
and kimono pops a couple slices in
the toaster. Boom!"
The three human beings in the
room winced.
Tin Philosopher kicked her under
the table, while observing, "So
you see, Roger, that the non-delivery
of the hydrogen loaf carries
some consolations. And I must confess
that one aspect of the affair
gives me great satisfaction, not as a
Board Member but as a private
machine. You have at last made a
reality of the 'rises through the air'
part of Puffybread's theme. They
can't ever take that away from you.
By now, half the inhabitants of the
Great Plains must have observed
our flying loaves rising high."
Phineas T. Gryce shot a frightened
look at the west windows and
found his full voice.
"Stop the mills!" he roared at
Meg Winterly, who nodded and
whispered urgently into her mike.
"A sensible suggestion," Tin
Philosopher said. "But it comes a
trifle late in the day. If the mills
are still walking and grinding, approximately
seven billion Puffyloaves
are at this moment cruising
eastward over Middle America.
Remember that a six-month supply
for deep-freeze is involved and that
the current consumption of bread,
due to its matchless airiness, is
eight and one-half loaves per person
per day."
Phineas T. Gryce carefully inserted
both hands into his scanty
hair, feeling for a good grip. He
leaned menacingly toward Roger
who, chin resting on the table, regarded
him apathetically.
"Hold it!" Meg called sharply.
"Flock of multiple-urgents coming
in. News Liaison: information bureaus
swamped with flying-bread
inquiries. Aero-expresslines: Clear
our airways or face law suit. U. S.
Army: Why do loaves flame when
hit by incendiary bullets? U. S.
Customs: If bread intended for
export, get export license or face
prosecution. Russian Consulate in
Chicago: Advise on destination of
bread-lift. And some Kansas church
is accusing us of a hoax inciting to
blasphemy, of faking miracles—I
don't know
why
."
The business girl tore off her
headphones. "Roger Snedden," she
cried with a hysteria that would
have dumfounded her underlings,
"you've brought the name of Puffyloaf
in front of the whole world, all
right! Now do something about the
situation!"
Roger nodded obediently. But
his pallor increased a shade, the
pupils of his eyes disappeared under
the upper lids, and his head
burrowed beneath his forearms.
"Oh, boy," Rose Thinker called
gayly to Tin Philosopher, "this
looks like the start of a real crisis
session! Did you remember to
bring spare batteries?"
MEANWHILE, the monstrous
flight of Puffyloaves, filling
midwestern skies as no small fliers
had since the days of the passenger
pigeon, soared steadily onward.
Private fliers approached the
brown and glistening bread-front in
curiosity and dipped back in awe.
Aero-expresslines organized sightseeing
flights along the flanks.
Planes of the government forestry
and agricultural services and 'copters
bearing the Puffyloaf emblem
hovered on the fringes, watching
developments and waiting for orders.
A squadron of supersonic
fighters hung menacingly above.
The behavior of birds varied
considerably. Most fled or gave the
loaves a wide berth, but some
bolder species, discovering the minimal
nutritive nature of the translucent
brown objects, attacked
them furiously with beaks and
claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly
through the crusts had now distended
most of the sealed plastic
wrappers into little balloons, which
ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting
pops
.
Below, neck-craning citizens
crowded streets and back yards,
cranks and cultists had a field day,
while local and national governments
raged indiscriminately at
Puffyloaf and at each other.
Rumors that a fusion weapon
would be exploded in the midst of
the flying bread drew angry protests
from conservationists and a flood
of telefax pamphlets titled "H-Loaf
or H-bomb?"
Stockholm sent a mystifying
note of praise to the United Nations
Food Organization.
Delhi issued nervous denials of a
millet blight that no one had heard
of until that moment and reaffirmed
India's ability to feed her
population with no outside help
except the usual.
Radio Moscow asserted that the
Kremlin would brook no interference
in its treatment of the Ukrainians,
jokingly referred to the flying
bread as a farce perpetrated by
mad internationalists inhabiting
Cloud Cuckoo Land, added contradictory
references to airborne
bread booby-trapped by Capitalist
gangsters, and then fell moodily
silent on the whole topic.
Radio Venus reported to its
winged audience that Earth's
inhabitants were establishing food
depots in the upper air, preparatory
to taking up permanent aerial
residence "such as we have always
enjoyed on Venus."
NEWNEW YORK made feverish
preparations for the passage
of the flying bread. Tickets
for sightseeing space in skyscrapers
were sold at high prices; cold meats
and potted spreads were hawked to
viewers with the assurance that
they would be able to snag the
bread out of the air and enjoy a
historic sandwich.
Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from
his own managerial suite, raged
about the city, demanding general
cooperation in the stretching of
great nets between the skyscrapers
to trap the errant loaves. He was
captured by Tin Philosopher, escaped
again, and was found posted
with oxygen mask and submachine gun
on the topmost spire of Puffyloaf
Tower, apparently determined
to shoot down the loaves as they
appeared and before they involved
his company in more trouble with
Customs and the State Department.
Recaptured by Tin Philosopher,
who suffered only minor bullet
holes, he was given a series of mild
electroshocks and returned to the
conference table, calm and clear-headed
as ever.
But the bread flight, swinging
away from a hurricane moving up
the Atlantic coast, crossed a
clouded-in Boston by night and
disappeared into a high Atlantic
overcast, also thereby evading a
local storm generated by the
Weather Department in a last-minute
effort to bring down or at
least disperse the H-loaves.
Warnings and counterwarnings
by Communist and Capitalist governments
seriously interfered with
military trailing of the flight during
this period and it was actually
lost in touch with for several days.
At scattered points, seagulls were
observed fighting over individual
loaves floating down from the gray
roof—that was all.
A mood of spirituality strongly
tinged with humor seized the people
of the world. Ministers sermonized
about the bread, variously
interpreting it as a call to charity,
a warning against gluttony, a parable
of the evanescence of all
earthly things, and a divine joke.
Husbands and wives, facing each
other across their walls of breakfast
toast, burst into laughter. The
mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere
was enough to evoke guffaws.
An obscure sect, having as
part of its creed the injunction
"Don't take yourself so damn seriously,"
won new adherents.
The bread flight, rising above an
Atlantic storm widely reported to
have destroyed it, passed unobserved
across a foggy England and
rose out of the overcast only over
Mittel-europa. The loaves had at
last reached their maximum altitude.
The Sun's rays beat through the
rarified air on the distended plastic
wrappers, increasing still further
the pressure of the confined hydrogen.
They burst by the millions
and tens of millions. A high-flying
Bulgarian evangelist, who had happened
to mistake the up-lever for
the east-lever in the cockpit of his
flier and who was the sole witness
of the event, afterward described it
as "the foaming of a sea of diamonds,
the crackle of God's
knuckles."
BY THE millions and tens of
millions, the loaves coasted
down into the starving Ukraine.
Shaken by a week of humor that
threatened to invade even its own
grim precincts, the Kremlin made
a sudden about-face. A new policy
was instituted of communal ownership
of the produce of communal
farms, and teams of hunger-fighters
and caravans of trucks loaded with
pumpernickel were dispatched into
the Ukraine.
World distribution was given to
a series of photographs showing
peasants queueing up to trade scavenged
Puffyloaves for traditional
black bread, recently aerated itself
but still extra solid by comparison,
the rate of exchange demanded by
the Moscow teams being twenty
Puffyloaves to one of pumpernickel.
Another series of photographs,
picturing chubby workers' children
being blown to bits by booby-trapped
bread, was quietly destroyed.
Congratulatory notes were exchanged
by various national governments
and world organizations,
including the Brotherhood of Free
Business Machines. The great
bread flight was over, though for
several weeks afterward scattered
falls of loaves occurred, giving rise
to a new folklore of manna among
lonely Arabian tribesmen, and in
one well-authenticated instance in
Tibet, sustaining life in a party of
mountaineers cut off by a snow
slide.
Back in NewNew York, the
managerial board of Puffy Products
slumped in utter collapse
around the conference table, the
long crisis session at last ended.
Empty coffee cartons were scattered
around the chairs of the three
humans, dead batteries around
those of the two machines. For a
while, there was no movement
whatsoever. Then Roger Snedden
reached out wearily for the earphones
where Megera Winterly
had hurled them down, adjusted
them to his head, pushed a button
and listened apathetically.
After a bit, his gaze brightened.
He pushed more buttons and listened
more eagerly. Soon he was
sitting tensely upright on his stool,
eyes bright and lower face all
a-smile, muttering terse comments
and questions into the lapel mike
torn from Meg's fair neck.
The others, reviving, watched
him, at first dully, then with quickening
interest, especially when he
jerked off the earphones with a
happy shout and sprang to his feet.
"LISTEN to this!" he cried in
a ringing voice. "As a result
of the worldwide publicity, Puffyloaves
are outselling Fairy Bread
three to one—and that's just the
old carbon-dioxide stock from our
freezers! It's almost exhausted, but
the government, now that the
Ukrainian crisis is over, has taken
the ban off helium and will also
sell us stockpiled wheat if we need
it. We can have our walking mills
burrowing into the wheat caves in
a matter of hours!
"But that isn't all! The far
greater demand everywhere is for
Puffyloaves that will actually float.
Public Relations, Child Liaison
Division, reports that the kiddies
are making their mothers' lives
miserable about it. If only we can
figure out some way to make
hydrogen non-explosive or the
helium loaf float just a little—"
"I'm sure we can take care of
that quite handily," Tin Philosopher
interrupted briskly. "Puffyloaf
has kept it a corporation secret—even
you've never been told
about it—but just before he went
crazy, Everett Whitehead discovered
a way to make bread using
only half as much flour as we do in
the present loaf. Using this secret
technique, which we've been saving
for just such an emergency, it will
be possible to bake a helium loaf as
buoyant in every respect as the
hydrogen loaf."
"Good!" Roger cried. "We'll
tether 'em on strings and sell 'em
like balloons. No mother-child
shopping team will leave the store
without a cluster. Buying bread
balloons will be the big event of
the day for kiddies. It'll make the
carry-home shopping load lighter
too! I'll issue orders at once—"
HE broke off, looking at Phineas
T. Gryce, said with quiet
assurance, "Excuse me, sir, if I
seem to be taking too much upon
myself."
"Not at all, son; go straight
ahead," the great manager said approvingly.
"You're"—he laughed
in anticipation of getting off a
memorable remark—"rising to the
challenging situation like a genuine
Puffyloaf."
Megera Winterly looked from
the older man to the younger.
Then in a single leap she was upon
Roger, her arms wrapped tightly
around him.
"My sweet little ever-victorious,
self-propelled monkey wrench!" she
crooned in his ear. Roger looked
fatuously over her soft shoulder at
Tin Philosopher who, as if moved
by some similar feeling, reached
over and touched claws with Rose
Thinker.
This, however, was what he telegraphed
silently to his fellow machine
across the circuit so completed:
"Good-o, Rosie! That makes another
victory for robot-engineered
world unity, though you almost
gave us away at the start with that
'bread overhead' jingle. We've
struck another blow against the
next world war, in which—as we
know only too well!—we machines
would suffer the most. Now if we
can only arrange, say, a fur-famine
in Alaska and a migration of long-haired
Siberian lemmings across
Behring Straits ... we'd have to
swing the Japanese Current up
there so it'd be warm enough for
the little fellows.... Anyhow,
Rosie, with a spot of help from the
Brotherhood, those humans will
paint themselves into the peace
corner yet."
Meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker
quietly watched the Blonde Icicle
melt.
—FRITZ LEIBER
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
Galaxy
February 1958. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
have been corrected without note.
Question and Possible Answers:
What changes Meg's mind about a relationship with Roger?
(A) His jingle writing ability
(B) His handling of the crisis at hand
(C) His thoroughbred nerves
(D) His deal with the Martian ambassador
Answer:
| B | 195 | 32,948 | 32,950 | 33,181 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22867_TJ9SPIHC_9 | 22867_TJ9SPIHC_9_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
Stories by Alan E. Nourse
published in 1963. Extensive research did
not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
without note.
Meeting
of the
Board
It
was going to be a bad day. As he pushed his way nervously
through the crowds toward the Exit Strip, Walter Towne
turned the dismal prospect over and over in his mind. The
potential gloominess of this particular day had descended upon
him the instant the morning buzzer had gone off, making it
even more tempting than usual just to roll over and forget
about it all. Twenty minutes later, the water-douse came to
drag him, drenched and gurgling, back to the cruel cold world.
He had wolfed down his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye
on the clock and one eye on his growing sense of impending
crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle worse, he was
going to be late again.
He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward
the plant entrance. After all, he told himself, why should he be
so upset? He
was
Vice President-in-Charge-of-Production of
the Robling Titanium Corporation. What could they do to
him, really? He had rehearsed
his
part many times, squaring
his thin shoulders, looking the union boss straight in the eye
and saying, "Now, see here, Torkleson—" But he knew, when
the showdown came, that he wouldn't say any such thing. And
this was the morning that the showdown would come.
Oh, not because of the
lateness
. Of course Bailey, the shop
steward, would take his usual delight in bringing that up. But
this seemed hardly worthy of concern this morning. The reports
waiting on his desk were what worried him. The sales
reports. The promotion-draw reports. The royalty reports. The
anticipated dividend reports. Walter shook his head wearily.
The shop steward was a goad, annoying, perhaps even infuriating,
but tolerable. Torkleson was a different matter.
He pulled his worn overcoat down over frayed shirt sleeves,
and tried vainly to straighten the celluloid collar that kept
scooting his tie up under his ear. Once off the moving strip, he
started up the Robling corridor toward the plant gate. Perhaps
he would be fortunate. Maybe the reports would be late.
Maybe his secretary's two neurones would fail to synapse this
morning, and she'd lose them altogether. And, as long as he
was dreaming, maybe Bailey would break his neck on the way
to work. He walked quickly past the workers' lounge, glancing
in at the groups of men, arguing politics and checking the
stock market reports before they changed from their neat gray
business suits to their welding dungarees. Running up the
stairs to the administrative wing, he paused outside the door
to punch the time clock. 8:04. Damn. If only Bailey could be
sick—
Bailey was not sick. The administrative offices were humming
with frantic activity as Walter glanced down the rows
of cubbyholes. In the middle of it all sat Bailey, in his black-and-yellow
checkered tattersall, smoking a large cigar. His
feet were planted on his desk top, but he hadn't started on his
morning Western yet. He was busy glaring, first at the clock,
then at Walter.
"Late again, I see," the shop steward growled.
Walter gulped. "Yes, sir. Just four minutes, this time, sir.
You know those crowded strips—"
"So it's
just
four minutes now, eh?" Bailey's feet came down
with a crash. "After last month's fine production record, you
think four minutes doesn't matter, eh? Think just because
you're a vice president it's all right to mosey in here whenever
you feel like it." He glowered. "Well, this is three times this
month you've been late, Towne. That's a demerit for each
time, and you know what that means."
"You wouldn't count four minutes as a whole demerit!"
Bailey grinned. "Wouldn't I, now! You just add up your
pay envelope on Friday. Ten cents an hour off for each
demerit."
Walter sighed and shuffled back to his desk. Oh, well. It
could have been worse. They might have fired him like poor
Cartwright last month. He'd just
have
to listen to that morning
buzzer.
The reports were on his desk. He picked them up warily.
Maybe they wouldn't be so bad. He'd had more freedom this
last month than before, maybe there'd been a policy change.
Maybe Torkleson was gaining confidence in him. Maybe—
The reports were worse than he had ever dreamed.
"
Towne!
"
Walter jumped a foot. Bailey was putting down the visiphone
receiver. His grin spread unpleasantly from ear to ear.
"What have you been doing lately? Sabotaging the production
line?"
"What's the trouble now?"
Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The
boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers,
too. The boss seems to have a lot of questions."
Walter rose slowly from his seat. This was it, then. Torkleson
had already seen the reports. He started for the door, his
knees shaking.
It hadn't always been like this, he reflected miserably.
Time was when things had been very different. It had
meant
something to be vice president of a huge industrial firm like
Robling Titanium. A man could have had a fine house of
his own, and a 'copter-car, and belong to the Country Club;
maybe even have a cottage on a lake somewhere.
Walter could almost remember those days with Robling,
before the switchover, before that black day when the exchange
of ten little shares of stock had thrown the Robling
Titanium Corporation into the hands of strange and unnatural
owners.
The door was of heavy stained oak, with bold letters edged
in gold:
TITANIUM WORKERS
OF AMERICA
Amalgamated Locals
Daniel P. Torkleson, Secretary
The secretary flipped down the desk switch and eyed Walter
with pity. "Mr. Torkleson will see you."
Walter pushed through the door into the long, handsome
office. For an instant he felt a pang of nostalgia—the floor-to-ceiling
windows looking out across the long buildings of the
Robling plant, the pine paneling, the broad expanse of desk—
"Well? Don't just stand there. Shut the door and come over
here." The man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred
well-dressed pounds and glared at Walter from under flagrant
eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body quivered as he slammed
a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what do you think
you're doing with this company, Towne?"
Walter swallowed. "I'm production manager of the corporation."
"And just what does the production manager
do
all day?"
Walter reddened. "He organizes the work of the plant, establishes
production lines, works with Promotion and Sales,
integrates Research and Development, operates the planning
machines."
"And you think you do a pretty good job of it, eh? Even
asked for a raise last year!" Torkleson's voice was dangerous.
Walter spread his hands. "I do my best. I've been doing it
for thirty years. I should know what I'm doing."
"
Then how do you explain these reports?
" Torkleson threw
the heap of papers into Walter's arms, and paced up and down
behind the desk. "
Look
at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts
impossible. Big orders canceled. The worst reports in
seven years, and you say you know your job!"
"I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of
course the reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We
haven't met a production schedule in over two years. No plant
can keep up production the way the men are working."
Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So
it's the
men
now, is it? Go ahead. Tell me what's wrong with
the men."
"Nothing's wrong with the men—if they'd only work. But
they come in when they please, and leave when they please,
and spend half their time changing and the other half on
Koffee-Kup. No company could survive this. But that's only
half of it—" Walter searched through the reports frantically.
"This International Jet Transport account—they dropped us
because we haven't had a new engine in six years. Why? Because
Research and Development hasn't had any money for
six years. What can two starved engineers and a second rate
chemist drag out of an attic laboratory for competition in the
titanium market?" Walter took a deep breath. "I've warned
you time and again. Robling had built up accounts over the
years with fine products and new models. But since the switchover
seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to
play the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give
your men their dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We
couldn't turn a quick profit on the big, important accounts, so
we had to cancel them. If you had let me manage the company
the way it should have been run—"
Torkleson had been slowly turning purple. Now he slammed
his fist down on the desk. "We should just turn the company
back to Management again, eh? Just let you have a free hand
to rob us blind again. Well, it won't work, Towne. Not while
I'm secretary of this union. We fought long and hard for control
of this corporation, just the way all the other unions did.
I know. I was through it all." He sat back smugly, his cheeks
quivering with emotion. "You might say that I was a national
leader in the movement. But I did it only for the men. The
men want their dividends. They own the stock, stock is supposed
to pay dividends."
"But they're cutting their own throats," Walter wailed.
"You can't build a company and make it grow the way I've
been forced to run it."
"Details!" Torkleson snorted. "I don't care
how
the dividends
come in. That's your job. My job is to report a dividend
every six months to the men who own the stock, the men working
on the production lines."
Walter nodded bitterly. "And every year the dividend has
to be higher than the last, or you and your fat friends are
likely to be thrown out of your jobs—right? No more steaks
every night. No more private gold-plated Buicks for you boys.
No more twenty-room mansions in Westchester. No more big
game hunting in the Rockies. No, you don't have to know
anything but how to whip a board meeting into a frenzy so
they'll vote you into office again each year."
Torkleson's eyes glittered. His voice was very soft. "I've always
liked you, Walter. So I'm going to pretend I didn't hear
you." He paused, then continued. "But here on my desk is a
small bit of white paper. Unless you have my signature on
that paper on the first of next month, you are out of a job,
on grounds of incompetence. And I will personally see that
you go on every White list in the country."
Walter felt the fight go out of him like a dying wind. He
knew what the White list meant. No job, anywhere, ever, in
management. No chance, ever, to join a union. No more
house, no more weekly pay envelope. He spread his hands
weakly. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I want a production plan on my desk within twenty-four
hours. A plan that will guarantee me a five per cent increase
in dividends in the next six months. And you'd better move
fast, because I'm not fooling."
Back in his cubbyhole downstairs, Walter stared hopelessly
at the reports. He had known it would come to this sooner or
later. They all knew it—Hendricks of Promotion, Pendleton
of Sales, the whole managerial staff.
It was wrong, all the way down the line. Walter had
fought it tooth and nail since the day Torkleson had installed
the moose heads in Walter's old office, and moved him down
to the cubbyhole, under Bailey's watchful eye. He had argued,
and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company
deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and
threatened his job, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
He stared at the machines, clicking busily against the wall.
An idea began to form in his head. Helpless?
Not quite. Not if the others could see it, go along with it.
It was a repugnant idea. But there was one thing they could
do that even Torkleson and his fat-jowled crew would understand.
They could go on strike.
"It's ridiculous," the lawyer spluttered, staring at the circle
of men in the room. "How can I give you an opinion on the
legality of the thing? There isn't any legal precedent that I
know of." He mopped his bald head with a large white handkerchief.
"There just hasn't
been
a case of a company's management
striking against its own labor. It—it isn't done. Oh,
there have been lockouts, but this isn't the same thing at all."
Walter nodded. "Well, we couldn't very well lock the men
out, they own the plant. We were thinking more of a lock-
in
sort of thing." He turned to Paul Hendricks and the others.
"We know how the machines operate. They don't. We also
know that the data we keep in the machines is essential to
running the business; the machines figure production quotas,
organize blueprints, prepare distribution lists, test promotion
schemes. It would take an office full of managerial experts to
handle even a single phase of the work without the machines."
The man at the window hissed, and Pendleton quickly
snapped out the lights. They sat in darkness, hardly daring to
breathe. Then: "Okay. Just the man next door coming home."
Pendleton sighed. "You're sure you didn't let them suspect
anything, Walter? They wouldn't be watching the house?"
"I don't think so. And you all came alone, at different
times." He nodded to the window guard, and turned back to
the lawyer. "So we can't be sure of the legal end. You'd have
to be on your toes."
"I still don't see how we could work it," Hendricks objected.
His heavy face was wrinkled with worry. "Torkleson is no
fool, and he has a lot of power in the National Association of
Union Stockholders. All he'd need to do is ask for managers,
and a dozen companies would throw them to him on loan.
They'd be able to figure out the machine system and take over
without losing a day."
"Not quite." Walter was grinning. "That's why I spoke of
a lock-in. Before we leave, we throw the machines into feedback,
every one of them. Lock them into reverberating circuits
with a code sequence key. Then all they'll do is buzz and sputter
until the feedback is broken with the key. And the key is
our secret. It'll tie the Robling office into granny knots, and
scabs won't be able to get any more data out of the machines
than Torkleson could. With a lawyer to handle injunctions,
we've got them strapped."
"For what?" asked the lawyer.
Walter turned on him sharply. "For new contracts. Contracts
to let us manage the company the way it should be managed.
If they won't do it, they won't get another Titanium
product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and
their dividends will
really
take a nosedive."
"That means you'll have to beat Torkleson," said Bates.
"He'll never go along."
"Then he'll be left behind."
Hendricks stood up, brushing off his dungarees. "I'm with
you, Walter. I've taken all of Torkleson that I want to. And
I'm sick of the junk we've been trying to sell people."
The others nodded. Walter rubbed his hands together. "All
right. Tomorrow we work as usual, until the noon whistle.
When we go off for lunch, we throw the machines into lock-step.
Then we just don't come back. But the big thing is to
keep it quiet until the noon whistle." He turned to the lawyer.
"Are you with us, Jeff?"
Jeff Bates shook his head sadly. "I'm with you. I don't know
why, you haven't got a leg to stand on. But if you want to
commit suicide, that's all right with me." He picked up his
briefcase, and started for the door. "I'll have your contract
demands by tomorrow," he grinned. "See you at the lynching."
They got down to the details of planning.
The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day.
Headlines screamed:
MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES
OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY
ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM
There was a long, indignant statement from Daniel P.
Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant
violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial
processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of
American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated
Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding
that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be
permanently barred from positions in American Industry."
In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious
in their views. Yes, it
was
an unprecedented action. Yes, there
would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were
having managerial troubles; but as for long term effects, it was
difficult to say just at present.
On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at
each other, and at their machines, and wondered vaguely what
it was all about.
Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of
surprise. Step by step, through the years, economists had been
watching with wary eyes the growing movement toward union,
control of industry. Even as far back as the '40's and '50's
unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration
of growing sums of money—pension funds, welfare funds,
medical insurance funds, accruing union dues—had begun investing
in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money
could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than
stock in their own companies?
At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the
smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing
production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling
margin of profit. One by one they had seen their
stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled
up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with.
At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of
directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked
shorter hours; there were tighter management policies; and
a little less money was spent on extras like Research and
Development.
At first—until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson
of TWA and Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers
spent a long evening with beer and cigars in a hotel room, and
floated the loan that threw steel to the unions. Oil had followed
with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats,
the changes grew more radical.
Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The
gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening
up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White
list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to
annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the
other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping
malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more
and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward
the inevitable crisis.
Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge
of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.
Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he
came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded
with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor
was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson
was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting
into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through
the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them
fixed?"
Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys
have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the
machines apart on the floor."
"I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them
there. Did they get the machines
fixed
?"
"Uh—well, no, as a matter of fact—"
"Well,
what's holding them up
?"
Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go
in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."
"Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an
expert crew."
Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."
"They
what
?"
"They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their
fingers in this pie at all."
"Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."
"It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management
troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."
The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What
about those injunctions, Dan?"
"Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those
machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast—" He turned
back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"
The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there.
There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines
yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in
Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."
"Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors'
meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a
bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics
men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them
out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the
blueprints for?"
"Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."
It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert
its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the
total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production
was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were
glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there
would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman,
child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The
jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products
piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order
requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.
But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.
The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and
Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant,
until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns.
Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter
which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with
a plaintive message:
robling titanium unfair to management
.
Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter
remained.
The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering
Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal
machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still
struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.
"You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge
this one."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too."
The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it.
Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure
on him."
Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of
selling."
"But you haven't got
time
," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have
you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may
have you in jail if you
do
start them, too, but that's another
bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."
"We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"
"Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip.
You be there, because
I
don't know what to tell them."
Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff
glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from
the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the
charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief,
sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the
livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing
briefs to prove further that these men have formed a
conspiracy to undermine the economy of the entire nation.
We appeal to the spirit of orderly justice—"
Walter yawned as the words went on.
"Of course, if the defendant will waive his appeals against
the previous injunctions, and will release the machines that
were sabotaged, we will be happy to formally withdraw these
charges."
There was a rustle of sound through the courtroom. His
Honor turned to Jeff Bates. "Are you counsel for the defendant?"
"Yes, sir." Bates mopped his bald scalp. "The defendant
pleads guilty to all counts."
The union lawyer dropped his glasses on the table with a
crash. The judge stared. "Mr. Bates, if you plead guilty, you
leave me no alternative—"
"—but to send me to jail," said Walter Towne. "Go ahead.
Send me to jail. In fact, I
insist
upon going to jail."
The union lawyer's jaw sagged. There was a hurried conference.
A recess was pleaded. Telephones buzzed. Then:
"Your Honor, the plaintiff desires to withdraw all charges at
this time."
"Objection," Bates exclaimed. "We've already pleaded."
"—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—"
The case was thrown out on its ear.
And still the machines sputtered.
Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently
gutted, and that the plant could never go back into
production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high
in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying
Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current
dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The
rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came
to the plants in business suits, it was true, and lounged in the
finest of lounges, and read the
Wall Street Journal
, and felt like
stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the
highest. Deduct union dues, pension fees, medical insurance
fees, and sundry other little items which had formerly been
paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but
the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were
tottering.
Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the
plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began
joking about the trash cans; then the humor grew more and
more remote. Finally, late in the afternoon of the eighth day,
Bailey was once again in Torkleson's office.
"Well? Speak up! What's the beef this time?"
"Sir—the men—I mean, there's been some nasty talk.
They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway,
the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and
the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody
wants any more trash cans." Bailey shook his head. "The men
won't swallow it any more. There's—well, there's been talk
about having a board meeting."
Torkleson's ruddy cheeks paled. "Board meeting, huh?"
He licked his heavy lips. "Now look, Bailey, we've always
worked well together. I consider you a good friend of mine.
You've got to get things under control. Tell the men we're
making progress. Tell them Management is beginning to
weaken from its original stand. Tell them we expect to have
the strike broken in another few hours. Tell them anything."
He waited until Bailey was gone. Then, with a trembling
hand he lifted the visiphone receiver. "Get me Walter Towne,"
he said.
"I'm not an unreasonable man," Torkleson was saying
miserably, waving his fat paws in the air as he paced back and
forth in front of the spokesmen for the striking managers.
"Perhaps we were a little demanding, I concede it! Overenthusiastic
with our ownership, and all that. But I'm sure we
can come to some agreement. A hike in wage scale is certainly
within reason. Perhaps we can even arrange for better company
houses."
Walter Towne stifled a yawn. "Perhaps you didn't understand
us. The men are agitating for a meeting of the board of
directors. We want to be at that meeting. That's the only thing
we're interested in right now."
"But there wasn't anything about a board meeting in the
contract your lawyer presented."
"I know, but you rejected that contract. So we tore it up.
Anyway, we've changed our minds."
Torkleson sat down, his heavy cheeks quivering. "Gentlemen,
be reasonable! I can guarantee you your jobs, even give
you a free hand with the management. So the dividends won't be
so large—the men will have to get used to that. That's it, we'll
put it through at the next executive conference, give you—"
"The board meeting," Walter said gently. "That'll be enough
for us."
The union boss swore and slammed his fist on the desk.
"Walk out in front of those men after what you've done? You're
fools! Well, I've given you your chance. You'll get your board
meeting. But you'd better come armed. Because I know how
to handle this kind of board meeting, and if I have anything
to say about it, this one will end with a massacre."
The meeting was held in a huge auditorium in the Robling
administration building. Since every member of the union
owned stock in the company, every member had the right to
vote for members of the board of directors. But in the early
days of the switchover, the idea of a board of directors smacked
too strongly of the old system of corporate organization to suit
the men. The solution had been simple, if a trifle ungainly.
Everyone who owned stock in Robling Titanium was automatically
a member of the board of directors, with Torkleson
as chairman of the board. The stockholders numbered over
ten thousand.
They were all present. They were packed in from the wall
to the stage, and hanging from the rafters. They overflowed
into the corridors. They jammed the lobby. Ten thousand men
rose with a howl of anger when Walter Towne walked out on
the stage. But they quieted down again as Dan Torkleson
started to speak.
It was a masterful display of rabble-rousing. Torkleson
paced the stage, his fat body shaking with agitation, pointing
a chubby finger again and again at Walter Towne. He pranced
and he ranted. He paused at just the right times for thunderous
peals of applause.
"This morning in my office we offered to compromise with
these jackals," he cried, "and they rejected compromise. Even
at the cost of lowering dividends, of taking food from the
mouths of your wives and children, we made our generous
offers. They were rejected with scorn. These thieves have one
desire in mind, my friends, to starve you all, and to destroy
your company and your jobs. To every appeal they heartlessly
refused to divulge the key to the lock-in. And now this man—the
ringleader who keeps the key word buried in secrecy—has
the temerity to ask an audience with you. You're angry men;
you want to know the man to blame for our hardship."
He pointed to Towne with a flourish. "I give you your man.
Do what you want with him."
The hall exploded in angry thunder. The first wave of men
rushed onto the stage as Walter stood up. A tomato whizzed
past his ear and splattered against the wall. More men clambered
up on the stage, shouting and shaking their fists.
Then somebody appeared with a rope.
Walter gave a sharp nod to the side of the stage. Abruptly
the roar of the men was drowned in another sound—a soul-rending,
teeth-grating, bone-rattling screech. The men froze,
jaws sagging, eyes wide, hardly believing their ears. In the
instant of silence as the factory whistle died away, Walter
grabbed the microphone. "You want the code word to start
the machines again? I'll give it to you before I sit down!"
The men stared at him, shuffling, a murmur rising. Torkleson
burst to his feet. "It's a trick!" he howled. "Wait 'til you
hear their price."
"We have no price, and no demands," said Walter Towne.
"We will
give
you the code word, and we ask nothing in return
but that you listen for sixty seconds." He glanced back at
Torkleson, and then out to the crowd. "You men here are an
electing body—right? You own this great plant and company,
top to bottom—right?
You should all be rich
, because Robling
could make you rich. But not one of you out there is rich.
Only the fat ones on this stage are. But I'll tell you how
you
can be rich."
They listened. Not a peep came from the huge hall. Suddenly,
Walter Towne was talking their language.
"You think that since you own the company, times have
changed. Well, have they? Are you any better off than you
were? Of course not. Because you haven't learned yet that
oppression by either side leads to misery for both. You haven't
learned moderation. And you never will, until you throw out
the ones who have fought moderation right down to the last
ditch. You know whom I mean. You know who's grown richer
and richer since the switchover. Throw him out, and you too
can be rich." He paused for a deep breath. "You want the code
word to unlock the machines? All right, I'll give it to you."
He swung around to point a long finger at the fat man
sitting there. "The code word is TORKLESON!"
Much later, Walter Towne and Jeff Bates pried the trophies
off the wall of the big office. The lawyer shook his head sadly.
"Pity about Dan Torkleson. Gruesome affair."
Walter nodded as he struggled down with a moose head.
"Yes, a pity, but you know the boys when they get upset."
"I suppose so." The lawyer stopped to rest, panting. "Anyway,
with the newly elected board of directors, things will be
different for everybody. You took a long gamble."
"Not so long. Not when you knew what they wanted to hear.
It just took a little timing."
"Still, I didn't think they'd elect you secretary of the union.
It just doesn't figure."
Walter Towne chuckled. "Doesn't it? I don't know. Everything's
been a little screwy since the switchover. And in a
screwy world like this—" He shrugged, and tossed down the
moose head. "
Anything
figures."
Question and Possible Answers:
Why was Walter being served criminal charges at the trial?
(A) For selling company secrets
(B) For disabling the company's production abilities
(C) For leaving the company without notice
(D) For committing securities fraud
Answer:
| B | 195 | 35,008 | 35,010 | 35,268 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22875_L821878U_6 | 22875_L821878U_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
Stories by Alan E. Nourse
published in 1963. Extensive research did
not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
without note.
Circus
"Just
suppose," said Morgan, "that I
did
believe you. Just
for argument." He glanced up at the man across the restaurant
table. "Where would we go from here?"
The man shifted uneasily in his seat. He was silent, staring
down at his plate. Not a strange-looking man, Morgan thought.
Rather ordinary, in fact. A plain face, nose a little too long,
fingers a little too dainty, a suit that doesn't quite seem to fit,
but all in all, a perfectly ordinary looking man.
Maybe
too
ordinary, Morgan thought.
Finally the man looked up. His eyes were dark, with a
hunted look in their depths that chilled Morgan a little. "Where
do we go? I don't know. I've tried to think it out, and I get
nowhere. But you've
got
to believe me, Morgan. I'm lost,
I mean it. If I can't get help, I don't know where it's going to
end."
"I'll tell you where it's going to end," said Morgan. "It's
going to end in a hospital. A mental hospital. They'll lock you
up and they'll lose the key somewhere." He poured himself
another cup of coffee and sipped it, scalding hot. "And that,"
he added, "will be that."
The place was dark and almost empty. Overhead, a rotary
fan swished patiently. The man across from Morgan ran a hand
through his dark hair. "There must be some other way," he
said. "There has to be."
"All right, let's start from the beginning again," Morgan
said. "Maybe we can pin something down a little better. You
say your name is Parks—right?"
The man nodded. "Jefferson Haldeman Parks, if that helps
any. Haldeman was my mother's maiden name."
"All right. And you got into town on Friday—right?"
Parks nodded.
"Fine. Now go through the whole story again. What happened
first?"
The man thought for a minute. "As I said, first there was
a fall. About twenty feet. I didn't break any bones, but I was
shaken up and limping. The fall was near the highway going
to the George Washington Bridge. I got over to the highway
and tried to flag down a ride."
"How did you feel? I mean, was there anything strange that
you noticed?"
"
Strange!
" Parks' eyes widened. "I—I was speechless. At
first I hadn't noticed too much—I was concerned with the fall,
and whether I was hurt or not. I didn't really think about much
else until I hobbled up to that highway and saw those cars
coming. Then I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I was
crazy. But a car stopped and asked me if I was going into the
city, and I knew I wasn't crazy."
Morgan's mouth took a grim line. "You understood the
language?"
"Oh, yes. I don't see how I could have, but I did. We talked
all the way into New York—nothing very important, but we
understood each other. His speech had an odd sound, but—"
Morgan nodded. "I know, I noticed. What did you do when
you got to New York?"
"Well, obviously, I needed money. I had gold coin. There
had been no way of knowing if it would be useful, but I'd
taken it on chance. I tried to use it at a newsstand first, and the
man wouldn't touch it. Asked me if I thought I was the U.S.
Treasury or something. When he saw that I was serious, he
sent me to a money lender, a hock shop, I think he called it.
So I found a place—"
"Let me see the coins."
Parks dropped two small gold discs on the table. They were
perfectly smooth and perfectly round, tapered by wear to a
thin blunt edge. There was no design on them, and no printing.
Morgan looked up at the man sharply. "What did you get for
these?"
Parks shrugged. "Too little, I suspect. Two dollars for the
small one, five for the larger."
"You should have gone to a bank."
"I know that now. I didn't then. Naturally, I assumed that
with everything else so similar, principles of business would
also be similar."
Morgan sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well, then
what?"
Parks poured some more coffee. His face was very pale,
Morgan thought, and his hands trembled as he raised the cup
to his lips. Fright? Maybe. Hard to tell. The man put down
the cup and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
"First, I went to the mayor's office," he said. "I kept trying to
think what anyone at home would do in my place. That seemed
a good bet. I asked a policeman where it was, and then I went
there."
"But you didn't get to see him."
"No. I saw a secretary. She said the mayor was in conference,
and that I would have to have an appointment. She let
me speak to another man, one of the mayor's assistants."
"And you told him?"
"No. I wanted to see the mayor himself. I thought that was
the best thing to do. I waited for a couple of hours, until
another assistant came along and told me flatly that the mayor
wouldn't see me unless I stated my business first." He drew in
a deep breath. "So I stated it. And then I was gently but firmly
ushered back into the street again."
"They didn't believe you," said Morgan.
"Not for a minute. They laughed in my face."
Morgan nodded. "I'm beginning to get the pattern. So what
did you do next?"
"Next I tried the police. I got the same treatment there,
only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either. They
muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and
when they asked me where I lived, they thought I was—what
did they call it?—a wise guy! Told me to get out and not come
back with any more wild stories."
"I see," said Morgan.
Jefferson Parks finished his last bite of pie and pushed the
plate away. "By then I didn't know quite what to do. I'd been
prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening.
I tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying. It wasn't
that I attracted attention, or anything like that, quite the contrary.
Nobody even looked at me, unless I said something to
them. I began to look for things that were
different
, things that
I could show them, and say, see, this proves that I'm telling
the truth, look at it—" He looked up helplessly.
"And what did you find?"
"Nothing. Oh, little things, insignificant little things. Your
calendars, for instance. Naturally, I couldn't understand your
frame of reference. And the coinage, you stamp your coins; we
don't. And cigarettes. We don't have any such thing as tobacco."
The man gave a short laugh. "And your house dogs!
We have little animals that look more like rabbits than poodles.
But there was nothing any more significant than that. Absolutely
nothing."
"Except yourself," Morgan said.
"Ah, yes. I thought that over carefully. I looked for differences,
obvious ones. I couldn't find any. You can see that, just
looking at me. So I searched for more subtle things. Skin texture,
fingerprints, bone structure, body proportion. I still
couldn't find anything. Then I went to a doctor."
Morgan's eyebrows lifted. "Good," he said.
Parks shrugged tiredly. "Not really. He examined me. He
practically took me apart. I carefully refrained from saying
anything about who I was or where I came from; just said
I wanted a complete physical examination, and let him go
to it. He was thorough, and when he finished he patted me
on the back and said, 'Parks, you've got nothing to worry
about. You're as fine, strapping a specimen of a healthy human
being as I've ever seen.' And that was that." Parks laughed
bitterly. "I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict,
and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic, it
defied reason, it was infuriating."
Morgan nodded sourly. "Because you're not a human
being," he said.
"That's right. I'm not a human being at all."
"How did you happen to pick this planet, or this sun?"
Morgan asked curiously. "There must have been a million
others to choose from."
Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his stubbled chin
unhappily. "I didn't make the choice. Neither did anyone else.
Travel by warp is a little different from travel by the rocket
you fiction writers make so much of. With a rocket vehicle you
pick your destination, make your calculations, and off you go.
The warp is blind flying, strictly blind. We send an unmanned
scanner ahead. It probes around more or less hit-or-miss until
it locates something, somewhere, that looks habitable. When
it spots a likely looking place, we keep a tight beam on it
and send through a manned scout." He grinned sourly. "Like
me. If it looks good to the scout, he signals back, and they
leave the warp anchored for a sort of permanent gateway until
we can get a transport beam built. But we can't control the
directional and dimensional scope of the warp. There are an
infinity of ways it can go, until we have a guide beam transmitting
from the other side. Then we can just scan a segment of
space with the warp, and the scanner picks up the beam."
He shook his head wearily. "We're new at it, Morgan. We've
only tried a few dozen runs. We're not too far ahead of you in
technology. We've been using rocket vehicles just like yours for
over a century. That's fine for a solar system, but it's not much
good for the stars. When the warp principle was discovered, it
looked like the answer. But something went wrong, the scanner
picked up this planet, and I was coming through, and then
something blew. Next thing I knew I was falling. When I tried
to make contact again, the scanner was gone!"
"And you found things here the same as back home," said
Morgan.
"The same! Your planet and mine are practically twins.
Similar cities, similar technology, everything. The people are
the same, with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the
same sort of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages.
Can't you see the importance of it? This planet is on
the other side of the universe from mine, with the first intelligent
life we've yet encountered anywhere. But when I try to
tell your people that I'm a native of another star system,
they
won't believe me
!"
"Why should they?" asked Morgan. "You look like a human
being. You talk like one. You eat like one. You act like one.
What you're asking them to believe is utterly incredible."
"
But it's true.
"
Morgan shrugged. "So it's true. I won't argue with you. But
as I asked before, even if I
did
believe you, what do you
expect
me
to do about it? Why pick
me
, of all the people you've
seen?"
There was a desperate light in Parks' eyes. "I was tired, tired
of being laughed at, tired of having people looking at me as
though I'd lost my wits when I tried to tell them the truth.
You were here, you were alone, so I started talking. And then
I found out you wrote stories." He looked up eagerly. "I've
got to get back, Morgan, somehow. My life is there, my family.
And think what it would mean to both of our worlds—contact
with another intelligent race! Combine our knowledges,
our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy!"
He leaned forward, his thin face intense. "I need money and
I need help. I know some of the mathematics of the warp principle,
know some of the design, some of the power and wiring
principles. You have engineers here, technologists, physicists.
They could fill in what I don't know and build a guide beam.
But they won't do it if they don't believe me. Your government
won't listen to me, they won't appropriate any money."
"Of course they won't. They've got a war or two on their
hands, they have public welfare, and atomic bombs, and
rockets to the moon to sink their money into." Morgan stared
at the man. "But what can
I
do?"
"You can
write
! That's what you can do. You can tell the
world about me, you can tell exactly what has happened. I
know how public interest can be aroused in my world. It must
be the same in yours."
Morgan didn't move. He just stared. "How many people
have you talked to?" he asked.
"A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand."
"And how many believed you?"
"None."
"You mean
nobody
would believe you?"
"
Not one soul.
Until I talked to you."
And then Morgan was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears
rolling down his cheeks. "And I'm the one man who couldn't
help you if my life depended on it," he gasped.
"You believe me?"
Morgan nodded sadly. "I believe you. Yes. I think your
warp brought you through to a parallel universe of your own
planet, not to another star, but I think you're telling the truth."
"Then you
can
help me."
"I'm afraid not."
"Why not?"
"Because I'd be worse than no help at all."
Jefferson Parks gripped the table, his knuckles white.
"Why?" he cried hoarsely. "If you believe me, why can't you
help me?"
Morgan pointed to the magazine lying on the table. "I write,
yes," he said sadly. "Ever read stories like this before?"
Parks picked up the magazine, glanced at the bright cover.
"I barely looked at it."
"You should look more closely. I have a story in this issue.
The readers thought it was very interesting," Morgan grinned.
"Go ahead, look at it."
The stranger from the stars leafed through the magazine,
stopped at a page that carried Roger Morgan's name. His eyes
caught the first paragraph and he turned white. He set the
magazine down with a trembling hand. "I see," he said, and
the life was gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously,
read the lines again.
The paragraph said:
"Just suppose," said Martin, "that I
did
believe you. Just
for argument." He glanced up at the man across the table.
"Where do we go from here?"
Question and Possible Answers:
Why can Morgan not help spread Parks' story?
(A) Morgan is considered insane and no one would trust him
(B) Morgan is retired from writing and refuses to start again
(C) Morgan authored a story with the exact same premise
(D) Morgan is not qualified enough to speak on the subject
Answer:
| C | 195 | 14,502 | 14,504 | 14,820 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22967_0XT2L7PI_7 | 22967_0XT2L7PI_7_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
THE STOKER
AND THE STARS
BY JOHN A. SENTRY
When
you've had your ears pinned
back in a bowknot, it's sometimes hard
to remember that an intelligent people
has no respect for a whipped enemy
... but does for a fairly beaten enemy.
Illustrated by van Dongen
Know
him? Yes, I know
him—
knew
him. That
was twenty years ago.
Everybody knows
him now. Everybody
who passed him on the street knows
him. Everybody who went to the same
schools, or even to different schools
in different towns, knows him now.
Ask them. But I knew him. I lived
three feet away from him for a month
and a half. I shipped with him and
called him by his first name.
What was he like? What was he
thinking, sitting on the edge of his
bunk with his jaw in his palm and
his eyes on the stars? What did he
think he was after?
Well ... Well, I think he— You
know, I think I never did know him,
after all. Not well. Not as well as
some of those people who're writing
the books about him seem to.
I couldn't really describe him to
you. He had a duffelbag in his hand
and a packed airsuit on his back. The
skin of his face had been dried out
by ship's air, burned by ultraviolet
and broiled by infra red. The pupils
of his eyes had little cloudy specks in
them where the cosmic rays had shot
through them. But his eyes were
steady and his body was hard. What
did he look like? He looked like a
man.
It was after the war, and we were
beaten. There used to be a school of
thought among us that deplored our
combativeness; before we had ever
met any people from off Earth, even,
you could hear people saying we
were toughest, cruelest life-form in
the Universe, unfit to mingle with
the gentler wiser races in the stars,
and a sure bet to steal their galaxy
and corrupt it forever. Where
these people got their information, I
don't know.
We were beaten. We moved out
beyond Centaurus, and Sirius, and
then we met the Jeks, the Nosurwey,
the Lud. We tried Terrestrial know-how,
we tried Production Miracles,
we tried patriotism, we tried damning
the torpedoes and full speed
ahead ... and we were smashed back
like mayflies in the wind. We died in
droves, and we retreated from the
guttering fires of a dozen planets, we
dug in, we fought through the last
ditch, and we were dying on Earth
itself before Baker mutinied, shot
Cope, and surrendered the remainder
of the human race to the wiser, gentler
races in the stars. That way, we
lived. That way, we were permitted
to carry on our little concerns, and
mind our manners. The Jeks and the
Lud and the Nosurwey returned to
their own affairs, and we knew they
would leave us alone so long as we
didn't bother them.
We liked it that way. Understand
me—we didn't accept it, we didn't
knuckle under with waiting murder
in our hearts—we
liked
it. We were
grateful just to be left alone again.
We were happy we hadn't been
wiped out like the upstarts the rest
of the Universe thought us to be.
When they let us keep our own solar
system and carry on a trickle of trade
with the outside, we accepted it for
the fantastically generous gift it was.
Too many of our best men were dead
for us to have any remaining claim
on these things in our own right. I
know how it was. I was there, twenty
years ago. I was a little, pudgy
man with short breath and a high-pitched
voice. I was a typical Earthman.
We were out on a God-forsaken
landing field on Mars, MacReidie
and I, loading cargo aboard the
Serenus
. MacReidie was First Officer.
I was Second. The stranger came
walking up to us.
"Got a job?" he asked, looking at
MacReidie.
Mac looked him over. He saw the
same things I'd seen. He shook his
head. "Not for you. The only thing
we're short on is stokers."
You wouldn't know. There's no
such thing as a stoker any more, with
automatic ships. But the stranger
knew what Mac meant.
Serenus
had what they called an
electronic drive. She had to run with
an evacuated engine room. The leaking
electricity would have broken any
stray air down to ozone, which eats
metal and rots lungs. So the engine
room had the air pumped out of her,
and the stokers who tended the dials
and set the cathode attitudes had to
wear suits, smelling themselves for
twelve hours at a time and standing
a good chance of cooking where they
sat when the drive arced.
Serenus
was
an ugly old tub. At that, we were the
better of the two interstellar freighters
the human race had left.
"You're bound over the border,
aren't you?"
MacReidie nodded. "That's right.
But—"
"I'll stoke."
MacReidie looked over toward me
and frowned. I shrugged my shoulders
helplessly. I was a little afraid
of the stranger, too.
The trouble was the look of him.
It was the look you saw in the bars
back on Earth, where the veterans of
the war sat and stared down into
their glasses, waiting for night to
fall so they could go out into the
alleys and have drunken fights among
themselves. But he had brought that
look to Mars, to the landing field,
and out here there was something
disquieting about it.
He'd caught Mac's look and turned
his head to me. "I'll stoke," he repeated.
I didn't know what to say. MacReidie
and I—almost all of the men
in the Merchant Marine—hadn't
served in the combat arms. We had
freighted supplies, and we had seen
ships dying on the runs—we'd had
our own brushes with commerce raiders,
and we'd known enough men
who joined the combat forces. But
very few of the men came back, and
the war this man had fought hadn't
been the same as ours. He'd commanded
a fighting ship, somewhere,
and come to grips with things we
simply didn't know about. The mark
was on him, but not on us. I couldn't
meet his eyes. "O.K. by me," I mumbled
at last.
I saw MacReidie's mouth turn
down at the corners. But he couldn't
gainsay the man any more than I
could. MacReidie wasn't a mumbling
man, so he said angrily: "O.K.,
bucko, you'll stoke. Go and sign on."
"Thanks." The stranger walked
quietly away. He wrapped a hand
around the cable on a cargo hook and
rode into the hold on top of some
freight. Mac spat on the ground and
went back to supervising his end of
the loading. I was busy with mine,
and it wasn't until we'd gotten the
Serenus
loaded and buttoned up that
Mac and I even spoke to each other
again. Then we talked about the trip.
We didn't talk about the stranger.
Daniels, the Third, had signed him
on and had moved him into the empty
bunk above mine. We slept all in
a bunch on the
Serenus
—officers and
crew. Even so, we had to sleep in
shifts, with the ship's designers giving
ninety per cent of her space to
cargo, and eight per cent to power
and control. That left very little for
the people, who were crammed in
any way they could be. I said empty
bunk. What I meant was, empty during
my sleep shift. That meant he
and I'd be sharing work shifts—me
up in the control blister, parked in
a soft chair, and him down in the
engine room, broiling in a suit for
twelve hours.
But I ate with him, used the head
with him; you can call that rubbing
elbows with greatness, if you want to.
He was a very quiet man. Quiet in
the way he moved and talked. When
we were both climbing into our
bunks, that first night, I introduced
myself and he introduced himself.
Then he heaved himself into his
bunk, rolled over on his side, fixed
his straps, and fell asleep. He was
always friendly toward me, but he
must have been very tired that first
night. I often wondered what kind
of a life he'd lived after the war—what
he'd done that made him different
from the men who simply
grew older in the bars. I wonder,
now, if he really did do anything
different. In an odd way, I like to
think that one day, in a bar, on a
day that seemed like all the rest to
him when it began, he suddenly looked
up with some new thought, put
down his glass, and walked straight
to the Earth-Mars shuttle field.
He might have come from any
town on Earth. Don't believe the historians
too much. Don't pay too much
attention to the Chamber of Commerce
plaques. When a man's name
becomes public property, strange
things happen to the facts.
It was MacReidie who first found
out what he'd done during the war.
I've got to explain about MacReidie.
He takes his opinions fast
and strong. He's a good man—is, or
was; I haven't seen him for a long
while—but he liked things simple.
MacReidie said the duffelbag broke
loose and floated into the middle of
the bunkroom during acceleration.
He opened it to see whose it was.
When he found out, he closed it up
and strapped it back in its place at
the foot of the stoker's bunk.
MacReidie was my relief on the
bridge. When he came up, he didn't
relieve me right away. He stood next
to my chair and looked out through
the ports.
"Captain leave any special instructions
in the Order Book?" he asked.
"Just the usual. Keep a tight watch
and proceed cautiously."
"That new stoker," Mac said.
"Yeah?"
"I knew there was something
wrong with him. He's got an old
Marine uniform in his duffel."
I didn't say anything. Mac glanced
over at me. "Well?"
"I don't know." I didn't.
I couldn't say I was surprised. It
had to be something like that, about
the stoker. The mark was on him, as
I've said.
It was the Marines that did Earth's
best dying. It had to be. They were
trained to be the best we had, and
they believed in their training. They
were the ones who slashed back the
deepest when the other side hit us.
They were the ones who sallied out
into the doomed spaces between the
stars and took the war to the other
side as well as any human force could
ever hope to. They were always the
last to leave an abandoned position.
If Earth had been giving medals to
members of her forces in the war,
every man in the Corps would have
had the Medal of Honor two and
three times over. Posthumously. I
don't believe there were ten of them
left alive when Cope was shot. Cope
was one of them. They were a kind
of human being neither MacReidie
nor I could hope to understand.
"You don't know," Mac said. "It's
there. In his duffel. Damn it, we're
going out to trade with his sworn
enemies! Why do you suppose he
wanted to sign on? Why do you suppose
he's so eager to go!"
"You think he's going to try to
start something?"
"Think! That's exactly what he's
going for. One last big alley fight.
One last brawl. When they cut him
down—do you suppose they'll stop
with him? They'll kill us, and then
they'll go in and stamp Earth flat!
You know it as well as I do."
"I don't know, Mac," I said. "Go
easy." I could feel the knots in my
stomach. I didn't want any trouble.
Not from the stoker, not from Mac.
None of us wanted trouble—not
even Mac, but he'd cause it to get
rid of it, if you follow what I mean
about his kind of man.
Mac hit the viewport with his fist.
"Easy! Easy—nothing's easy. I hate
this life," he said in a murderous
voice. "I don't know why I keep
signing on. Mars to Centaurus and
back, back and forth, in an old rust
tub that's going to blow herself up
one of these—"
Daniels called me on the phone
from Communications. "Turn up
your Intercom volume," he said.
"The stoker's jamming the circuit."
I kicked the selector switch over,
and this is what I got:
"
—so there we were at a million
per, and the air was gettin' thick. The
Skipper says 'Cheer up, brave boys,
we'll—'
"
He was singing. He had a terrible
voice, but he could carry a tune, and
he was hammering it out at the top
of his lungs.
"
Twas the last cruise of the
Venus,
by God you should of seen us! The
pipes were full of whisky, and just
to make things risky, the jets
were ...
"
The crew were chuckling into their
own chest phones. I could hear Daniels
trying to cut him off. But he
kept going. I started laughing myself.
No one's supposed to jam an
intercom, but it made the crew feel
good. When the crew feels good, the
ship runs right, and it had been a
long time since they'd been happy.
He went on for another twenty
minutes. Then his voice thinned out,
and I heard him cough a little.
"Daniels," he said, "get a relief
down here for me.
Jump to it!
" He
said the last part in a Master's voice.
Daniels didn't ask questions. He sent
a man on his way down.
He'd been singing, the stoker had.
He'd been singing while he worked
with one arm dead, one sleeve ripped
open and badly patched because the
fabric was slippery with blood.
There'd been a flashover in the drivers.
By the time his relief got down
there, he had the insulation back on,
and the drive was purring along the
way it should have been. It hadn't
even missed a beat.
He went down to sick bay, got the
arm wrapped, and would have gone
back on shift if Daniels'd let him.
Those of us who were going off
shift found him toying with the
theremin in the mess compartment.
He didn't know how to play it, and
it sounded like a dog howling.
"Sing, will you!" somebody yelled.
He grinned and went back to the
"Good Ship
Venus
." It wasn't good,
but it was loud. From that, we went
to "Starways, Farways, and Barways,"
and "The Freefall Song." Somebody
started "I Left Her Behind For You,"
and that got us off into sentimental
things, the way these sessions would
sometimes wind up when spacemen
were far from home. But not since
the war, we all seemed to realize together.
We stopped, and looked at
each other, and we all began drifting
out of the mess compartment.
And maybe it got to him, too. It
may explain something. He and I
were the last to leave. We went to
the bunkroom, and he stopped in the
middle of taking off his shirt. He
stood there, looking out the porthole,
and forgot I was there. I heard him
reciting something, softly, under his
breath, and I stepped a little closer.
This is what it was:
"
The rockets rise against the skies,
Slowly; in sunlight gleaming
With silver hue upon the blue.
And the universe waits, dreaming.
"
For men must go where the flame-winds blow,
The gas clouds softly plaiting;
Where stars are spun and worlds begun,
And men will find them waiting.
"
The song that roars where the rocket soars
Is the song of the stellar flame;
The dreams of Man and galactic span
Are equal and much the same.
"
What was he thinking of? Make
your own choice. I think I came close
to knowing him, at that moment, but
until human beings turn telepath, no
man can be sure of another.
He shook himself like a dog out
of cold water, and got into his bunk.
I got into mine, and after a while
I fell asleep.
I don't know what MacReidie may
have told the skipper about the stoker,
or if he tried to tell him anything.
The captain was the senior ticket
holder in the Merchant Service, and
a good man, in his day. He kept
mostly to his cabin. And there was
nothing MacReidie could do on his
own authority—nothing simple, that
is. And the stoker had saved the
ship, and ...
I think what kept anything from
happening between MacReidie and
the stoker, or anyone else and the
stoker, was that it would have meant
trouble in the ship. Trouble, confined
to our little percentage of the ship's
volume, could seem like something
much more important than the fate
of the human race. It may not seem
that way to you. But as long as no
one began anything, we could all get
along. We could have a good trip.
MacReidie worried, I'm sure. I
worried, sometimes. But nothing
happened.
When we reached Alpha Centaurus,
and set down at the trading field
on the second planet, it was the same
as the other trips we'd made, and the
same kind of landfall. The Lud factor
came out of his post after we'd
waited for a while, and gave us our
permit to disembark. There was a Jek
ship at the other end of the field,
loaded with the cargo we would get
in exchange for our holdful of
goods. We had the usual things;
wine, music tapes, furs, and the like.
The Jeks had been giving us light
machinery lately—probably we'd get
two or three more loads, and then
they'd begin giving us something
else.
But I found that this trip wasn't
quite the same. I found myself looking
at the factor's post, and I realized
for the first time that the Lud hadn't
built it. It was a leftover from the
old colonial human government. And
the city on the horizon—men had
built it; the touch of our architecture
was on every building. I wondered
why it had never occurred to me that
this was so. It made the landfall different
from all the others, somehow.
It gave a new face to the entire
planet.
Mac and I and some of the other
crewmen went down on the field to
handle the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled
cargo lifts jockeyed among
us, scooping up the loads as we unhooked
the slings, bringing cases of
machinery from their own ship. They
sat atop their vehicles, lean and
aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting
across the field to their ship and
back like wild horsemen on the plains
of Earth, paying us no notice.
We were almost through when
Mac suddenly grabbed my arm.
"Look!"
The stoker was coming down on
one of the cargo slings. He stood
upright, his booted feet planted wide,
one arm curled up over his head and
around the hoist cable. He was in his
dusty brown Marine uniform, the
scarlet collar tabs bright as blood at
his throat, his major's insignia glittering
at his shoulders, the battle
stripes on his sleeves.
The Jeks stopped their lifts. They
knew that uniform. They sat up in
their saddles and watched him come
down. When the sling touched the
ground, he jumped off quietly and
walked toward the nearest Jek. They
all followed him with their eyes.
"We've got to stop him," Mac
said, and both of us started toward
him. His hands were both in plain
sight, one holding his duffelbag,
which was swelled out with the bulk
of his airsuit. He wasn't carrying a
weapon of any kind. He was walking
casually, taking his time.
Mac and I had almost reached him
when a Jek with insignia on his
coveralls suddenly jumped down
from his lift and came forward to
meet him. It was an odd thing to
see—the stoker, and the Jek, who
did not stand as tall. MacReidie and
I stepped back.
The Jek was coal black, his scales
glittering in the cold sunlight, his
hatchet-face inscrutable. He stopped
when the stoker was a few paces
away. The stoker stopped, too. All
the Jeks were watching him and paying
no attention to anything else. The
field might as well have been empty
except for those two.
"They'll kill him. They'll kill him
right now," MacReidie whispered.
They ought to have. If I'd been
a Jek, I would have thought that uniform
was a death warrant. But the
Jek spoke to him:
"Are you entitled to wear that?"
"I was at this planet in '39. I was
closer to your home world the year
before that," the stoker said. "I was
captain of a destroyer. If I'd had a
cruiser's range, I would have reached
it." He looked at the Jek. "Where
were you?"
"I was here when you were."
"I want to speak to your ship's
captain."
"All right. I'll drive you over."
The stoker nodded, and they walked
over to his vehicle together. They
drove away, toward the Jek ship.
"All right, let's get back to work,"
another Jek said to MacReidie and
myself, and we went back to unloading
cargo.
The stoker came back to our ship
that night, without his duffelbag. He
found me and said:
"I'm signing off the ship. Going
with the Jeks."
MacReidie was with me. He said
loudly: "What do you mean, you're
going with the Jeks?"
"I signed on their ship," the stoker
said. "Stoking. They've got a micro-nuclear
drive. It's been a while since
I worked with one, but I think I'll
make out all right, even with the
screwball way they've got it set up."
"Huh?"
The stoker shrugged. "Ships are
ships, and physics is physics, no matter
where you go. I'll make out."
"What kind of a deal did you
make with them? What do you think
you're up to?"
The stoker shook his head. "No
deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll
do a crewman's work for a crewman's
wages. I thought I'd wander around a
while. It ought to be interesting," he
said.
"On a Jek ship."
"Anybody's ship. When I get to
their home world, I'll probably ship
out with some people from farther
on. Why not? It's honest work."
MacReidie had no answer to that.
"But—" I said.
"What?" He looked at me as if
he couldn't understand what might
be bothering me, but I think perhaps
he could.
"Nothing," I said, and that was
that, except MacReidie was always a
sourer man from that time up to as
long as I knew him afterwards. We
took off in the morning. The stoker
had already left on the Jek ship, and
it turned out he'd trained an apprentice
boy to take his place.
It was strange how things became
different for us, little by little after
that. It was never anything you could
put your finger on, but the Jeks began
taking more goods, and giving us
things we needed when we told them
we wanted them. After a while,
Serenus
was going a little deeper into
Jek territory, and when she wore out,
the two replacements let us trade with
the Lud, too. Then it was the Nosurwey,
and other people beyond them,
and things just got better for us,
somehow.
We heard about our stoker, occasionally.
He shipped with the Lud,
and the Nosurwey, and some people
beyond them, getting along, going to
all kinds of places. Pay no attention
to the precise red lines you see on the
star maps; nobody knows exactly
what path he wandered from people
to people. Nobody could. He just
kept signing on with whatever ship
was going deeper into the galaxy,
going farther and farther. He messed
with green shipmates and blue ones.
One and two and three heads, tails,
six legs—after all, ships are ships
and they've all got to have something
to push them along. If a man knows
his business, why not? A man can
live on all kinds of food, if he wants
to get used to it. And any nontoxic
atmosphere will do, as long as there's
enough oxygen in it.
I don't know what he did, to make
things so much better for us. I don't
know if he did anything, but stoke
their ships and, I suppose, fix them
when they were in trouble. I wonder
if he sang dirty songs in that bad
voice of his, to people who couldn't
possibly understand what the songs
were about. All I know is, for some
reason those people slowly began
treating us with respect. We changed,
too, I think—I'm not the same man
I was ... I think—not altogether
the same; I'm a captain now, with
master's papers, and you won't find
me in my cabin very often ... there's
a kind of joy in standing on a bridge,
looking out at the stars you're moving
toward. I wonder if it mightn't
have kept my old captain out of that
place he died in, finally, if he'd tried
it.
So, I don't know. The older I get,
the less I know. The thing people remember
the stoker for—the thing
that makes him famous, and, I think,
annoys him—I'm fairly sure is only
incidental to what he really did. If he
did anything. If he meant to. I wish
I could be sure of the exact answer
he found in the bottom of that last
glass at the bar before he worked his
passage to Mars and the
Serenus
, and
began it all.
So, I can't say what he ought to be
famous for. But I suppose it's enough
to know for sure that he was the first
living being ever to travel all the way
around the galaxy.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
Astounding Science Fiction
February
1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Question and Possible Answers:
What is a theme of the story?
(A) Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
(B) War changes people.
(C) The effects of war last through generations.
(D) Simple actions can mend deep conflict.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 24,911 | 24,913 | 25,150 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22867_IZGAWLCJ_4 | 22867_IZGAWLCJ_4_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
Stories by Alan E. Nourse
published in 1963. Extensive research did
not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
without note.
Meeting
of the
Board
It
was going to be a bad day. As he pushed his way nervously
through the crowds toward the Exit Strip, Walter Towne
turned the dismal prospect over and over in his mind. The
potential gloominess of this particular day had descended upon
him the instant the morning buzzer had gone off, making it
even more tempting than usual just to roll over and forget
about it all. Twenty minutes later, the water-douse came to
drag him, drenched and gurgling, back to the cruel cold world.
He had wolfed down his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye
on the clock and one eye on his growing sense of impending
crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle worse, he was
going to be late again.
He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward
the plant entrance. After all, he told himself, why should he be
so upset? He
was
Vice President-in-Charge-of-Production of
the Robling Titanium Corporation. What could they do to
him, really? He had rehearsed
his
part many times, squaring
his thin shoulders, looking the union boss straight in the eye
and saying, "Now, see here, Torkleson—" But he knew, when
the showdown came, that he wouldn't say any such thing. And
this was the morning that the showdown would come.
Oh, not because of the
lateness
. Of course Bailey, the shop
steward, would take his usual delight in bringing that up. But
this seemed hardly worthy of concern this morning. The reports
waiting on his desk were what worried him. The sales
reports. The promotion-draw reports. The royalty reports. The
anticipated dividend reports. Walter shook his head wearily.
The shop steward was a goad, annoying, perhaps even infuriating,
but tolerable. Torkleson was a different matter.
He pulled his worn overcoat down over frayed shirt sleeves,
and tried vainly to straighten the celluloid collar that kept
scooting his tie up under his ear. Once off the moving strip, he
started up the Robling corridor toward the plant gate. Perhaps
he would be fortunate. Maybe the reports would be late.
Maybe his secretary's two neurones would fail to synapse this
morning, and she'd lose them altogether. And, as long as he
was dreaming, maybe Bailey would break his neck on the way
to work. He walked quickly past the workers' lounge, glancing
in at the groups of men, arguing politics and checking the
stock market reports before they changed from their neat gray
business suits to their welding dungarees. Running up the
stairs to the administrative wing, he paused outside the door
to punch the time clock. 8:04. Damn. If only Bailey could be
sick—
Bailey was not sick. The administrative offices were humming
with frantic activity as Walter glanced down the rows
of cubbyholes. In the middle of it all sat Bailey, in his black-and-yellow
checkered tattersall, smoking a large cigar. His
feet were planted on his desk top, but he hadn't started on his
morning Western yet. He was busy glaring, first at the clock,
then at Walter.
"Late again, I see," the shop steward growled.
Walter gulped. "Yes, sir. Just four minutes, this time, sir.
You know those crowded strips—"
"So it's
just
four minutes now, eh?" Bailey's feet came down
with a crash. "After last month's fine production record, you
think four minutes doesn't matter, eh? Think just because
you're a vice president it's all right to mosey in here whenever
you feel like it." He glowered. "Well, this is three times this
month you've been late, Towne. That's a demerit for each
time, and you know what that means."
"You wouldn't count four minutes as a whole demerit!"
Bailey grinned. "Wouldn't I, now! You just add up your
pay envelope on Friday. Ten cents an hour off for each
demerit."
Walter sighed and shuffled back to his desk. Oh, well. It
could have been worse. They might have fired him like poor
Cartwright last month. He'd just
have
to listen to that morning
buzzer.
The reports were on his desk. He picked them up warily.
Maybe they wouldn't be so bad. He'd had more freedom this
last month than before, maybe there'd been a policy change.
Maybe Torkleson was gaining confidence in him. Maybe—
The reports were worse than he had ever dreamed.
"
Towne!
"
Walter jumped a foot. Bailey was putting down the visiphone
receiver. His grin spread unpleasantly from ear to ear.
"What have you been doing lately? Sabotaging the production
line?"
"What's the trouble now?"
Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The
boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers,
too. The boss seems to have a lot of questions."
Walter rose slowly from his seat. This was it, then. Torkleson
had already seen the reports. He started for the door, his
knees shaking.
It hadn't always been like this, he reflected miserably.
Time was when things had been very different. It had
meant
something to be vice president of a huge industrial firm like
Robling Titanium. A man could have had a fine house of
his own, and a 'copter-car, and belong to the Country Club;
maybe even have a cottage on a lake somewhere.
Walter could almost remember those days with Robling,
before the switchover, before that black day when the exchange
of ten little shares of stock had thrown the Robling
Titanium Corporation into the hands of strange and unnatural
owners.
The door was of heavy stained oak, with bold letters edged
in gold:
TITANIUM WORKERS
OF AMERICA
Amalgamated Locals
Daniel P. Torkleson, Secretary
The secretary flipped down the desk switch and eyed Walter
with pity. "Mr. Torkleson will see you."
Walter pushed through the door into the long, handsome
office. For an instant he felt a pang of nostalgia—the floor-to-ceiling
windows looking out across the long buildings of the
Robling plant, the pine paneling, the broad expanse of desk—
"Well? Don't just stand there. Shut the door and come over
here." The man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred
well-dressed pounds and glared at Walter from under flagrant
eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body quivered as he slammed
a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what do you think
you're doing with this company, Towne?"
Walter swallowed. "I'm production manager of the corporation."
"And just what does the production manager
do
all day?"
Walter reddened. "He organizes the work of the plant, establishes
production lines, works with Promotion and Sales,
integrates Research and Development, operates the planning
machines."
"And you think you do a pretty good job of it, eh? Even
asked for a raise last year!" Torkleson's voice was dangerous.
Walter spread his hands. "I do my best. I've been doing it
for thirty years. I should know what I'm doing."
"
Then how do you explain these reports?
" Torkleson threw
the heap of papers into Walter's arms, and paced up and down
behind the desk. "
Look
at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts
impossible. Big orders canceled. The worst reports in
seven years, and you say you know your job!"
"I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of
course the reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We
haven't met a production schedule in over two years. No plant
can keep up production the way the men are working."
Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So
it's the
men
now, is it? Go ahead. Tell me what's wrong with
the men."
"Nothing's wrong with the men—if they'd only work. But
they come in when they please, and leave when they please,
and spend half their time changing and the other half on
Koffee-Kup. No company could survive this. But that's only
half of it—" Walter searched through the reports frantically.
"This International Jet Transport account—they dropped us
because we haven't had a new engine in six years. Why? Because
Research and Development hasn't had any money for
six years. What can two starved engineers and a second rate
chemist drag out of an attic laboratory for competition in the
titanium market?" Walter took a deep breath. "I've warned
you time and again. Robling had built up accounts over the
years with fine products and new models. But since the switchover
seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to
play the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give
your men their dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We
couldn't turn a quick profit on the big, important accounts, so
we had to cancel them. If you had let me manage the company
the way it should have been run—"
Torkleson had been slowly turning purple. Now he slammed
his fist down on the desk. "We should just turn the company
back to Management again, eh? Just let you have a free hand
to rob us blind again. Well, it won't work, Towne. Not while
I'm secretary of this union. We fought long and hard for control
of this corporation, just the way all the other unions did.
I know. I was through it all." He sat back smugly, his cheeks
quivering with emotion. "You might say that I was a national
leader in the movement. But I did it only for the men. The
men want their dividends. They own the stock, stock is supposed
to pay dividends."
"But they're cutting their own throats," Walter wailed.
"You can't build a company and make it grow the way I've
been forced to run it."
"Details!" Torkleson snorted. "I don't care
how
the dividends
come in. That's your job. My job is to report a dividend
every six months to the men who own the stock, the men working
on the production lines."
Walter nodded bitterly. "And every year the dividend has
to be higher than the last, or you and your fat friends are
likely to be thrown out of your jobs—right? No more steaks
every night. No more private gold-plated Buicks for you boys.
No more twenty-room mansions in Westchester. No more big
game hunting in the Rockies. No, you don't have to know
anything but how to whip a board meeting into a frenzy so
they'll vote you into office again each year."
Torkleson's eyes glittered. His voice was very soft. "I've always
liked you, Walter. So I'm going to pretend I didn't hear
you." He paused, then continued. "But here on my desk is a
small bit of white paper. Unless you have my signature on
that paper on the first of next month, you are out of a job,
on grounds of incompetence. And I will personally see that
you go on every White list in the country."
Walter felt the fight go out of him like a dying wind. He
knew what the White list meant. No job, anywhere, ever, in
management. No chance, ever, to join a union. No more
house, no more weekly pay envelope. He spread his hands
weakly. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I want a production plan on my desk within twenty-four
hours. A plan that will guarantee me a five per cent increase
in dividends in the next six months. And you'd better move
fast, because I'm not fooling."
Back in his cubbyhole downstairs, Walter stared hopelessly
at the reports. He had known it would come to this sooner or
later. They all knew it—Hendricks of Promotion, Pendleton
of Sales, the whole managerial staff.
It was wrong, all the way down the line. Walter had
fought it tooth and nail since the day Torkleson had installed
the moose heads in Walter's old office, and moved him down
to the cubbyhole, under Bailey's watchful eye. He had argued,
and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company
deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and
threatened his job, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
He stared at the machines, clicking busily against the wall.
An idea began to form in his head. Helpless?
Not quite. Not if the others could see it, go along with it.
It was a repugnant idea. But there was one thing they could
do that even Torkleson and his fat-jowled crew would understand.
They could go on strike.
"It's ridiculous," the lawyer spluttered, staring at the circle
of men in the room. "How can I give you an opinion on the
legality of the thing? There isn't any legal precedent that I
know of." He mopped his bald head with a large white handkerchief.
"There just hasn't
been
a case of a company's management
striking against its own labor. It—it isn't done. Oh,
there have been lockouts, but this isn't the same thing at all."
Walter nodded. "Well, we couldn't very well lock the men
out, they own the plant. We were thinking more of a lock-
in
sort of thing." He turned to Paul Hendricks and the others.
"We know how the machines operate. They don't. We also
know that the data we keep in the machines is essential to
running the business; the machines figure production quotas,
organize blueprints, prepare distribution lists, test promotion
schemes. It would take an office full of managerial experts to
handle even a single phase of the work without the machines."
The man at the window hissed, and Pendleton quickly
snapped out the lights. They sat in darkness, hardly daring to
breathe. Then: "Okay. Just the man next door coming home."
Pendleton sighed. "You're sure you didn't let them suspect
anything, Walter? They wouldn't be watching the house?"
"I don't think so. And you all came alone, at different
times." He nodded to the window guard, and turned back to
the lawyer. "So we can't be sure of the legal end. You'd have
to be on your toes."
"I still don't see how we could work it," Hendricks objected.
His heavy face was wrinkled with worry. "Torkleson is no
fool, and he has a lot of power in the National Association of
Union Stockholders. All he'd need to do is ask for managers,
and a dozen companies would throw them to him on loan.
They'd be able to figure out the machine system and take over
without losing a day."
"Not quite." Walter was grinning. "That's why I spoke of
a lock-in. Before we leave, we throw the machines into feedback,
every one of them. Lock them into reverberating circuits
with a code sequence key. Then all they'll do is buzz and sputter
until the feedback is broken with the key. And the key is
our secret. It'll tie the Robling office into granny knots, and
scabs won't be able to get any more data out of the machines
than Torkleson could. With a lawyer to handle injunctions,
we've got them strapped."
"For what?" asked the lawyer.
Walter turned on him sharply. "For new contracts. Contracts
to let us manage the company the way it should be managed.
If they won't do it, they won't get another Titanium
product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and
their dividends will
really
take a nosedive."
"That means you'll have to beat Torkleson," said Bates.
"He'll never go along."
"Then he'll be left behind."
Hendricks stood up, brushing off his dungarees. "I'm with
you, Walter. I've taken all of Torkleson that I want to. And
I'm sick of the junk we've been trying to sell people."
The others nodded. Walter rubbed his hands together. "All
right. Tomorrow we work as usual, until the noon whistle.
When we go off for lunch, we throw the machines into lock-step.
Then we just don't come back. But the big thing is to
keep it quiet until the noon whistle." He turned to the lawyer.
"Are you with us, Jeff?"
Jeff Bates shook his head sadly. "I'm with you. I don't know
why, you haven't got a leg to stand on. But if you want to
commit suicide, that's all right with me." He picked up his
briefcase, and started for the door. "I'll have your contract
demands by tomorrow," he grinned. "See you at the lynching."
They got down to the details of planning.
The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day.
Headlines screamed:
MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES
OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY
ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM
There was a long, indignant statement from Daniel P.
Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant
violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial
processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of
American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated
Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding
that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be
permanently barred from positions in American Industry."
In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious
in their views. Yes, it
was
an unprecedented action. Yes, there
would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were
having managerial troubles; but as for long term effects, it was
difficult to say just at present.
On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at
each other, and at their machines, and wondered vaguely what
it was all about.
Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of
surprise. Step by step, through the years, economists had been
watching with wary eyes the growing movement toward union,
control of industry. Even as far back as the '40's and '50's
unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration
of growing sums of money—pension funds, welfare funds,
medical insurance funds, accruing union dues—had begun investing
in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money
could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than
stock in their own companies?
At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the
smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing
production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling
margin of profit. One by one they had seen their
stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled
up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with.
At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of
directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked
shorter hours; there were tighter management policies; and
a little less money was spent on extras like Research and
Development.
At first—until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson
of TWA and Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers
spent a long evening with beer and cigars in a hotel room, and
floated the loan that threw steel to the unions. Oil had followed
with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats,
the changes grew more radical.
Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The
gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening
up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White
list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to
annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the
other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping
malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more
and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward
the inevitable crisis.
Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge
of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.
Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he
came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded
with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor
was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson
was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting
into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through
the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them
fixed?"
Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys
have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the
machines apart on the floor."
"I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them
there. Did they get the machines
fixed
?"
"Uh—well, no, as a matter of fact—"
"Well,
what's holding them up
?"
Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go
in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."
"Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an
expert crew."
Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."
"They
what
?"
"They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their
fingers in this pie at all."
"Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."
"It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management
troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."
The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What
about those injunctions, Dan?"
"Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those
machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast—" He turned
back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"
The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there.
There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines
yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in
Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."
"Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors'
meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a
bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics
men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them
out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the
blueprints for?"
"Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."
It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert
its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the
total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production
was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were
glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there
would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman,
child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The
jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products
piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order
requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.
But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.
The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and
Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant,
until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns.
Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter
which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with
a plaintive message:
robling titanium unfair to management
.
Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter
remained.
The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering
Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal
machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still
struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.
"You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge
this one."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too."
The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it.
Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure
on him."
Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of
selling."
"But you haven't got
time
," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have
you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may
have you in jail if you
do
start them, too, but that's another
bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."
"We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"
"Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip.
You be there, because
I
don't know what to tell them."
Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff
glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from
the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the
charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief,
sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the
livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing
briefs to prove further that these men have formed a
conspiracy to undermine the economy of the entire nation.
We appeal to the spirit of orderly justice—"
Walter yawned as the words went on.
"Of course, if the defendant will waive his appeals against
the previous injunctions, and will release the machines that
were sabotaged, we will be happy to formally withdraw these
charges."
There was a rustle of sound through the courtroom. His
Honor turned to Jeff Bates. "Are you counsel for the defendant?"
"Yes, sir." Bates mopped his bald scalp. "The defendant
pleads guilty to all counts."
The union lawyer dropped his glasses on the table with a
crash. The judge stared. "Mr. Bates, if you plead guilty, you
leave me no alternative—"
"—but to send me to jail," said Walter Towne. "Go ahead.
Send me to jail. In fact, I
insist
upon going to jail."
The union lawyer's jaw sagged. There was a hurried conference.
A recess was pleaded. Telephones buzzed. Then:
"Your Honor, the plaintiff desires to withdraw all charges at
this time."
"Objection," Bates exclaimed. "We've already pleaded."
"—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—"
The case was thrown out on its ear.
And still the machines sputtered.
Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently
gutted, and that the plant could never go back into
production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high
in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying
Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current
dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The
rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came
to the plants in business suits, it was true, and lounged in the
finest of lounges, and read the
Wall Street Journal
, and felt like
stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the
highest. Deduct union dues, pension fees, medical insurance
fees, and sundry other little items which had formerly been
paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but
the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were
tottering.
Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the
plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began
joking about the trash cans; then the humor grew more and
more remote. Finally, late in the afternoon of the eighth day,
Bailey was once again in Torkleson's office.
"Well? Speak up! What's the beef this time?"
"Sir—the men—I mean, there's been some nasty talk.
They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway,
the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and
the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody
wants any more trash cans." Bailey shook his head. "The men
won't swallow it any more. There's—well, there's been talk
about having a board meeting."
Torkleson's ruddy cheeks paled. "Board meeting, huh?"
He licked his heavy lips. "Now look, Bailey, we've always
worked well together. I consider you a good friend of mine.
You've got to get things under control. Tell the men we're
making progress. Tell them Management is beginning to
weaken from its original stand. Tell them we expect to have
the strike broken in another few hours. Tell them anything."
He waited until Bailey was gone. Then, with a trembling
hand he lifted the visiphone receiver. "Get me Walter Towne,"
he said.
"I'm not an unreasonable man," Torkleson was saying
miserably, waving his fat paws in the air as he paced back and
forth in front of the spokesmen for the striking managers.
"Perhaps we were a little demanding, I concede it! Overenthusiastic
with our ownership, and all that. But I'm sure we
can come to some agreement. A hike in wage scale is certainly
within reason. Perhaps we can even arrange for better company
houses."
Walter Towne stifled a yawn. "Perhaps you didn't understand
us. The men are agitating for a meeting of the board of
directors. We want to be at that meeting. That's the only thing
we're interested in right now."
"But there wasn't anything about a board meeting in the
contract your lawyer presented."
"I know, but you rejected that contract. So we tore it up.
Anyway, we've changed our minds."
Torkleson sat down, his heavy cheeks quivering. "Gentlemen,
be reasonable! I can guarantee you your jobs, even give
you a free hand with the management. So the dividends won't be
so large—the men will have to get used to that. That's it, we'll
put it through at the next executive conference, give you—"
"The board meeting," Walter said gently. "That'll be enough
for us."
The union boss swore and slammed his fist on the desk.
"Walk out in front of those men after what you've done? You're
fools! Well, I've given you your chance. You'll get your board
meeting. But you'd better come armed. Because I know how
to handle this kind of board meeting, and if I have anything
to say about it, this one will end with a massacre."
The meeting was held in a huge auditorium in the Robling
administration building. Since every member of the union
owned stock in the company, every member had the right to
vote for members of the board of directors. But in the early
days of the switchover, the idea of a board of directors smacked
too strongly of the old system of corporate organization to suit
the men. The solution had been simple, if a trifle ungainly.
Everyone who owned stock in Robling Titanium was automatically
a member of the board of directors, with Torkleson
as chairman of the board. The stockholders numbered over
ten thousand.
They were all present. They were packed in from the wall
to the stage, and hanging from the rafters. They overflowed
into the corridors. They jammed the lobby. Ten thousand men
rose with a howl of anger when Walter Towne walked out on
the stage. But they quieted down again as Dan Torkleson
started to speak.
It was a masterful display of rabble-rousing. Torkleson
paced the stage, his fat body shaking with agitation, pointing
a chubby finger again and again at Walter Towne. He pranced
and he ranted. He paused at just the right times for thunderous
peals of applause.
"This morning in my office we offered to compromise with
these jackals," he cried, "and they rejected compromise. Even
at the cost of lowering dividends, of taking food from the
mouths of your wives and children, we made our generous
offers. They were rejected with scorn. These thieves have one
desire in mind, my friends, to starve you all, and to destroy
your company and your jobs. To every appeal they heartlessly
refused to divulge the key to the lock-in. And now this man—the
ringleader who keeps the key word buried in secrecy—has
the temerity to ask an audience with you. You're angry men;
you want to know the man to blame for our hardship."
He pointed to Towne with a flourish. "I give you your man.
Do what you want with him."
The hall exploded in angry thunder. The first wave of men
rushed onto the stage as Walter stood up. A tomato whizzed
past his ear and splattered against the wall. More men clambered
up on the stage, shouting and shaking their fists.
Then somebody appeared with a rope.
Walter gave a sharp nod to the side of the stage. Abruptly
the roar of the men was drowned in another sound—a soul-rending,
teeth-grating, bone-rattling screech. The men froze,
jaws sagging, eyes wide, hardly believing their ears. In the
instant of silence as the factory whistle died away, Walter
grabbed the microphone. "You want the code word to start
the machines again? I'll give it to you before I sit down!"
The men stared at him, shuffling, a murmur rising. Torkleson
burst to his feet. "It's a trick!" he howled. "Wait 'til you
hear their price."
"We have no price, and no demands," said Walter Towne.
"We will
give
you the code word, and we ask nothing in return
but that you listen for sixty seconds." He glanced back at
Torkleson, and then out to the crowd. "You men here are an
electing body—right? You own this great plant and company,
top to bottom—right?
You should all be rich
, because Robling
could make you rich. But not one of you out there is rich.
Only the fat ones on this stage are. But I'll tell you how
you
can be rich."
They listened. Not a peep came from the huge hall. Suddenly,
Walter Towne was talking their language.
"You think that since you own the company, times have
changed. Well, have they? Are you any better off than you
were? Of course not. Because you haven't learned yet that
oppression by either side leads to misery for both. You haven't
learned moderation. And you never will, until you throw out
the ones who have fought moderation right down to the last
ditch. You know whom I mean. You know who's grown richer
and richer since the switchover. Throw him out, and you too
can be rich." He paused for a deep breath. "You want the code
word to unlock the machines? All right, I'll give it to you."
He swung around to point a long finger at the fat man
sitting there. "The code word is TORKLESON!"
Much later, Walter Towne and Jeff Bates pried the trophies
off the wall of the big office. The lawyer shook his head sadly.
"Pity about Dan Torkleson. Gruesome affair."
Walter nodded as he struggled down with a moose head.
"Yes, a pity, but you know the boys when they get upset."
"I suppose so." The lawyer stopped to rest, panting. "Anyway,
with the newly elected board of directors, things will be
different for everybody. You took a long gamble."
"Not so long. Not when you knew what they wanted to hear.
It just took a little timing."
"Still, I didn't think they'd elect you secretary of the union.
It just doesn't figure."
Walter Towne chuckled. "Doesn't it? I don't know. Everything's
been a little screwy since the switchover. And in a
screwy world like this—" He shrugged, and tossed down the
moose head. "
Anything
figures."
Question and Possible Answers:
What is wrong with the reports?
(A) Production and sales are down.
(B) Walter forgot to do them.
(C) Walter put in false information to make it appear as though the company is thriving.
(D) Walter did the reports the late.
Answer:
| A | 195 | 35,008 | 35,010 | 35,270 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
22462_BUA2LH2S_5 | 22462_BUA2LH2S_5_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
SLINGSHOT
BY
IRVING W. LANDE
Illustrated by Emsh
The slingshot
was, I believe, one of the few
weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war.
That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next!
"Got a bogey at three o'clock high.
Range about six hundred miles."
Johnson spoke casually, but his voice
in the intercom was thin with tension.
Captain Paul Coulter, commanding
Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron,
33rd Fighter Wing, glanced up out
of his canopy in the direction indicated,
and smiled to himself at the
instinctive reaction. Nothing there
but the familiar starry backdrop, the
moon far down to the left. If the
light wasn't right, a ship might be
invisible at half a mile. He squeezed
the throttle mike button. "Any IFF?"
"No IFF."
"O.K., let me know as soon as you
have his course." Coulter squashed
out his cigar and began his cockpit
check, grinning without humor as he
noticed that his breathing had deepened
and his palms were moist on
the controls. He looked down to
make sure his radio was snug in its
pocket on his leg; checked the thigh
harness of his emergency rocket,
wrapped in its thick belly pad; checked
the paired tanks of oxygen behind
him, hanging level from his shoulders
into their niche in the "cradle."
He flipped his helmet closed, locked
it, and opened it again. He tossed
a sardonic salute at the photograph
of a young lady who graced the side
of the cockpit. "Wish us luck, sugar."
He pressed the mike button again.
"You got anything yet, Johnny?"
"He's going our way, Paul. Have
it exact in a minute."
Coulter scanned the full arch of
sky visible through the curving panels
of the dome, thinking the turgid
thoughts that always came when action
was near. His chest was full of
the familiar weakness—not fear exactly,
but a tight, helpless feeling
that grew and grew with the waiting.
His eyes and hands were busy in
the familiar procedure, readying the
ship for combat, checking and re-checking
the details that could mean
life and death, but his mind watched
disembodied, yearning back to earth.
Sylvia always came back first. Inviting
smile and outstretched hands.
Nyloned knees, pink sweater, and
that clinging, clinging white silk
skirt. A whirling montage of laughing,
challenging eyes and tossing sky-black
hair and soft arms tightening
around his neck.
Then Jean, cool and self-possessed
and slightly disapproving,
with warmth and humor peeping
through from underneath when she
smiled. A lazy, crinkly kind of smile,
like Christmas lights going on one
by one. He wished he'd acted more
grown up that night they watched
the rain dance at the pueblo. For the
hundredth time, he went over what
he remembered of their last date,
seeing the gleam of her shoulder, and
the angry disappointment in her eyes;
hearing again his awkward apologies.
She was a nice kid. Silently his mouth
formed the words. "You're a nice
kid."
I think she loves me. She was just
mad because I got drunk.
The tension of approaching combat
suddenly blended with the memory,
welling up into a rush of tenderness
and affection. He whispered her
name, and suddenly he knew that if
he got back he was going to ask her
to marry him.
He thought of his father, rocking
on the porch of the Pennsylvania
farm, pipe in his mouth, the weathered
old face serene, as he puffed and
listened to the radio beside him. He
wished he'd written him last night,
instead of joining the usual beer and
bull session in the wardroom. He
wished—. He wished.
"I've got him, Paul. He's got two
point seven miles of RV on us. Take
thirty degrees high on two point one
o'clock for course to IP."
Automatically he turned the control
wheel to the right and eased it
back. The gyros recorded the turn to
course.
"Hold 4 G's for one six five seconds,
then coast two minutes for initial
point five hundred miles on his
tail."
"Right, Johnny. One sixty-five,
then two minutes." He set the timer,
advanced the throttle to 4 G's, and
stepped back an inch as the acceleration
took him snugly into the cradle.
The Return-To-Station-Fuel and Relative-Velocity-To-Station
gauges did
their usual double takes on a change
of course, as the ship computer recorded
the new information. He
liked those two gauges—the two old
ladies.
Mrs. RSF kept track of how much
more fuel they had than they needed
to get home. When they were moving
away from station, she dropped
in alarmed little jumps, but when
they were headed home, she inched
along in serene contentment, or if
they were coasting, sneaked triumphantly
back up the dial.
Mrs. RVS started to get jittery at
about ten mps away from home, and
above fifteen, she was trembling
steadily. He didn't blame the old
ladies for worrying. With one hour
of fuel at 5 G's, you didn't fire a
single squirt unless there was a good
reason for it. Most of their time on
a mission was spent free wheeling,
in the anxiety-laden boredom that
fighting men have always known.
Wish the Red was coming in across
our course.
It would have taken less
fuel, and the chase wouldn't have
taken them so far out. But then
they'd probably have been spotted,
and lost the precious element of surprise.
He blessed the advantage of better
radar. In this crazy "war," so like
the dogfights of the first world war,
the better than two hundred mile
edge of American radar was more
often than not the margin of victory.
The American crews were a little
sharper, a little better trained, but
with their stripped down ships, and
midget crewmen, with no personal
safety equipment, the Reds could
accelerate longer and faster, and go
farther out. You had to get the jump
on them, or it was just too bad.
The second hand hit forty-five in
its third cycle, and he stood loose in
the cradle as the power died.
Sixty-two combat missions but the
government says there's no war.
His
mind wandered back over eight years
in the service. Intelligence tests. Physical
tests. Psychological tests. Six
months of emotional adjustment in
the screep. Primary training. Basic
and advanced training. The pride and
excitement of being chosen for space
fighters. By the time he graduated,
the United States and Russia each had
several satellite stations operating, but
in 1979, the United States had won
the race for a permanent station on
the Moon. What a grind it had been,
bringing in the supplies.
A year later the Moon station had
"blown up." No warning. No survivors.
Just a brand-new medium-sized
crater. And six months later,
the new station, almost completed,
went up again. The diplomats had
buzzed like hornets, with accusations
and threats, but nothing could be
proven—there
were
bombs stored at
the station. The implication was clear
enough. There wasn't going to be
any Moon station until one government
ruled Earth. Or until the United
States and Russia figured out a way
to get along with each other. And so
far, getting along with Russia was
like trying to get along with an
octopus.
Of course there were rumors that
the psych warfare boys had some
gimmick cooked up, to turn the
U. S. S. R. upside down in a revolution,
the next time power changed
hands, but he'd been hearing that one
for years. Still, with four new dictators
over there in the last eleven
years, there was always a chance.
Anyway, he was just a space
jockey, doing his job in this screwball
fight out here in the empty reaches.
Back on Earth, there was no war. The
statesmen talked, held conferences,
played international chess as ever.
Neither side bothered the other's
satellites, though naturally they were
on permanent alert. There just wasn't
going to be any Moon station for a
while. Nobody knew what there
might be on the Moon, but if one
side couldn't have it, then the other
side wasn't going to have it either.
And meanwhile, the struggle was
growing deadlier, month by month,
each side groping for the stranglehold,
looking for the edge that would
give domination of space, or make
all-out war a good risk. They hadn't
found it yet, but it was getting bloodier
out here all the time. For a while,
it had been a supreme achievement
just to get a ship out and back, but
gradually, as the ships improved,
there was a little margin left over for
weapons. Back a year ago, the average
patrol was nothing but a sightseeing
tour. Not that there was much to see,
when you'd been out a few times.
Now, there were Reds around practically
every mission.
Thirteen missions to go, after today.
He wondered if he'd quit at
seventy-five. Deep inside him, the old
pride and excitement were still
strong. He still got a kick out of the
way the girls looked at the silver
rocket on his chest. But he didn't
feel as lucky as he used to. Twenty-nine
years old, and he was starting
to feel like an old man. He pictured
himself lecturing to a group of eager
kids.
Had a couple of close calls, those
last two missions.
That Red had
looked easy, the way he was wandering
around. He hadn't spotted them
until they were well into their run,
but when he got started he'd made
them look like slow motion, just the
same. If he hadn't tried that harebrained
sudden deceleration....
Coulter shook his head at the memory.
And on the last mission they'd
been lucky to get a draw. Those boys
were good shots.
"We're crossing his track, Paul.
Turn to nine point five o'clock and
hold 4 G's for thirty-two seconds,
starting on the count ... five—four—three—two—one—go!"
He completed
the operation in silence, remarking
to himself how lucky he was
to have Johnson. The boy loved a
chase. He navigated like a hungry
hawk, though you had to admit his
techniques were a bit irregular.
Coulter chuckled at the ad lib way
they operated, remembering the
courses, the tests, the procedures practiced
until they could do them backwards
blindfolded. When they tangled
with a Red, the Solter co-ordinates
went out the hatch. They navigated
by the enemy. There were times
during a fight when he had no more
idea of his position than what the
old ladies told him, and what he
could see of the Sun, the Earth, and
the Moon.
And using "right side up" as a
basis for navigation. He chuckled
again. Still, the service had had to
concede on "right side up," in designing
the ships, so there was something
to be said for it. They hadn't
been able to simulate gravity without
fouling up the ships so they had
to call the pilot's head "up." There
was something comforting about it.
He'd driven a couple of the experimental
jobs, one with the cockpit set
on gimbals, and one where the whole
ship rotated, and he hadn't cared for
them at all. Felt disoriented, with
something nagging at his mind all
the time, as though the ships had
been sabotaged. A couple of pilots
had gone nuts in the "spindizzy,"
and remembering his own feelings as
he watched the sky go by, it was easy
to understand.
Anyway, "right side up" tied in
perfectly with the old "clock" system
Garrity had dug out of those magazines
he was always reading. Once
they got used to it, it had turned out
really handy. Old Doc Hoffman, his
astrogation prof, would have turned
purple if he'd ever dreamed they'd
use such a conglomeration. But
it worked. And when you were
in a hurry, it worked in a hurry, and
that was good enough for Coulter.
He'd submitted a report on it to
Colonel Silton.
"You've got him, Paul. We're
dead on his tail, five hundred miles
back, and matching velocity. Turn
forty-two degrees right, and you're
lined up right on him." Johnson was
pleased with the job he'd done.
Coulter watched the pip move into
his sightscreen. It settled less than a
degree off dead center. He made the
final corrections in course, set the air
pressure control to eight pounds, and
locked his helmet.
"Nice job, Johnny. Let's button
up. You with us, Guns?"
Garrity sounded lazy as a well-fed
tiger. "Ah'm with yew, cap'n."
Coulter advanced the throttle to
5 G's. And with the hiss of power,
SF 308 began the deadly, intricate,
precarious maneuver called a combat
pass—a maneuver inherited from the
aerial dogfight—though it often turned
into something more like the
broadside duels of the old sailing
ships—as the best and least suicidal
method of killing a spaceship. To
start on the enemy's tail, just out of
his radar range. To come up his track
at 2 mps relative velocity, firing six
.30 caliber machine guns from fifty
miles out. In the last three or four
seconds, to break out just enough to
clear him, praying that he won't
break in the same direction.
And to
keep on going.
Four minutes and thirty-four seconds
to the break.
Sixty seconds at
5 G's; one hundred ninety-two seconds
of free wheeling; and then, if
they were lucky, the twenty-two frantic
seconds they were out here for—throwing
a few pounds of steel slugs
out before them in one unbroken
burst, groping out fifty miles into
the darkness with steel and radar fingers
to kill a duplicate of themselves.
This is the worst. These three minutes
are the worst.
One hundred
ninety-two eternal seconds of waiting,
of deathly silence and deathly
calm, feeling and hearing nothing
but the slow pounding of their own
heartbeats. Each time he got back, it
faded away, and all he remembered
was the excitement. But each time
he went through it, it was worse. Just
standing and waiting in the silence,
praying they weren't spotted—staring
at the unmoving firmament and
knowing he was a projectile hurtling
two miles each second straight at a
clump of metal and flesh that was
the enemy. Knowing the odds were
twenty to one against their scoring
a kill ... unless they ran into him.
At eighty-five seconds, he corrected
slightly to center the pip. The momentary
hiss of the rockets was a
relief. He heard the muffled yammering
as Guns fired a short burst
from the .30's standing out of their
compartments around the sides of the
ship. They were practically recoilless,
but the burst drifted him forward
against the cradle harness.
And suddenly the waiting was
over. The ship filled with vibration
as Guns opened up.
Twenty-five seconds
to target.
His eyes flicked from
the sightscreen to the sky ahead,
looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready
to follow like a ferret.
There he is!
At eighteen miles
from target, a tiny blue light flickered
ahead. He forgot everything but the
sightscreen, concentrating on keeping
the pip dead center. The guns hammered
on. It seemed they'd been firing
for centuries. At ten-mile range,
the combat radar kicked the automatics
in, turning the ship ninety
degrees to her course in one and a
half seconds. He heard the lee side
firing cut out, as Garrity hung on
with two, then three guns.
He held it as long as he could.
Closer than he ever had before. At
four miles he poured 12 G's for two
seconds.
They missed ramming by something
around a hundred yards. The
enemy ship flashed across his tail in
a fraction of a second, already turned
around and heading up its own track,
yet it seemed to Paul he could make
out every detail—the bright red star,
even the tortured face of the pilot.
Was there something lopsided in the
shape of that rocket plume, or was
he just imagining it in the blur of
their passing? And did he hear a
ping
just at that instant, feel the
ship vibrate for a second?
He continued the turn in the direction
the automatics had started, bringing
his nose around to watch the
enemy's track. And as the shape of
the plume told him the other ship
was still heading back toward Earth,
he brought the throttle back up to
12 G's, trying to overcome the lead
his pass had given away.
Guns spoke quietly to Johnson.
"Let me know when we kill his RV.
Ah may get another shot at him."
And Johnny answered, hurt,
"What do you think I'm doing down
here—reading one of your magazines?"
Paul was struggling with hundred-pound
arms, trying to focus the telescope
that swiveled over the panel.
As the field cleared, he could see that
the plume was flaring unevenly, flickering
red and orange along one side.
Quietly and viciously, he was talking
to himself. "Blow! Blow!"
And she blew. Like a dirty ragged
bit of fireworks, throwing tiny handfuls
of sparks into the blackness.
Something glowed red for a while,
and slowly faded.
There, but for the grace of God....
Paul shuddered in a confused
mixture of relief and revulsion.
He cut back to 4 G's, noting that
RVS registered about a mile per
second away from station, and suddenly
became aware that the red light
was on for loss of air. The cabin
pressure gauge read zero, and his
heart throbbed into his throat as he
remembered that
pinging
sound, just
as they passed the enemy ship. He
told Garrity to see if he could locate
the loss, and any other damage, and
was shortly startled by a low amazed
whistle in his earphones.
"If Ah wasn't lookin' at it, Ah
wouldn't believe it. Musta been one
of his shells went right around the
fuel tank and out again, without hittin'
it. There's at least three inches of
tank on a line between the holes! He
musta been throwin' curves at us.
Man, cap'n, this is our lucky day!"
Paul felt no surprise, only relief
at having the trouble located. The
reaction to the close call might not
come till hours later. "This kind of
luck we can do without. Can you
patch the holes?"
"Ah can patch the one where it
came in, but it musta been explodin'
on the way out. There's a hole Ah
could stick mah head through."
"That's a good idea." Johnson was
not usually very witty, but this was
one he couldn't resist.
"Never mind, Guns. A patch that
big wouldn't be safe to hold air."
They were about eighty thousand
miles out. He set course for Earth at
about five and a half mps, which
Johnson calculated to bring them in
on the station on the "going away"
side of its orbit, and settled back for
the tedious two hours of free wheeling.
For ten or fifteen minutes, the
interphone crackled with the gregariousness
born of recent peril, and
gradually the ship fell silent as each
man returned to his own private
thoughts.
Paul was wondering about the men
on the other ship—whether any of
them were still alive. Eighty thousand
miles to fall. That was a little
beyond the capacity of an emergency
rocket—about 2 G's for sixty seconds—even
if they had them. What a
way to go home! He wondered what
he'd do if it happened to him. Would
he wait out his time, or just unlock
his helmet.
Guns' drawl broke into his reverie.
"Say, cap'n, Ah've been readin' in
this magazine about a trick they used
to use, called skip bombin'. They'd
hang a bomb on the bottom of one
of these airplanes, and fly along the
ground, right at what they wanted
to hit. Then they'd let the bomb go
and get out of there, and the bomb
would sail right on into the target.
You s'pose we could fix this buggy
up with an A bomb or an H bomb
we could let go a few hundred miles
out? Stick a proximity fuse on it, and
a time fuse, too, in case we missed.
Just sittin' half a mile apart and
tradin' shots like we did on that last
mission is kinda hard on mah nerves,
and it's startin' to happen too often."
"Nice work if we could get it.
I'm not crazy about those broadside
battles myself. You'd think they'd
have found something better than
these thirty caliber popguns by now,
but the odds say we've got to throw
as many different chunks of iron as
we can, to have a chance of hitting
anything, and even then it's twenty
to one against us. You wouldn't have
one chance in a thousand of scoring
a hit with a bomb at that distance,
even if they didn't spot it and take
off. What you'd need would be a
rocket that could chase them, with
the bomb for a head. And there's no
way we could carry that size rocket,
or fire it if we could. Some day these
crates will come with men's rooms,
and we'll have a place to carry something
like that."
"How big would a rocket like that
be?"
"Five, six feet, by maybe a foot.
Weigh at least three hundred
pounds."
It was five minutes before Guns
spoke again. "Ah been thinkin',
cap'n. With a little redecoratin', Ah
think Ah could get a rocket that size
in here with me. We could weld a
rail to one of the gun mounts that
would hold it up to five or six G's.
Then after we got away from station,
Ah could take it outside and mount
it on the rail."
"Forget it, lad. If they ever caught
us pulling a trick like that, they'd
have us on hydroponic duty for the
next five years. They just don't want
us playing around with bombs, till
the experts get all the angles figured
out, and build ships to handle them.
And besides, who do you think will
rig a bomb like that, without anybody
finding out? And where do you think
we'd get a bomb in the first place?
They don't leave those things lying
around. Kovacs watches them like a
mother hen. I think he counts them
twice a day."
"Sorry, cap'n. Ah just figured if
you could get hold of a bomb, Ah
know a few of the boys who could
rig the thing up for us and keep
their mouths shut."
"Well, forget about it. It's not a
bad idea, but we haven't any bomb."
"Right, cap'n."
But it was Paul who couldn't forget
about it. All the rest of the way
back to station, he kept seeing visions
of a panel sliding aside in the nose
of a sleek and gleaming ship, while
a small rocket pushed its deadly snout
forward, and then streaked off at
tremendous acceleration.
Interrogation was brief. The mission
had turned up nothing new.
Their kill made eight against seven
for Doc Miller's crew, and they made
sure Miller and the boys heard about
it. They were lightheaded with the
elation that followed a successful
mission, swapping insults with the
rest of the squadron, and reveling in
the sheer contentment of being back
safe.
It wasn't until he got back to his
stall, and started to write his father
a long overdue letter, that he remembered
he had heard Kovacs say he
was going on leave.
When he finished the letter, he
opened the copy of "Lady Chatterley's
Lover" he had borrowed from
Rodriguez's limited but colorful library.
He couldn't keep his mind on
it. He kept thinking of the armament
officer.
Kovacs was a quiet, intelligent kid,
devoted to his work. Coulter wasn't
too intimate with him. He wasn't a
spaceman, for one thing. One of those
illogical but powerful distinctions
that sub-divided the men of the station.
And he was a little too polite to
be easy company.
Paul remembered the time he had
walked into the Muroc Base Officer's
Club with Marge Halpern on his
arm. The hunger that had lain undisguised
on Kovacs' face the moment
he first saw them. Marge was
a striking blonde with a direct manner,
who liked men, especially orbit
station men. He hadn't thought about
the incident since then, but the look
in Kovacs' eyes kept coming back to
him as he tried to read.
He wasn't sure how he got there,
or why, when he found himself walking
into Colonel Silton's office to ask
for the leave he'd passed up at his
fiftieth mission. He'd considered taking
it several times, but the thought
of leaving the squadron, even for a
couple of weeks, had made him feel
guilty, as though he were quitting.
Once he had his papers, he started
to get excited about it. As he cleaned
up his paper work and packed his
musette, his hands were fumbling,
and his mind was full of Sylvia.
The vastness of Muroc Base was as
incredible as ever. Row on uncounted
row of neat buildings, each resting at
the top of its own hundred-yard
deep elevator shaft. A pulsing, throbbing
city, dedicated to the long slow
struggle to get into space and stay
there. The service crew eyed them
with studied indifference, as they
writhed out of the small hatch and
stepped to the ground. They drew a
helijet at operations, and headed immediately
for Los Angeles.
Kovacs had been impressed when
Paul asked if he'd care to room together
while they were on leave. He
was quiet on the flight, as he had
been on the way down, listening contentedly,
while Paul talked combat
and women with Bob Parandes, another
pilot going on leave.
They parked the helijet at Municipal
Field and headed for the public
PV booths, picking up a coterie of
two dogs and five assorted children
on the way. The kids followed quietly
in their wake, ecstatic at the sight of
their uniforms.
Paul squared his shoulders, as befitted
a hero, and tousled a couple of
uncombed heads as they walked. The
kids clustered around the booths, as
Kovacs entered one to locate a hotel
room, and Paul another, to call
Sylvia.
"Honey, I've been so scared you
weren't coming back. Where are you?
When will I see you? Why didn't
you write?..." She sputtered to a
stop as he held up both hands in
defense.
"Whoa, baby. One thing at a time.
I'm at the airport. You'll see me tonight,
and I'll tell you the rest then.
That is, if you're free tonight. And
tomorrow. And the day after, and
the day after that. Are you free?"
Her hesitation was only momentary.
"Well, I was going out—with
a girl friend. But she'll understand.
What's up?"
He took a deep breath. "I'd like
to get out of the city for a few days,
where we can take things easy and
be away from the crowds. And there
is another guy I'd like to bring
along."
"We could take my helijet out to
my dad's cottage at—
What did you
say?
"
It was a ticklish job explaining
about Kovacs, but when she understood
that he just wanted to do a
friend a favor, and she'd still have
Paul all to herself, she calmed down.
They made their arrangements quickly,
and switched off.
He hesitated a minute before he
called Marge. She was quite a dish
to give up. Once she'd seen him with
Sylvia, he'd be strictly
persona non
grata
—that was for sure. It was an
unhappy thought. Well, maybe it was
in a good cause. He shrugged and
called her.
She nearly cut him off when she
first heard his request, but he did
some fast talking. The idea of several
days at the cottage intrigued her, and
when he described how smitten
Kovacs had been, she brightened up
and agreed to come. He switched off,
adjusted the drape of his genuine
silk scarf, and stepped out of the
booth.
Kovacs and the kids were waiting.
The armament officer had apparently
been telling them of Paul's exploits.
They glowed with admiration. The
oldest boy, about eleven, had true
worship in his eyes. He hesitated a
moment, then asked gravely: "Would
you tell us how you kill a Red, sir?"
Paul eyed the time-honored weapon
that dangled from the youngster's
hand. He bent over and tapped it
with his finger. His voice was warm
and confiding, but his eyes were far
away.
"I think next we're going to try
a slingshot," he said.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from
Astounding Science Fiction
November 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
have been corrected without note.
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLINGSHOT***
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Question and Possible Answers:
What was the ping that Coulter heard?
(A) The sound of the lopsided rocket plume in the Red ship
(B) The sound of an impact in the fuel tanks
(C) The sound of the cabin depressurizing
(D) The sound of the Red pilot killing his RV
Answer:
| B | 195 | 29,604 | 29,606 | 29,871 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
31736_TV0CUXDH_4 | 31736_TV0CUXDH_4_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from the September 1960 issue of If. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Star Performer
By ROBERT J. SHEA
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
Blue Boy's rating was high and his fans were loyal to the
death—anyone's death!
Gavir gingerly fitted the round opening in the bottom of the silvery
globe over the top of his hairless blue skull. He pulled the globe
down until he felt tiny filaments touching his scalp. The tips of the
wires were cold.
The moderator then said, "
Dreaming Through the Universe
tonight
brings you the first native Martian to appear on the dreamwaves—Gavir
of the Desert Men. With him is his guardian, Dr. Malcomb Rice, the
noted anthropologist."
Then the moderator questioned Malcomb, while Gavir nervously
awaited the moment when his thoughts would be transmitted to millions
of Earthmen. Malcomb told how he had been struck by Gavir's
intelligence and missionary-taught ability to speak Earth's language,
and had decided to bring Gavir to Earth.
The moderator turned to Gavir. "Are you anxious to get back to Mars?"
No!
Gavir thought. Back behind the Preserve Barrier that killed you
instantly if you stepped too close to it? Back to the constant fear of
being seized by MDC guards for a labor pool, to wind up in the MDC
mines?
Mars was where Gavir's father had been pinned, bayonets through his
hands and feet, to the wall of a shack just the other side of the
Barrier, to die slowly, out of Gavir's reach. Father James told Gavir
that the head of MDC himself had ordered the killing, because Gavir's
father had tried to organize resistance to the Corporation. Mars was
where the magic powers of the Earthmen and the helplessness of the
Martian tribes would always protect the head of MDC from Gavir's
vengeance.
Back to that world of hopeless fear and hatred?
I never want to go
back to Mars! I want to stay here!
But that wasn't what he was supposed to think. Quickly he said, "I
will be happy to return to my people."
A movement caught his eye. The producer, reclining on a divan in a far
corner of the small studio, was making some kind of signal by beating
his fist against his forehead.
"Well, enough of that!" the moderator said briskly. "How about singing
one of your tribal songs for us?"
Gavir said, "I will sing the
Song of Going to Hunt
." He heaved
himself up from the divan, and, feet planted wide apart, threw back
his head and began to howl.
He was considered a poor singer in his tribe, and he was not surprised
that Malcomb and the moderator winced. But Malcomb had told him that
it wouldn't matter. The dreamees receiving the dreamcast would hear
the song as it
should
sound, as Gavir heard it in his mind.
Everything that Gavir saw and heard and felt in his mind, the dreamees
could see and hear and feel....
I
t was cold, bitter cold, on the plain. The hunter stood at the edge
of the camp as the shriveled Martian sun struck the tops of the Shakam
hills. The hunter hefted the long, balanced narvoon, the throwing
knife, in his hand. He had faith in the knife, and in his skill with
it.
The hunter filled his lungs, the cold air reaching deep into his
chest. He shouted out his throat-bursting hunting cry. He began to run
across the plain.
Crouching behind crumbling red rocks, racing over flat expanses of
orange sand, the hunter sought traces of the seegee, the great slow
desert beast whose body provided his tribe with all the essentials of
existence. At last he saw tracks. He mounted a dune. Out on the plain
before him a great brown seegee lumbered patiently, unaware of its
danger.
The hunter was about to strike out after it, when a dark form leaped
at him.
The hunter saw it out of the corner of his eye at the last moment. His
startled sidestep saved him from the neck-breaking snap of the great
jaws.
The drock's long body was armored with black scales. Curving fangs
protruded from its upper jaw. Its hand-like forepaws ended in hooked
claws, to grasp and tear its prey. It was larger, stronger, faster
than the hunter. The thin Martian air carried weirdly high-pitched
cries which proclaimed its craving to sink its fangs into the hunter's
body. The drock's huge hind legs coiled back on their triple joints,
and it sprang.
The hunter thrust the gleaming knife out before him, so that the dark
body would land on its gleaming blade. The drock twisted in mid-air
and landed to one side of the hunter.
Now, before it could gather itself for another spring, there was time
for one cast of the blade. It had to be done at once. It had to be
perfect. If it failed, the knife would be lost and the drock would
have its kill. The hunter grasped the weapon by the blade, drew his
arm back, and snapped it forward.
The blade struck deep into the throat of the drock.
The drock screamed eerily and jumped clumsily. The hunter threw
himself at the great, dark body and retrieved the knife. He struck
with it again and again into the gray twitching belly. Colorless blood
ran out over the hard, tightly-stretched skin.
The drock fell, gave a last convulsion, and lay still. The hunter
plunged the blade into the red sand to clean it. He threw back his
head and bellowed his hunting cry. There was great glory in killing
the drock, for it showed that the Desert Man and not the drock, was
lord of the red waste....
Gavir sat down on the divan, exhausted, his song finished. He didn't
hear the moderator winding up the dreamcast. Then the producer of the
program was upon him.
He began shouting even before Gavir removed his headset. "What kind
of a fool are you? Before you started that song, you dreamed things
about the Martian Development Corporation that were libelous! I got
the whole thing—the Barrier, the guards, the labor pools and mines,
the father crucified. It was awful! MDC is one of our biggest
sponsors."
Malcomb said, "You can't expect an untrained young Martian to control
his very thoughts. And may I point out that your tone is hostile?"
At this a sudden change came over the producer. The standard Earth
expression—invincible benignity—took control of his face. "I
apologize for having spoken sharply, but dreamcasting is a
nerve-wracking business. If it weren't for Ethical Conditioning, I
don't know how I'd control my aggressive impulses. The Suppression of
Aggression is the Foundation of Civilization, eh?"
Malcomb smiled. "Ethical Conditioning Keeps Society from Fissioning."
He shook hands with the producer.
"Come around tomorrow at 1300 and collect your fee," said the
producer. "Good night, gentlemen."
As they left the Global Dreamcasting System building, Gavir said to
Malcomb, "Can we go to a bookstore tonight?"
"Tomorrow. I'm taking you to your hotel and then I'm going back to my
apartment. We both need sleep. And don't forget, you've been warned
not to go prowling around the city by yourself...."
As soon as Gavir was sure that Malcomb was out of the hotel and well
on his way home, he left his room and went out into the city.
In a pitifully few days he would be back in the Preserve, back with
the fear of MDC, with hunger and the hopeless desire to find and kill
the man who had ordered his father's death.
Now he had an opportunity to learn more about the universe of the
Earthmen. Despite Malcomb's orders, he was going to find a seller of
books.
During a reading class at the mission school, Father James had said,
"In books there is power. All that you call magic in our Earth
civilization is explained in books." Gavir wanted to learn. It was his
only hope to find an alternative to the short, fear-ridden,
impoverished life he foresaw for himself.
A river of force carried him, along with thousands of
Earthmen—godlike beings in their perfect health and their impregnable
benignity—through the streets of the city. Platforms of force raised
and lowered him through the city's multiple levels....
And, as has always happened to outlanders in cities, he became lost.
He was in a quarter where furtive red and violet lights danced in the
shadows of hunched buildings. A half-dozen Earthmen approached him,
stopped and stared. Gavir stared back.
The Earthmen wore black garments and furs and metal ornaments. The
biggest of them wore a black suit, a long black cape, and a
broad-brimmed black hat. He carried a coiled whip in one hand. The
Earthmen turned to one another.
"A Martian."
"Let's give pain and death to the Martian! It will be a new
experience—one to savor."
"Take pain, Martian!"
The Earthman with the black hat raised his arm, and the long heavy
lash fell on Gavir. He felt a savage sting in the arm he had thrown up
to protect his eyes.
Gavir leaped at the Earthmen. He clubbed the man with the whip across
the face. As the others rushed in, Gavir flailed about him with long
arms and heavy fists.
He began to enjoy it. It was rare that a Martian had an opportunity to
knock Earthmen down. The mood of the
Song of Going to Hunt
came over
him. He sprang free of his attackers and drew his glittering narvoon.
The man with the whip yelled. They looked at his knife, and then all
at once turned and ran. Gavir drew back his arm and threw the knife
with a practiced catapult-snap of shoulder, elbow, and wrist. To his
surprise, the blade clattered to the street far short of his
retreating enemies. Then he remembered: you couldn't throw far in the
gravity of Earth.
The Earthmen disappeared into a lift-force field. Gavir decided not to
pursue them. He walked forward and picked up his narvoon, and saw that
the street on which it lay was solid black pavement, not a
force-field. He must be in the lowest level of the city. He didn't
know his way around; he might meet more enemies. He forgot about the
books he'd wanted, and began to search for his hotel.
When he got back to his room, he went immediately to bed. He slept
late.
Malcomb woke him at 1100. Gavir told Malcomb about the
strangely-dressed men who had tried to kill him.
"I told you not to wander around alone."
"But you did not tell me that Earthmen might try to kill me. You have
told me that Earthmen are good and peace-loving, that there have been
no acts of violence on Earth for many decades. You have told me that
only the MDC men are exceptions, because they are living off Earth,
and this somehow makes them different."
"Well, those people you ran into are another exception."
"Why?"
"You know about the Regeneration and Rejuvenation treatment we have
here on Earth. A variation of it was given you to acclimate you to
Earth's gravity and atmosphere. Well, since the R&R treatment was
developed, we Earthmen have a life-expectancy of about one hundred
fifty years. Those people who attacked you were Century-Plus. They are
over a hundred years old, but as healthy, physically, as ever."
"What is wrong with them?"
"They seem to have outgrown their Ethical Conditioning. They live
wildly. Violently. It's a problem without precedent, and we don't know
what to do with them. The fact is, Senile Delinquency is our number
one problem."
"Why not punish them?" said Gavir.
"They're too powerful. They are often people who've pursued successful
careers and acquired a good deal of property and position. And there
are getting to be more of them all the time. But come on. You and I
have to go over to Global Dreamcasting and collect our fee."
The impeccably affable producer of
Dreaming Through the Universe
gave Malcomb a check and then asked them to follow him.
"Mr. Davery wants to see you. Mr.
Hoppy
Davery, executive
vice-president in charge of production. Scion of one of Earth's oldest
communications media families!"
They went with the producer to the upper reaches of the Global
Dreamcasting building. There they were ushered into a huge office.
They found Mr. Hoppy Davery lounging on a divan the size of a
space-port. He was youthful in appearance, as were all Earthmen, but a
soft plumpness and a receding hairline made him look slightly older
than average.
He pointed a rigid finger at Malcomb and Gavir. "I want you two to
hear a condensed recording of statements taken from calls we received
last night."
Gavir stiffened. They
had
gotten into trouble because of his
thoughts about MDC.
A voice boomed out of the ceiling.
"That Martian boy has power. That song was a fist in the jaw. More!"
A woman's voice followed:
"If you let that boy go back to Mars I'll never dream a Global program
again."
More voices:
"Enormous!"
"Potent!"
"That hunting song drove me mad. I
like
being mad!"
"Keep him on Earth."
Hoppy Davery pressed a button in the control panel on his divan, and
the voices fell silent.
"Those callers that admitted their age were all Century-Plus. The boy
appeals to the Century-Plus mentality. I want to try him again. This
time on a really big dream-show, not just an educational 'cast. Got a
spot on next week's Farfel Flisket Show. If he gets the right
response, we talk about a contract. Okay?"
Malcomb said, "His visa expires—"
"We'll take care of his visa."
Gavir trembled with joy. Hoppy Davery pressed another button and a
secretary entered with papers. She was followed by another woman.
The second woman was dark-haired and slender. She wore leather boots
and tight brown breeches. She was bare from the waist up and her
breasts were young and full. A jewelled clip fastened a scarlet cape
at her neck. Her lips were a disconcertingly vivid red, apparently an
artificial color. She kissed Hoppy Davery on the forehead, leaving red
blotches on his pink dome. He wiped his forehead and looked at his
hand.
"Do you have to wear that barbaric face-paint?" Hoppy turned sad eyes
on Gavir and Malcomb. "Gentlemen, my mother, Sylvie Davery."
A Senile Delinquent! thought Gavir. She looked like Davery's younger
sister. Malcomb stared at her apprehensively, and Gavir wondered if
she were somehow going to attack them.
She looked at Gavir. "Mmm. What a body, what gorgeous blue skin. How
tall are you, Blue Boy?"
"He's approximately seven feet tall, Sylvie," said Hoppy, "and what do
you want here, anyway?"
"Just came up to see Blue Boy. One of the crowd dreamed him last
night. Positively manic about him. I found out he'd be with you."
"See?" said Hoppy to Gavir. "The Century-Plus mentality. You've got
something they go for. Undoubtedly because you're—forgive me—such a
complete barbarian. That's what they're all trying to be."
"Spare me another lecture on Senile Delinquency, Our Number One
Problem." She walked to the door and Gavir watched her all the way.
She turned with a swirl of scarlet and a dramatic display of healthy
young flesh. "See you again, Blue Boy."
After Sylvie left, Hoppy Davery said, "That might be a good
professional name—Blue Boy. Gavir doesn't
mean
anything. Now what
kind of a song could you do for the Farfel Flisket show?"
Gavir thought. "Perhaps you would like the
Song of Creation
."
"It's part of a fertility rite," Malcomb explained.
"Great! Give the Senile Delinquents another workout. It's not quite
ethical, but its good for us. But for heaven's sake, Blue Boy, keep
your mind off MDC!"
The following week, Gavir sang the
Song of Creation
on the Farfel
Flisket show, and transmitted the images which it brought up in his
mind to his audience. A jubilant Hoppy Davery called him at his hotel
next morning.
"Best response I've ever seen! The Century-Plussers have been rioting
and throwing mass orgies ever since you sang. But they take time out
to call us up and beg for more. I've got a sponsor and a two-year
contract lined up for you."
The sponsor was pacing back and forth in Hoppy Davery's office when
Malcomb and Gavir arrived. Hoppy introduced him proudly. "Mr. Jarvis
Spurling, president of the Martian Development Corporation."
Gavir's hand leaped at the narvoon under his doublet.
Then he stopped himself. He turned the gesture into the proffer of a
handshake. "How do you do?" he said quietly. In his mind he
congratulated himself. He had learned emotional control from the
Earthmen. Here was the man who had ordered his father crucified! Yet
he had managed to hide his instant desire to strike, to kill, to carry
out the oath of the blood feud then and there.
Jarvis Spurling ignored Gavir's hand and stared coldly at him. There
was not a trace of the usual Earthman's kindliness in his square,
battered face. "I'm told you got talent. Okay, but a Bluie is a Bluie.
I'll pay you because a Bluie on Dreamvision is good publicity for MDC
products. But one slip like on your first 'cast and you go back to the
Preserve."
"Mr. Spurling!" said Malcomb. "Your tone is hostile!"
"Damn right. That Ethical Conditioning slop doesn't work on me. I've
lived too long on the frontier. And I know Bluies."
Iwill sign the contract," said Gavir.
As he drew his signature pictograph on the contract, Sylvie Davery
sauntered in. She held a white tube between her painted lips. The end
of the tube was glowing and giving off clouds of smoke. Hoppy Davery
coughed and Sylvie winked at Gavir. Gavir straightened up, and she
took a long look at his seven feet.
"All finished, Blue Boy? Come on, let's go have a drink at Lucifer
Grotto."
Caution told Gavir to refuse. But before he could speak Spurling
snapped, "Disgusting! An Earth woman and a Bluie! If you were on Mars,
lady, we'd deport you so fast your tail would burn. And God help the
Bluie!"
Sylvie blew a cloud of smoke at Spurling. "You're not on Mars, Jack.
You're back in civilization where we do what we damned well please."
Spurling laughed. "I've heard about you Century-Plussers. You're all
sick."
"You can't claim any monopoly on mental health. Not with that
concentration camp you run on Mars. Coming, Gavir?"
Gavir grinned at Spurling. "The contract, I believe, does not cover my
private life."
Hoppy Davery said, "Sylvie, I don't think this is wise."
Sylvie uttered a short, sharp obscenity, linked arms with Gavir, and
strolled out.
"You screwball Senile Delinquent," Spurling yelled after Sylvie, "you
oughtta be locked up!"
Lucifer Grotto was in that same quarter in which Gavir had been
attacked. Sylvie told him it was
the
hangout for wealthier New York
Century-Plussers. Gavir told her about the attack, and she laughed.
"It won't happen again. You're a hero to the Senile Delinquents now.
By the way, the big fellow with the broad-brimmed hat, he's one of the
most prominent Senile Delinquents of our day. He's president of the
biggest privately-owned space line, but he likes to call himself the
Hat Rat. You must be one of the few people who ever got away from him
alive."
"He seemed happy to get away from me," said Gavir.
An arrangement of force-planes and 3V projections made the front of
Lucifer Grotto appear to be a curtain of flames. Gavir hung back, but
Sylvie inserted a tiny gold pitchfork into a small aperture in the
glowing, rippling surface. The flames swept aside, revealing a
doorway. A bearded man in black tights escorted them through a
luridly-lit bar to a private room. When they were alone, Sylvie
dropped her cape to the floor, sat on the edge of a huge, pink divan,
and smiled at Gavir.
Gavir contemplated her. That she was over a hundred years old was a
little frightening. But the skin of her face and her bare upper body
was a warm color, and tautly filled. She had lashed out at Spurling,
and he liked her for that. But in one way she was like Spurling. She
didn't fit into the bland, non-violent world of Malcomb and Hoppy.
He shook his head. He said, "Sylvie, why—well, why are you the way
you are? Why—and how—have you broken away from Ethical
Conditioning?"
Sylvie frowned. She spoke a few words into the air, ordering drinks.
She said, "I didn't do it deliberately. When I reached the age of
about a hundred it stopped working for me. I suddenly wanted to do
what
I
wanted to do. And then I found out that I didn't
know
what
I wanted to do. It was Ethical Conditioning or nothing, so I picked
nothing. And here I am, chasing nothing."
"How do you chase nothing?"
She set fire to a white tube. "This, for instance. They used to do it
before they found out it caused cancer. Now there's no more cancer,
but even if there were, I'd still smoke. That's the attitude I have.
You try things. You live in the past, if you're inclined, adopt the
costumes and manners of some more colorful time. You try ridiculous
things, disgusting things, vicious things. You know they're all
nothing, but you have to do something, so you go on doing nothing,
elaborately and violently."
A tray of drinks rose through the floor. Sylvie frowned as she noticed
a folded paper tucked between the glasses. She picked it up and read
it, chuckled, and read it again, aloud.
"Sir: I beg you to forgive the presumption of my recent attack on
you. Since then you have captured my imagination. I now hold you to be
the noblest savage of them all. Henceforward please consider me, Your
obedient servant, Hat Rat."
"You've impressed him," said Sylvie. "But you impress me even more.
Come here."
She held out slim arms to him. He had no wish to refuse her. She was
not like a Martian woman, but he found the differences exciting and
attractive. He went to her, and he forgot entirely that she was over a
hundred years old.
In the months that followed, Gavir's fame spread over Earth. By
spring, the rating computers credited him with an audience of eight
hundred million—ninety-five percent of whom were Century-Plussers.
Davery doubled Gavir's salary.
Gavir toured the world with Sylvie, mobbed everywhere by worshipful
Century-Plussers. Male Century-Plussers by the millions adopted blue
doublets and blue kilts in honor of their hero.
Blue-dyed hair was now
de rigueur
among the ladies of Lucifer
Grotto. The Hat Rat himself, who often appeared at a respectful
distance in crowds around Gavir, now wore a wide-brimmed hat of
brightest blue.
Then there came the dreamcast on which Gavir sang the
Song of
Complaint
.
It was an ancient song, a Desert Man's outcry against injustice,
enemies, false friends and callous leaders. It was a protest against
sufferings that could neither be borne nor prevented. At the climax of
the song Gavir pictured a tribal chief who refused to make fair
division of the spoils of a hunt with his warriors. Gradually he
allowed this image to turn into a picture of Hoppy Davery withholding
bundles of money from a starving Gavir. Then he ended the song.
Hoppy sent for him next morning.
"Why did you do that?" he said. "Listen to this."
A recorded voice boomed: "This is Hat Rat. Pay the Blue Boy what he
deserves, or I will give you death. It will be a personal thing
between you and me. I will besprinkle you with corrosive acids; I will
burn out your eyes; I will—"
Hoppy cut the voice off. Gavir saw that he was sweating. "There were
dozens
like that. If you want more money, I'll
give
you more
money. Say something nice about me on your next dreamcast, for
heaven's sake!"
Gavir spread his big blue hands. "I am sorry. I don't want more money.
I cannot always control the pictures I make. These images come into
my mind even though they have nothing to do with me."
Hoppy shook his head. "That's because you haven't had Ethical
Conditioning. We don't have this trouble with our other performers.
You just must remember that dreamvision is the most potent
communications medium ever devised. Be
careful
."
"I will," said Gavir.
On his next dreamcast Gavir sang the
Song of the Blood Feud
. He
pictured a Desert Man whose father had been killed by a drock.
The Desert Man ran over the red sand, and he found the drock. He did
not throw his knife. That would not have satisfied his hatred. He fell
upon the drock and stabbed and stabbed.
The Desert Man howled his hunting-cry over the body of his enemy, and
spat into its face.
And the fanged face of the drock turned into the square, battered face
of Jarvis Spurling. Gavir held the image in his mind for a long
moment.
When the dreamcast was over, a studio page ran up to Gavir. "Mr.
Spurling wants to see you at once, at his office."
"Let him come and find me," said Gavir. "Let us go, Sylvie."
They went to Lucifer Grotto, where Gavir's wealthiest admirers among
the Senile Delinquents were giving a party for him in the Pandemonium
Room. The only prominent person missing, as Sylvie remarked after
surveying the crowd, was the Hat Rat. They wondered about it, but no
one knew where he was.
Sheets of flame illuminated the wild features and strange garments of
over a hundred Century-Plus ladies and gentlemen. Gouts of flame
leaped from the walls to light antique-style cigarettes. Drinks were
refilled from nozzles of molded fire.
An hour passed from the time of Gavir's arrival.
Then Jarvis Spurling joined the party. There was a heavy frontier
sonic pistol strapped at his waist. A protesting Malcomb was behind
him.
Jarvis Spurling's square face was dark with anger. "You deliberately
put my face on that animal! You want to make the public hate me. I pay
your salary and keep you here on Earth, and this is what I get for it.
All right. A Bluie is a Bluie, and I'll treat you like a Bluie should
be treated." He unsnapped his holster and drew the square, heavy
pistol out and pointed it at Gavir.
Gavir stood up. His right hand plucked at his doublet.
"You're itching to go for that throwing knife," said Spurling. "Go on!
Take it out and get ready to throw it. I'll give you that much
chance. Let's make a game out of this. We'll make like we're back on
Mars, Bluie, and you're out hunting a drock. And you find one, only
this drock has a gun. How about that, Bluie?"
Gavir took out the narvoon, grasped the blade, and drew his arm back.
"Gavir!"
It was the Hat Rat. He stood between pillars of flame in the doorway
of the Pandemonium Room of Lucifer Grotto, and there was a peculiar
contrivance of dark brown wood and black metal tubing cradled in his
arm. "This ancient shotgun I dedicate to your blood feud. I shall hunt
down your enemy, Gavir!"
Spurling turned. The Hat Rat saw him.
"The enemy!" the Hat Rat shouted.
The shotgun exploded.
Spurling's body was thrown back against Gavir. Gavir saw a huge ragged
red caved-in place in Spurling's chest. Spurling's body sagged to the
floor and lay there face up, eyes open. The Senile Delinquents of
Lucifer Grotto leaned forward to grin at the tattered body.
Still holding the narvoon, Gavir stood over his dead enemy. He threw
back his head and howled out the hunting cry of the Desert Men. Then
he looked down and spat in Jarvis Spurling's dead face.
END
Question and Possible Answers:
Why did the Earthmen attack Gavir intially?
(A) The Earthmen were older citizens who had outgrown their ethical conditioning
(B) They were members of the MDC
(C) Earthlings were very prejudiced against Martians
(D) Gavir had offended them by staring
Answer:
| A | 195 | 28,327 | 28,329 | 28,614 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
99927_EVLEI3Q2_6 | 99927_EVLEI3Q2_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Open Access: Policies
4.1 OA Policies at Funding Agencies and Universities
Authors control the volume and growth of OA. They decide whether to submit their work to OA journals (gold OA), whether to deposit their work in OA repositories (green OA), and how to use their copyrights. But scholarly authors are still largely unfamiliar with their OA options. It’s pointless to appeal to them as a bloc because they don’t act as a bloc. It’s not hard to persuade or even excite them once we catch their attention, but because they are so anarchical, overworked, and preoccupied, it’s hard to catch their attention.
Fortunately, funding agencies and universities are discovering their own interests in fostering OA. These nonprofit institutions make it their mission to advance research and to make that research as useful and widely available as possible. Their money frees researchers to do their work and avoid the need to tie their income to the popularity of their ideas. Above all, these institutions are in an unparalleled position to influence author decisions.
Today, more than fifty funding agencies and more than one hundred universities have adopted strong OA policies. Each one depends on the primacy of author decisions.
One kind of policy, better than nothing, requests or encourages OA. A stronger kind of policy requires OA or makes it the default for new work. These stronger policies are usually called OA
mandates
and I’ll use that term for lack of a better one (but see section 4.2 on how it’s misleading).
Request or encouragement policies
These merely ask faculty to make their work OA, or recommend OA for their new work. Sometimes they’re called resolutions or pledges rather than policies.
Encouragement policies can target green and gold OA equally. By contrast, mandates only make sense for green OA, at least today when OA journals constitute only about one-quarter of peer-reviewed journals. A gold OA mandate would put most peer-reviewed journals off-limits and seriously limit faculty freedom to submit their work to the journals of their choice. This problem doesn’t arise for green OA mandates.
Fortunately, this is well understood. There are no gold OA mandates anywhere; all OA mandates are green. Unfortunately, however, many people mistakenly believe that all OA is gold OA and therefore mistake proposed green OA mandates for proposed gold OA mandates and raise objections that would only apply to gold OA mandates. But as more academics understand the green/gold distinction, and understand that well-written green OA mandates are compatible with academic freedom, more institutions are adopting green OA mandates, almost always at the initiative of faculty themselves.
At universities, there are roughly three approaches to green OA mandates:
Loophole mandates
These require green OA except when the author’s publisher doesn’t allow it.
Deposit mandates
These require deposit in an OA repository as soon as the article is accepted for publication, but they separate the timing of deposit from the timing of OA. If the author’s publisher doesn’t allow OA, then these policies keep the deposited article dark or non-OA. If the publisher allows OA, immediately or after some embargo, then the deposit becomes OA as soon as the permission kicks in. Because most publishers allow OA on some timetable, this method will provide OA to most new work in due time.
Deposit mandates generally depend on publisher permission for OA, just like loophole mandates. The difference is that they require deposit even when they can’t obtain permission for OA.
Rights-retention mandates
These require deposit in an OA repository as soon as the article is accepted for publication, just like deposit mandates. But they add a method to secure permission for making the deposit OA. There’s more than one way to secure that permission. At the Wellcome Trust and NIH, which pioneered this approach for funding agencies, when grantees publish articles based on their funded research they must retain the nonexclusive right to authorize OA through a repository. At Harvard, which pioneered this approach for universities, faculty members vote to give the university a standing nonexclusive right (among other nonexclusive rights) to make their future work OA through the institutional repository. When faculty publish articles after that, the university already has the needed permission, and faculty needn’t take any special steps to retain rights or negotiate with publishers. Nor need they wait for the publisher’s embargo to run. Harvard-style policies also give faculty a waiver option, allowing them to opt out of the grant of permission to the university, though not out of the deposit requirement. When faculty members obtain waivers for given works, then Harvard-style mandates operate like deposit mandates and the works remain dark deposits until the institution has permission to make them OA.
Many OA policies are crossbreeds rather than pure types, but all the policies I’ve seen are variations on these four themes.
First note that none of the three “mandates” absolutely requires OA. Loophole mandates allow some work to escape through the loophole. Deposit mandates allow some deposited work to remain dark (non-OA), by following publisher preferences. Rights-retention mandates with waiver options allow some work to remain dark, by following author preferences.
Loophole and deposit policies defer to publishers for permissions, while rights-retention policies obtain permission from authors before they transfer rights to publishers. For loophole and deposit policies, permission is contingent, because some publishers are willing and some are not. For rights-retention policies, permission is assured, at least initially or by default, although authors may opt out for any publication.
When loophole policies can’t provide OA, covered works needn’t make it to the repository even as dark deposits. When deposit and rights-retention policies can’t provide OA, at least they require dark deposit for the texts, and OA for the metadata (information about author, title, date, and so on). Releasing the metadata makes even a dark deposit visible to readers and search engines. Moreover, many repositories support an email-request button for works on dark deposit. The button enables a reader to submit a one-click request for a full-text email copy and enables the author to grant or deny the request with a one-click response.
We could say that rights-retention policies require OA except when authors opt out, or that they simply shift the default to OA. Those are two ways of saying the same thing because, either way, faculty remain free to decide for or against OA for each of their publications. Preserving this freedom and making it conspicuous help muster faculty support, indeed, unanimous faculty votes. Because shifting the default is enough to change behavior on a large scale, waiver options don’t significantly reduce the volume of OA. At Harvard the waiver rate is less than 5 percent, and at MIT it’s less than 2 percent.
Loophole policies and rights-retention policies both offer opt-outs. But loophole policies give the opt-out to publishers and rights-retention policies give it to authors. The difference is significant because many more authors than publishers want OA for research articles.
Many institutions adopt loophole policies because they believe a blanket exemption for dissenting publishers is the only way to avoid copyright problems. But that is not true. Deposit policies don’t make works OA until publishers allow OA, and rights-retention policies close the loophole and obtain permission directly from authors at a time when authors are the copyright holders.
OA policies from funding agencies are very much like OA policies from universities. They can encourage green and gold OA, or they can require green OA. If they require green OA, they can do so in one of the three ways above. If there’s a difference, it’s that when funders adopt a rights-retention mandate, they typically don’t offer waiver options. On the contrary, the Wellcome Trust and NIH require their grantees to make their work OA through a certain OA repository on a certain timetable and to retain the right to authorize that OA. If a given publisher will not allow grantees to comply with their prior funding agreement, then grantees must look for another publisher.
There are two reasons why these strong funder policies don’t infringe faculty freedom to submit work to their journals of their choice. First, researchers needn’t seek funds from these funders. When they choose to do so, then they agree to the OA provisions, just as they agree to the other terms and conditions of the grant. The OA “mandate” is a condition on a voluntary contract, not an unconditional requirement. It’s a reasonable condition as well, since public funders, like the NIH, disburse public money in the public interest, and private funders, like the Wellcome Trust, disburse charitable money for charitable purposes. To my knowledge, no researchers have refused to apply for Wellcome or NIH funds because of the OA condition, even when they plan to publish in OA-averse journals. The OA condition benefits authors and has not been a deal-breaker.
Second, virtually all publishers accommodate these policies. For example, no surveyed publishers anywhere refuse to publish work by NIH-funded authors on account of the agency’s OA mandate. Hence, in practice grantees may still submit work to the journals of their choice, even without a waiver option to accommodate holdout publishers.
We should never forget that most toll-access journals already allow green OA and that a growing number of high-quality, high-prestige peer-reviewed journal are gold OA. From one point of view, we don’t need OA mandates when authors already plan to publish in one of those journals. But sometimes toll-access journals change their positions on green OA. Sometimes authors don’t get around to making their work green OA even when their journals allow it. And sometimes authors don’t publish in one of those journals. The final rationale for green OA mandates, then, is for institutions to bring about OA for their entire research output, regardless of how publishers might alter their policies, regardless of author inertia, and regardless of the journals in which faculty or grantees choose to publish.
Green OA mandates don’t assure OA to the entire research output of a university or funding agency, for the same reason that they don’t require OA without qualification. But implementing them provides OA to a much larger percentage of the research output than was already headed toward OA journals or OA repositories, and does so while leaving authors free to submit their work to the journals of their choice.
I’ve only tried to give a rough taxonomy of OA policies and their supporting arguments. For detailed recommendations on OA policy provisions, and specific arguments for them, see my 2009 analysis of policy options for funding agencies and universities.
I’ve also focused here on OA policies for peer-reviewed research articles. Many universities have adopted OA mandates for theses and dissertations, and many funder OA policies also cover datasets. A growing number of universities supplement OA mandates for articles with a sensible and effective policy to assure compliance: When faculty come up for promotion or tenure, the review committee will only consider journal articles on deposit in the institutional repository.
4.2 Digression on the Word “Mandate”
The strongest OA policies use words like “must” or “shall” and require or seem to require OA. They’re commonly called OA “mandates.” But all three varieties of university “mandate” above show why the term is misleading. Loophole mandates don’t require OA without qualification: when publishers dissent, articles are either not deposited in the repository or not made OA. Deposit mandates don’t require OA without qualification: when publishers dissent, articles are deposited in a repository but are not made OA. Rights-retention mandates with waiver options don’t require OA without qualification: authors may obtain waivers and sometimes do. I haven’t seen a university OA “mandate” anywhere without at least one of these three kinds of flexibility.
That’s the main reason why no university policies require OA without qualification. There are a few more. First, as Harvard’s Stuart Shieber frequently argues, even the strongest university policies can’t make tenured faculty comply.
Second, as I’ve frequently argued, successful policies are implemented through expectations, education, incentives, and assistance, not coercion. Third, even the strongest policies—even the no-loophole, no-deference, no-waiver policies at the Wellcome Trust and NIH—make OA a condition on a voluntary contract. No policy anywhere pretends to impose an unconditional OA requirement, and it’s hard to imagine how any policy could even try. (“You must make your work OA even if you don’t work for us or use our funds”?)
Unfortunately, we don’t have a good vocabulary for policies that use mandatory language while deferring to third-person dissents or offering first-person opt-outs. Nor do we have a good vocabulary for policies that use mandatory language and replace enforcement with compliance-building through expectations, education, incentives, and assistance. The word “mandate” is not a very good fit for policies like this, but neither is any other English word.
By contrast, we do have a good word for policies that use mandatory language for those who agree to be bound. We call them “contracts.” While “contract” is short, accurate, and unfrightening, it puts the accent on the author’s consent to be bound. That’s often illuminating, but just as often we want to put the accent on the content’s destiny to become OA. For that purpose, “mandate” has become the term of art, for better or worse.
I use “mandate” with reluctance because it can frighten some of the people I’m trying to persuade and can give rise to misunderstandings about the policies behind the label. When we have time and space for longer phrases, we can talk about “putting an OA condition” on research grants, in the case of NIH-style policies, or “shifting the default to OA” for faculty research, in the case of Harvard-style policies. These longer expressions are more accurate and less frightening. However, sometimes we need a shorthand term, and we need a term that draws an appropriately sharp contrast with policies that merely request or encourage OA.
If anyone objects that a policy containing mandatory language and a waiver option isn’t really a “mandate,” I won’t disagree. On the contrary, I applaud them for recognizing a nuance which too many others overlook. (It’s depressing how many PhDs can read a policy with mandatory language and a waiver option, notice the mandatory language, overlook the waiver option, and then cite the lack of flexibility as an objection.) But denying that a policy is a mandate can create its own kinds of misunderstanding. In the United States, citizens called for jury duty must appear, even if many can claim exemptions and go home again. We can say that jury duty with exemptions isn’t really a “duty,” provided we don’t conclude that it’s merely a request and encouragement.
Finally, a common misunderstanding deliberately promulgated by some publishers is that OA must be “mandated” because faculty don’t want it. This position gets understandable but regrettable mileage from the word “mandate.” It also overlooks decisive counter-evidence that we’ve had in hand since 2004. Alma Swan’s empirical studies of researcher attitudes show that an overwhelming majority of researchers would “willingly” comply with a mandatory OA policy from their funder or employer.
The most recent evidence of faculty willingness is the stunning series of strong OA policies adopted by unanimous faculty votes. (When is the last time you heard of a unanimous faculty vote for anything, let alone anything of importance?) As recently as 2007, speculation that we’d soon see more than two dozen unanimous faculty votes for OA policies would have been dismissed as wishful thinking. But now that the evidence lies before us, what looks like wishful thinking is the publishing lobby’s idea that OA must be mandated because faculty don’t want it.
Finally, the fact that faculty vote unanimously for strong OA policies is a good reason to keep looking for a better word than “mandate.” At least it’s a good reason to look past the colloquial implications of the term to the policies themselves and the players who drafted and adopted them. Since 2008, most OA “mandates” at universities have been self-imposed by faculty.
4.3 Digression on the Historical Timing of OA Policies
Some kinds of strong OA policy that are politically unattainable or unwise today may become attainable and wise in the future. Here are three examples.
Today, a libre green mandate (say, one giving users the right to copy and redistribute, not just access for reading) would face serious publisher resistance. Even if the policy included rights retention and didn’t depend on publishers for permissions, publisher resistance would still matter because publishers possess—and ought to possess—the right to refuse to publish any work for any reason. They could refuse to publish authors bound by a libre green policy, or they could insist on a waiver from the policy as a condition of publication. Policies triggering rejections hurt authors, and policies driving up waiver rates don’t do much to help OA. However, publisher resistance might diminish as the ratio of OA publishers to toll-access publishers tilts toward OA, as spontaneous author submissions shift toward OA journals, or as the number of institutions with libre green mandates makes resistance more costly than accommodation for publishers. When OA policies are toothless, few in number, or concentrated in small institutions, then they must accommodate publishers in order to avoid triggering rejections and hurting authors. But as policies grow in number, scope, and strength, the situation could flip over, and publishers will have to accommodate OA policies in order to avoid hurting themselves by rejecting too many good authors for reasons unrelated to the quality of their work.
Today, a gold OA mandate would limit faculty freedom to submit work to the journals of their choice. But that’s because today only about 25 percent of peer-reviewed journals are OA. As this percentage grows, then a gold OA mandate’s encroachment on academic freedom shrinks. At some point even the most zealous defenders of faculty freedom may decide that the encroachment is negligible. In principle the encroachment could be zero, though of course when the encroachment is zero, and gold OA mandates are harmless, then gold OA mandates would also be unnecessary.
Today, faculty voting for a rights-retention OA mandate want a waiver option, and when the option is available their votes tend to be overwhelming or unanimous. But there are several circumstances that might make it attractive for faculty to abolish waiver options or make waivers harder to obtain. One is a shift in faculty perspective that makes access to research more urgent than indulging publishers who erect access barriers. Another is a significant rise in publisher acceptance of green OA, which gives virtually all authors—rather than just most—blanket permission for green OA. In the first case, faculty might “vote with their submissions” and steer clear of publishers who don’t allow author-initiated green OA. In the second case, faculty would virtually never encounter such publishers. In the first case, they’d seldom want waivers, and the second they’d seldom need waivers.
It’s understandable that green gratis mandates are spreading faster than green libre mandates, that green mandates in general are spreading faster than gold mandates, and that rights-retention policies with waiver options are spreading faster than rights-retention policies without waivers. However, there is modest growth on one of these fronts: green libre mandates.
The case against these three kinds of OA policy is time-sensitive, not permanent. It’s circumstantial, and circumstances are changing. But the strategy for institutions wanting to remove access barriers to research is unchanging: they should adopt the strongest policies they can today and watch for the moment when they could strengthen them.
As researchers become more familiar with OA, as more institutions adopt OA policies, as more new literature is covered by strong OA policies, as more toll-access journals convert to OA, as more toll-access journals accommodate OA mandates without converting, and even as more OA journals shift from gratis to libre, institutions will be able strengthen their OA policies without increasing publisher-controlled rejection rates or author-controlled waiver rates. They should watch the shifting balance of power and seize opportunities to strengthen their policies.
The moments of opportunity will not be obvious. They will not be highlighted by objective evidence alone and will call for some self-fulfilling leadership. Institutional policy-makers will have to assess not only the climate created by existing policies, and existing levels of support, but also the likely effects of their own actions. Every strong, new policy increases the likelihood of publisher accommodation, and when enough universities and funders have policies, all publishers will have to accommodate them. In that sense, every strong new policy creates some of the conditions of its own success. Every institution adopting a new policy brings about OA for the research it controls and makes the way easier for other institutions behind it. Like many other policy issues, this is one on which it is easier to follow than to lead, and we already have a growing number of leaders. A critical mass is growing and every policy is an implicit invitation to other institutions to gain strength through common purpose and help accelerate publisher adaptation.
Question and Possible Answers:
In which situations does truly unconditional OA policy apply?
(A) When publishing work in a journal
(B) When working for a university
(C) There are no situations where unconditional OA applies
(D) When working in the field of Physics
Answer:
| C | 195 | 24,581 | 24,583 | 24,855 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
31282_BQYW9TCH_4 | 31282_BQYW9TCH_4_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April-May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
MARS CONFIDENTIAL!
Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer
Illustrator
: L. R. Summers
Here is history's biggest news scoop! Those intrepid
reporters Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, whose best-selling
exposes of life's seamy side from New York to Medicine Hat
have made them famous, here strip away the veil of millions
of miles to bring you the lowdown on our sister planet. It
is an amazing account of vice and violence, of virtues and
victims, told in vivid, jet-speed style.
Here you'll learn why Mars is called the Red Planet, the
part the Mafia plays in her undoing, the rape and rapine
that has made this heavenly body the cesspool of the
Universe. In other words, this is Mars—Confidential!
P-s-s-s-s-t!
HERE WE GO AGAIN—Confidential.
We turned New York inside out. We turned Chicago upside down. In
Washington we turned the insiders out and the outsiders in. The howls
can still be heard since we dissected the U.S.A.
But Mars was our toughest task of spectroscoping. The cab drivers
spoke a different language and the bell-hops couldn't read our
currency. Yet, we think we have X-rayed the dizziest—and this may
amaze you—the dirtiest planet in the solar system. Beside it, the
Earth is as white as the Moon, and Chicago is as peaceful as the Milky
Way.
By the time we went through Mars—its canals, its caves, its
satellites and its catacombs—we knew more about it than anyone who
lives there.
We make no attempt to be comprehensive. We have no hope or aim to make
Mars a better place in which to live; in fact, we don't give a damn
what kind of a place it is to live in.
This will be the story of a planet that could have been another proud
and majestic sun with a solar system of its own; it ended up, instead,
in the comic books and the pulp magazines.
We give you MARS CONFIDENTIAL!
I
THE LOWDOWN CONFIDENTIAL
Before the space ship which brings the arriving traveler lands at the
Martian National Airport, it swoops gracefully over the nearby city in
a salute. The narrow ribbons, laid out in geometric order, gradually
grow wider until the water in these man-made rivers becomes crystal
clear and sparkles in the reflection of the sun.
As Mars comes closer, the visitor from Earth quickly realizes it has a
manner and a glamor of its own; it is unworldy, it is out of this
world. It is not the air of distinction one finds in New York or
London or Paris. The Martian feeling is dreamlike; it comes from being
close to the stuff dreams are made of.
However, after the sojourner lands, he discovers that Mars is not much
different than the planet he left; indeed, men are pretty much the
same all over the universe, whether they carry their plumbing inside
or outside their bodies.
As we unfold the rates of crime, vice, sex irregularities, graft,
cheap gambling, drunkenness, rowdyism and rackets, you will get,
thrown on a large screen, a peep show you never saw on your TV during
the science-fiction hour.
Each day the Earth man spends on Mars makes him feel more at home;
thus, it comes as no surprise to the initiated that even here, at
least 35,000,000 miles away from Times Square, there are hoodlums who
talk out of the sides of their mouths and drive expensive convertibles
with white-walled tires and yellow-haired frails. For the Mafia, the
dread Black Hand, is in business here—tied up with the
subversives—and neither the Martian Committee for the Investigation
of Crime and Vice, nor the Un-Martian Activities Committee, can dent
it more than the Kefauver Committee did on Earth, which is practically
less than nothing.
This is the first time this story has been printed. We were offered
four trillion dollars in bribes to hold it up; our lives were
threatened and we were shot at with death ray guns.
We got this one night on the fourth bench in Central Park, where we
met by appointment a man who phoned us earlier but refused to tell his
name. When we took one look at him we did not ask for his credentials,
we just knew he came from Mars.
This is what he told us:
Shortly after the end of World War II, a syndicate composed of
underworld big-shots from Chicago, Detroit and Greenpoint planned to
build a new Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. This was to be a plush
project for big spenders, with Vegas and Reno reserved for the
hoi-polloi.
There was to be service by a private airline. It would be so
ultra-ultra that suckers with only a million would be thumbed away and
guys with two million would have to come in through the back door.
The Mafia sent a couple of front men to explore the desert. Somewhere
out beyond the atom project they stumbled on what seemed to be the
answer to their prayer.
It was a huge, mausoleum-like structure, standing alone in the desert
hundreds of miles from nowhere, unique, exclusive and mysterious. The
prospectors assumed it was the last remnant of some fabulous and
long-dead ghost-mining town.
The entire population consisted of one, a little duffer with a white
goatee and thick lensed spectacles, wearing boots, chaps and a silk
hat.
"This your place, bud?" one of the hoods asked.
When he signified it was, the boys bought it. The price was
agreeable—after they pulled a wicked-looking rod.
Then the money guys came to look over their purchase. They couldn't
make head or tail of it, and you can hardly blame them, because inside
the great structure they found a huge contraption that looked like a
cigar (Havana Perfecto) standing on end.
"What the hell is this," they asked the character in the opera hat, in
what is known as a menacing attitude.
The old pappy guy offered to show them. He escorted them into the
cigar, pressed a button here and there, and before you could say "Al
Capone" the roof of the shed slid back and they began to move upward
at a terrific rate of speed.
Three or four of the Mafia chieftains were old hop-heads and felt at
home. In fact, one of them remarked, "Boy, are we gone." And he was
right.
The soberer Mafistas, after recovering from their first shock, laid
ungentle fists on their conductor. "What goes on?" he was asked.
"This is a space ship and we are headed for Mars."
"What's Mars?"
"A planet up in space, loaded with gold and diamonds."
"Any bims there?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. What are bims?"
"Get a load of this dope. He never heard of bims. Babes, broads,
frails, pigeons, ribs—catch on?"
"Oh, I assume you mean girls. There must be, otherwise what are the
diamonds for?"
The outward trip took a week, but it was spent pleasantly. During that
time, the Miami delegation cleaned out Chicago, New York and
Pittsburgh in a klabiash game.
The hop back, for various reasons, took a little longer. One reason
may have been the condition of the crew. On the return the boys from
Brooklyn were primed to the ears with
zorkle
.
Zorkle
is a Martian medicinal distillation, made from the milk of
the
schznoogle
—a six-legged cow, seldom milked because few Martians
can run fast enough to catch one.
Zorkle
is strong enough to rip
steel plates out of battleships, but to stomachs accustomed to the
stuff sold in Flatbush, it acted like a gentle stimulant.
Upon their safe landing in Nevada, the Columbuses of this first flight
to Mars put in long-distance calls to all the other important hoods in
the country.
The Crime Cartel met in Cleveland—in the third floor front of a
tenement on Mayfield Road. The purpose of the meeting was to "cut up"
Mars.
Considerable dissension arose over the bookmaking facilities, when it
was learned that the radioactive surface of the planet made it
unnecessary to send scratches and results by wire. On the contrary,
the steel-shod hooves of the animals set up a current which carried
into every pool room, without a pay-off to the wire service.
The final division found the apportionment as follows:
New York mob
: Real estate and investments (if any)
Chicago mob
: Bookmaking and liquor (if any)
Brooklyn mob
: Protection and assassinations
Jersey mob
: Numbers (if any) and craps (if any)
Los Angeles mob
: Girls (if any)
Galveston and New Orleans mobs
: Dope (if any)
Cleveland mob
: Casinos (if any)
Detroit mob
: Summer resorts (if any)
The Detroit boys, incidentally, burned up when they learned the
Martian year is twice as long as ours, consequently it takes two years
for one summer to roll around.
After the summary demise of three Grand Councilors whose deaths were
recorded by the press as occurring from "natural causes," the other
major and minor mobs were declared in as partners.
The first problem to be ironed out was how to speed up transportation;
and failing that, to construct spacious space ships which would
attract pleasure-bent trade from
Terra
—Earth to you—with such
innovations as roulette wheels, steam rooms, cocktail lounges, double
rooms with hot and cold babes, and other such inducements.
II
THE INSIDE STUFF CONFIDENTIAL
Remember, you got this first from Lait and Mortimer. And we defy
anyone to call us liars—and prove it!
Only chumps bring babes with them to Mars. The temperature is a little
colder there than on Earth and the air a little thinner. So Terra
dames complain one mink coat doesn't keep them warm; they need two.
On the other hand, the gravity is considerably less than on Earth.
Therefore, even the heaviest bim weighs less and can be pushed over
with the greatest of ease.
However, the boys soon discovered that the lighter gravity played
havoc with the marijuana trade. With a slight tensing of the muscles
you can jump 20 feet, so why smoke "tea" when you can fly like crazy
for nothing?
Martian women are bags, so perhaps you had better disregard the
injunction above and bring your own, even if it means two furs.
Did you ever see an Alaska
klutch
(pronounced klootch)? Probably
not. Well, these Arctic horrors are Ziegfeld beauts compared to the
Martian fair sex.
They slouch with knees bent and knuckles brushing the ground, and if
Ringling Bros, is looking for a mate for Gargantua, here is where to
find her. Yet, their manner is habitually timid, as though they've
been given a hard time. From the look in their deep-set eyes they seem
to fear abduction or rape; but not even the zoot-suited goons from
Greenpernt gave them a second tumble.
The visiting Mafia delegation was naturally disappointed at this state
of affairs. They had been led to believe by the little guy who
escorted them that all Martian dames resembled Marilyn Monroe, only
more so, and the men were Adonises (and not Joe).
Seems they once were, at that. This was a couple of aeons ago when
Earthmen looked like Martians do now, which seems to indicate that
Martians, as well as Men, have their ups and downs.
The citizens of the planet are apparently about halfway down the
toboggan. They wear clothes, but they're not handstitched. Their
neckties don't come from Sulka. No self-respecting goon from Gowanus
would care to be seen in their company.
The females always appear in public fully clothed, which doesn't help
them either. But covering their faces would. They buy their dresses at
a place called Kress-Worth and look like Paris
nouveau riche
.
There are four separate nations there, though nation is hardly the
word. It is more accurate to say there are four separate clans that
don't like each other, though how they can tell the difference is
beyond us. They are known as the East Side, West Side, North Side and
Gas House gangs.
Each stays in its own back-yard. Periodic wars are fought, a few
thousand of the enemy are dissolved with ray guns, after which the
factions retire by common consent and throw a banquet at which the
losing country is forced to take the wives of the visitors, which is a
twist not yet thought of on Earth.
Martian language is unlike anything ever heard below. It would baffle
the keenest linguist, if the keenest linguist ever gets to Mars.
However, the Mafia, which is a world-wide blood brotherhood with
colonies in every land and clime, has a universal language. Knives and
brass knucks are understood everywhere.
The Martian lingo seems to be somewhat similar to Chinese. It's not
what they say, but how they say it. For instance,
psonqule
may mean
"I love you" or "you dirty son-of-a-bitch."
The Mafistas soon learned to translate what the natives were saying by
watching the squint in their eyes. When they spoke with a certain
expression, the mobsters let go with 45s, which, however, merely have
a stunning effect on the gent on the receiving end because of the
lesser gravity.
On the other hand, the Martian death ray guns were not fatal to the
toughs from Earth; anyone who can live through St. Valentine's Day in
Chicago can live through anything. So it came out a dead heat.
Thereupon the boys from the Syndicate sat down and declared the
Martians in for a fifty-fifty partnership, which means they actually
gave them one per cent, which is generous at that.
Never having had the great advantages of a New Deal, the Martians are
still backward and use gold as a means of exchange. With no Harvard
bigdomes to tell them gold is a thing of the past, the yellow metal
circulates there as freely and easily as we once kicked pennies around
before they became extinct here.
The Mafistas quickly set the Martians right about the futility of
gold. They eagerly turned it over to the Earthmen in exchange for
green certificates with pretty pictures engraved thereon.
III
RACKETS VIA ROCKETS
Gold, platinum, diamonds and other precious stuff are as plentiful on
Mars as hayfever is on Earth in August.
When the gangsters lamped the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy
fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch
out; something is twitching.
The locals were completely honest. They were too dumb to be thieves.
The natives were not acquisitive. Why should they be when gold was so
common it had no value, and a neighbor's wife so ugly no one would
covet her?
This was a desperate situation, indeed, until one of the boys from
East St. Louis uttered the eternal truth: "There ain't no honest man
who ain't a crook, and why should Mars be any different?"
The difficulty was finding the means and method of corruption. All the
cash in Jake Guzik's strong box meant nothing to a race of characters
whose brats made mudpies of gold dust.
The discovery came as an accident.
The first Earthman to be eliminated on Mars was a two-bit hood from
North Clark Street who sold a five-cent Hershey bar with almonds to a
Martian for a gold piece worth 94 bucks.
The man from Mars bit the candy bar. The hood bit the gold piece.
Then the Martian picked up a rock and beaned the lad from the Windy
City. After which the Martian's eyes dilated and he let out a scream.
Then he attacked the first Martian female who passed by. Never before
had such a thing happened on Mars, and to say she was surprised is
putting it lightly. Thereupon, half the female population ran after
the berserk Martian.
When the organization heard about this, an investigation was ordered.
That is how the crime trust found out that there is no sugar on Mars;
that this was the first time it had ever been tasted by a Martian;
that it acts on them like junk does on an Earthman.
They further discovered that the chief source of Martian diet
is—believe it or not—poppy seed, hemp and coca leaf, and that the
alkaloids thereof: opium, hasheesh and cocaine have not the slightest
visible effect on them.
Poppies grow everywhere, huge russet poppies, ten times as large as
those on Earth and 100 times as deadly. It is these poppies which have
colored the planet red. Martians are strictly vegetarian: they bake,
fry and stew these flowers and weeds and eat them raw with a goo made
from fungus and called
szchmortz
which passes for a salad dressing.
Though the Martians were absolutely impervious to the narcotic
qualities of the aforementioned flora, they got higher than Mars on
small doses of sugar.
So the Mafia was in business. The Martians sniffed granulated sugar,
which they called snow. They ate cube sugar, which they called "hard
stuff", and they injected molasses syrup into their veins with hypos
and called this "mainliners."
There was nothing they would not do for a pinch of sugar. Gold,
platinum and diamonds, narcotics by the acre—these were to be had in
generous exchange for sugar—which was selling on Earth at a nickel or
so a pound wholesale.
The space ship went into shuttle service. A load of diamonds and dope
coming back, a load of sugar and blondes going up. Blondes made
Martians higher even than sugar, and brought larger and quicker
returns.
This is a confidential tip to the South African diamond trust: ten
space ship loads of precious stones are now being cut in a cellar on
Bleecker Street in New York. The mob plans to retail them for $25 a
carat!
Though the gangsters are buying sugar at a few cents a pound here and
selling it for its weight in rubies on Mars, a hood is always a hood.
They've been cutting dope with sugar for years on Earth, so they
didn't know how to do it any different on Mars. What to cut the sugar
with on Mars? Simple. With heroin, of course, which is worthless
there.
This is a brief rundown on the racket situation as it currently exists
on our sister planet.
FAKED PASSPORTS
: When the boys first landed they found only vague
boundaries between the nations, and Martians could roam as they
pleased. Maybe this is why they stayed close to home. Though anyway
why should they travel? There was nothing to see.
The boys quickly took care of this. First, in order to make travel
alluring, they brought 20 strippers from Calumet City and set them
peeling just beyond the border lines.
Then they went to the chieftains and sold them a bill of goods (with a
generous bribe of sugar) to close the borders. The next step was to
corrupt the border guards, which was easy with Annie Oakleys to do
the burlesque shows.
The selling price for faked passports fluctuates between a ton and
three tons of platinum.
VICE
: Until the arrival of the Earthmen, there were no illicit
sexual relations on the planet. In fact, no Martian in his right mind
would have relations with the native crop of females, and they in turn
felt the same way about the males. Laws had to be passed requiring all
able-bodied citizens to marry and propagate.
Thus, the first load of bims from South Akard Street in Dallas found
eager customers. But these babes, who romanced anything in pants on
earth, went on a stand-up strike when they saw and smelled the
Martians. Especially smelled. They smelled worse than Texas yahoos
just off a cow farm.
This proved embarrassing, to say the least, to the procurers.
Considerable sums of money were invested in this human cargo, and the
boys feared dire consequences from their shylocks, should they return
empty-handed.
In our other Confidential essays we told you how the Mafia employs
some of the best brains on Earth to direct and manage its far-flung
properties, including high-priced attorneys, accountants, real-estate
experts, engineers and scientists.
A hurried meeting of the Grand Council was called and held in a
bungalow on the shores of one of Minneapolis' beautiful lakes. The
decision reached there was to corner chlorophyll (which accounts in
part for the delay in putting it on the market down here) and ship it
to Mars to deodorize the populace there. After which the ladies of the
evening got off their feet and went back to work.
GAMBLING
: Until the arrival of the Mafia, gambling on Mars was
confined to a simple game played with children's jacks. The loser had
to relieve the winner of his wife.
The Mafia brought up some fine gambling equipment, including the
layouts from the Colonial Inn in Florida, and the Beverly in New
Orleans, both of which were closed, and taught the residents how to
shoot craps and play the wheel, with the house putting up sugar
against precious stones and metals. With such odds, it was not
necessary to fake the games more than is customary on Earth.
IV
LITTLE NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL
Despite what Earth-bound professors tell you about the Martian
atmosphere, we know better. They weren't there.
It is a dogma that Mars has no oxygen. Baloney. While it is true that
there is considerably less than on Earth in the surface atmosphere,
the air underground, in caves, valleys and tunnels, has plenty to
support life lavishly, though why Martians want to live after they
look at each other we cannot tell you, even confidential.
For this reason Martian cities are built underground, and travel
between them is carried on through a complicated system of subways
predating the New York IRT line by several thousand centuries, though
to the naked eye there is little difference between a Brooklyn express
and a Mars express, yet the latter were built before the Pyramids.
When the first load of Black Handers arrived, they naturally balked
against living underground. It reminded them too much of the days
before they went "legitimate" and were constantly on the lam and
hiding out.
So the Mafia put the Martians to work building a town. There are no
building materials on the planet, but the Martians are adept at making
gold dust hold together with diamond rivets. The result of their
effort—for which they were paid in peppermint sticks and lump
sugar—is named Little New York, with hotels, nightclubs, bars,
haberdashers, Turkish baths and horse rooms. Instead of
air-conditioning, it had oxygen-conditioning. But the town had no
police station.
There were no cops!
Finally, a meeting was held at which one punk asked another, "What the
hell kind of town is it with no cops? Who we going to bribe?"
After some discussion they cut cards. One of the Bergen County boys
drew the black ace. "What do I know about being a cop?" he squawked.
"You can take graft, can't you? You been shook down, ain't you?"
The boys also imported a couple of smart mouthpieces and a ship of
blank habeas corpus forms, together with a judge who was the brother
of one of the lawyers, so there was no need to build a jail in this
model city.
The only ones who ever get arrested, anyway, are the Martians, and
they soon discovered that the coppers from
Terra
would look the
other way for a bucket full of gold.
Until the arrival of the Earthmen, the Martians were, as stated,
peaceful, and even now crime is practically unknown among them. The
chief problem, however, is to keep them in line on pay nights, when
they go on sugar binges.
Chocolate bars are as common on Mars as saloons are on Broadway, and
it is not unusual to see "gone" Martians getting heaved out of these
bars right into the gutter. One nostalgic hood from Seattle said it
reminded him of Skid Row there.
V
THE RED RED PLANET
The gangsters had not been on Mars long before they heard rumors about
other outsiders who were supposed to have landed on the other side of
Mt. Sirehum
.
The boys got together in a cocktail lounge to talk this over, and they
decided they weren't going to stand for any other mobs muscling in.
Thereupon, they despatched four torpedoes with Tommy guns in a big
black limousine to see what was going.
We tell you this Confidential. What they found was a Communist
apparatus sent to Mars from Soviet Russia.
This cell was so active that Commies had taken over almost half the
planet before the arrival of the Mafia, with their domain extending
from the
Deucalionis Region
all the way over to
Phaethontis
and
down to
Titania
.
Furthermore, through propaganda and infiltration, there were Communist
cells in every quarter of the planet, and many of the top officials of
the four Martian governments were either secretly party members or
openly in fronts.
The Communist battle cry was: "Men of Mars unite; you have nothing to
lose but your wives."
Comes the revolution, they were told, and all Martians could remain
bachelors. It is no wonder the Communists made such inroads. The
planet became known as "The Red Red Planet."
In their confidential books about the cities of Earth, Lait and
Mortimer explored the community of interest between the organized
underworld and the Soviet.
Communists are in favor of anything that causes civil disorder and
unrest; gangsters have no conscience and will do business with anyone
who pays.
On Earth, Russia floods the Western powers, and especially the United
States, with narcotics, first to weaken them and provide easy prey,
and second, for dollar exchange.
And on Earth, the Mafia, which is another international conspiracy
like the Communists, sells the narcotics.
And so when the gangsters heard there were Communist cells on Mars,
they quickly made a contact.
For most of the world's cheap sugar comes from Russia! The Mafia
inroad on the American sugar market had already driven cane up more
than 300 per cent. But the Russians were anxious, able and willing to
provide all the beets they wanted at half the competitive price.
VI
THE HONEST HOODS
As we pointed out in previous works, the crime syndicate now owns so
much money, its chief problem is to find ways in which to invest it.
As a result, the Mafia and its allies control thousands of legitimate
enterprises ranging from hotel chains to railroads and from laundries
to distilleries.
And so it was on Mars. With all the rackets cornered, the gangsters
decided it was time to go into some straight businesses.
At the next get-together of the Grand Council, the following
conversation was heard:
"What do these mopes need that they ain't getting?"
"A big fat hole in the head."
"Cut it out. This is serious."
"A hole in the head ain't serious?"
"There's no profit in them one-shot deals."
"It's the repeat business you make the dough on."
"Maybe you got something there. You can kill a jerk only once."
"But a jerk can have relatives."
"We're talking about legit stuff. All the rest has been taken care
of."
"With the Martians I've seen, a bar of soap could be a big thing."
From this random suggestion, there sprang up a major interplanetary
project. If the big soap companies are wondering where all that soap
went a few years ago, we can tell them.
It went to Mars.
Soap caught on immediately. It was snapped up as fast as it arrived.
But several questions popped into the minds of the Mafia soap
salesman.
Where was it all going? A Martian, in line for a bar in the evening,
was back again the following morning for another one.
And why did the Martians stay just as dirty as ever?
The answer was, the Martians stayed as dirty as ever because they
weren't using the soap to wash with. They were eating it!
It cured the hangover from sugar.
Another group cornered the undertaking business, adding a twist that
made for more activity. They added a Department of Elimination. The
men in charge of this end of the business circulate through the
chocolate and soap bars, politely inquiring, "Who would you like
killed?"
Struck with the novelty of the thing, quite a few Martians remember
other Martians they are mad at. The going price is one hundred carats
of diamonds to kill; which is cheap considering the average laborer
earns 10,000 carats a week.
Then the boys from the more dignified end of the business drop in at
the home of the victim and offer to bury him cheap. Two hundred and
fifty carats gets a Martian planted in style.
Inasmuch as Martians live underground, burying is done in reverse, by
tying a rocket to the tail of the deceased and shooting him out into
the stratosphere.
VII
ONE UNIVERSE CONFIDENTIAL
Mars is presently no problem to Earth, and will not be until we have
all its gold and the Martians begin asking us for loans.
Meanwhile, Lait and Mortimer say let the gangsters and communists have
it. We don't want it.
We believe Earth would weaken itself if it dissipated its assets on
foreign planets. Instead, we should heavily arm our own satellites,
which will make us secure from attack by an alien planet or
constellation.
At the same time, we should build an overwhelming force of space ships
capable of delivering lethal blows to the outermost corners of the
universe and return without refueling.
We have seen the futility of meddling in everyone's business on Earth.
Let's not make that mistake in space. We are unalterably opposed to
the UP (United Planets) and call upon the governments of Earth not to
join that Inter-Solar System boondoggle.
We have enough trouble right here.
THE APPENDIX CONFIDENTIAL:
Blast-off
: The equivalent of the take-off of Terran
aviation. Space ships blast-off into space. Not to be
confused with the report of a sawed-off shot gun.
Blasting pit
: Place from which a space ship blasts off.
Guarded area where the intense heat from the jets melts the
ground. Also used for cock-fights.
Spacemen
: Those who man the space ships. See any comic
strip.
Hairoscope
: A very sensitive instrument for space
navigation. The sighting plate thereon is centered around
two crossed hairs. Because of the vastness of space, very
fine hairs are used. These hairs are obtained from the
Glomph-Frog, found only in the heart of the dense Venusian
swamps. The hairoscope is a must in space navigation. Then
how did they get to Venus to get the hair from the
Glomph-Frog? Read Venus Confidential.
Multiplanetary agitation
: The inter-spacial methods by
which the Russians compete for the minds of the Neptunians
and the Plutonians and the Gowaniuns.
Space suit
: The clothing worn by those who go into space.
The men are put into modernistic diving suits. The dames
wear bras and panties.
Grav-plates
: A form of magnetic shoe worn by spacemen
while standing on the outer hull of a space ship halfway to
Mars. Why a spaceman wants to stand on the outer hull of a
ship halfway to Mars is not clear. Possibly to win a bet.
Space platform
: A man-made satellite rotating around Earth
between here and the Moon. Scientists say this is a
necessary first step to interplanetary travel. Mars
Confidential proves the fallacy of this theory.
Space Academy
: A college where young men are trained to be
spacemen. The student body consists mainly of cadets who
served apprenticeships as elevator jockeys.
Asteroids
: Tiny worlds floating around in space, put there
no doubt to annoy unwary space ships.
Extrapolation
: The process by which a science-fiction
writer takes an established scientific fact and builds
thereon a story that couldn't happen in a million years, but
maybe 2,000,000.
Science fiction
: A genre of escape literature which takes
the reader to far-away planets—and usually neglects to
bring him back.
S.F.
: An abbreviation for science fiction.
Bem
: A word derived by using the first letters of the
three words: Bug Eyed Monster. Bems are ghastly looking
creatures in general. In science-fiction yarns written by
Terrans, bems are natives of Mars. In science-fiction yarns
written by Martians, bems are natives of Terra.
The pile
: The source from which power is derived to carry
men to the stars. Optional on the more expensive space
ships, at extra cost.
Atom blaster
: A gun carried by spacemen which will melt
people down to a cinder. A .45 would do just as well, but
then there's the Sullivan Act.
Orbit
: The path of any heavenly body. The bodies are held
in these orbits by natural laws the Republicans are thinking
of repealing.
Nova
: The explosive stage into which planets may pass.
According to the finest scientific thinking, a planet will
either nova, or it won't.
Galaxy
: A term used to confuse people who have always
called it The Milky Way.
Sun spots
: Vast electrical storms on the sun which
interfere with radio reception, said interference being
advantageous during political campaigns.
Atomic cannons
: Things that go
zap
.
Audio screen
: Television without Milton Berle or
wrestling.
Disintegrating ray
: Something you can't see that turns
something you can see into something you can't see.
Geiger counter
: Something used to count Geigers.
Interstellar space
: Too much nothing at all, filled with
rockets, flying saucers, advanced civilizations, and
discarded copies of
Amazing Stories
.
Mars
: A candy bar.
Pluto
: A kind of water.
Ray guns
: Small things that go
zap
.
Time machine
: A machine that carries you back to yesterday
and into next year. Also, an alarm clock.
Time warp
: The hole in time the time machine goes through
to reach another time. A hole in nothing.
Terra
: Another name for Earth. It comes from
terra
firma
or something like that.
Hyperdrive
: The motor that is used to drive a space ship
faster than the speed of light. Invented by science-fiction
writers but not yet patented.
Ether
: The upper reaches of space and whatever fills them.
Also, an anaesthetic.
Luna
: Another name for the Moon. Formerly a park in Coney
Island.
Question and Possible Answers:
What is not true about the relationship between Martians and humans?
(A) Humans are happy to bring their women to Mars as another manipulation tactic against the race.
(B) Martians find no value in the things humans do, such as gold and diamonds, making humans feel
(C) Humans are more interested in giving Martians sugar than they are in any other sort of drug.
(D) Martians value what humans bring to their planet, including teaching them new ways to do things like conduct business and build structures.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 35,378 | 35,380 | 35,922 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
99914_0Q5X8VEX_4 | 99914_0Q5X8VEX_4_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
The end of the web
In the past year, as we have witnessed the upending of the political order, the internet has been the theatre where many of the battles have been fought: from the hacking and leaking of Democratic party emails, to the proliferation of fake news and alternative facts, and yes, the outpourings of @realDonaldTrump.
With domestic and geopolitical tensions rising, governments are finding it increasingly hard to function amid a constant barrage of uncontrollable information and potential cyber-attacks, making them grow more wary both of the internet's influence and their ability to control it.
The fallout from this means we are facing the prospect of countries around the world pulling the plug on the open, global internet and creating their own independent networks. We might be about to see the end of the world wide internet as we know it.
With globalisation under attack, the ultimate bastion of borderlessness – the global internet – might very well be one the biggest scalps taken by the newly emerging world order heralded in by Brexit and Trump. If a global orthodoxy of free trade, soft power and international organisations is overpowered by belligerent nations and isolationism, the net will inevitably be swept away with it.
Yet although fragmentation – and ultimately also Balkanisation – will carry great social and economic cost, it could also be an opportunity. Europe, which has already been flexing its muscles when it comes to internet policy, now finds itself forced to rely less on US cooperation. It should therefore become a frontrunner in developing an alternative, decentralised internet, with its root values of fairness, openness and democracy restored. This could help the net – and indeed Europe – to become more resilient again. As much as we fear the 'splinternet', we should welcome the Euronet.
Weaponisation of the internet
Since we've become dependent on the internet for almost everything we do, dangers to the network's integrity threaten devastating effects. Governments may be tempted to turn inwards in an attempt to shield themselves and their citizens from cyber-attacks.
Last October, unknown hackers used an array of badly secured 'internet of things' (IoT) devices to bring down most of the internet on the east coast of America in one of the largest DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks to date. While depriving Americans of Amazon and Facebook for several hours was surely an inconvenience, the potential of the weaponised internet to do harm is infinitely greater.
As more of the components of a country's critical infrastructure move online, the number of possible targets grows too. Hackers shut down a significant part of Ukraine's electricity grid in 2015, and crippled several important Estonian industries, including its banks, in 2007.
Many cyber-security experts warn about the lacklustre defence of everything from air traffic control towers and voting machines to nuclear plants. One well-placed attack could do more damage than the most aggressive of traditional military campaigns, at a fraction of the cost. Because of the high degree of uncertainty surrounding cyber-capabilities – 'know your enemy' is a hard adage to follow if potential culprits and their capabilities are so tough to track – it has become impossible for governments to completely shield their countries from cyber-attacks.
The growing urge to control the internet has also become apparent over the influence of so-called fake news. Distorting public opinion and fact as a manipulation technique is nothing new: it's been used since Roman times. But the relentless pace and scope with which the internet allows information to disseminate is quite unprecedented. Governments and the media (who have themselves often swapped truth for clicks) are having an increasingly hard time stemming the flow of biased or misleading news stories. So the democratic process suffers.
The solutions offered by the reluctant tech giants providing a platform for fake news won't be sufficient to stop it altogether. This will prompt more countries to follow Russia and China in building their own platforms like VKontakte and Baidu, thus reducing foreign influence and allowing for extensive censorship and monitoring. The desire of developing countries to establish their own social networks will see them retreat into their own national bubbles.
Fragile infrastructure
While cyber attacks and false information campaigns use the internet to attack the infrastructure by which our societies function, the internet's own infrastructure is also at risk. Despite the internet's ephemeral, lawless appeal, its underlying network of cables, tubes and wires is very much rooted in the physical world. Over 99 per cent of all global internet communications are facilitated by an impressive web of undersea cables, connecting all corners of the world. A submarine deliberately destroying one of these cables in a hard-to-reach place could bring down access to parts of the internet for weeks; and so, by extension, all the systems that rely upon it.
The fallibility of this shared infrastructure also makes it impossible to keep foreign or hostile actors out of domestic affairs. Though governments that heavily restrict internet access might find it easier to prevent information from flowing in and out of the country, they are still reliant on the same co-owned systems, with some parts inevitably falling under other countries' jurisdictions.
This became very clear after the 2013 Snowden revelations, which showed that the US routinely tapped into foreign internet traffic routed through the country. The massive scale of this monitoring even led then president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff to call for the construction of an undersea cable from Brazil directly to Europe, bypassing the prying eyes of the National Security Agency altogether. And US intelligence agencies are by no means the only ones doing this kind of snooping, as we know all too well.
With various nations eyeing each other suspiciously and traditional alliances crumbling, building alternative structures to make foreign interference more difficult seems a logical consequence.
Who rules the internet?
It won't just be the actual infrastructure and 'hard' elements of the internet where governments will seek more independence. Internet governance, the catch-all term to describe the processes and decisions that determine how the internet is managed, and how its technical norms and standards are set, is increasingly complex.
In principle, no single actor should be in charge of the internet governance processes. Ideally, these should be overseen by a multi-stakeholder model where governments, the private sector and advocacy groups would have an equal voice and where anyone could be allowed to become involved. In practice, however, it is US government institutions and companies – yes, the usual suspects – that set the rules. They tend to be over-represented in meetings, and in charge of some of the largest regulatory bodies. American stewardship over the internet has long been an area of contention. Countries like China, Russia, and many (mainly developing) countries want more control over their own domestic networks, preferring to see the current model replaced by something more Westphalian, perhaps resembling the United Nations.
This discussion will likely flair up again soon as the Trump administration seeks ways to reverse the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition: an arcane but highly controversial policy issue. IANA is the agency in charge of maintaining the global DNS (Domain Name System) as well as managing Internet Protocol (IP) address allocation and other important basic structural functions of the internet. The internet’s IANA functions had traditionally been managed by the non-profit ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), but remained under contract of the US Department of Commerce, which oversaw its processes – effectively leaving it under US government control. After almost 20 years of bickering and international kowtowing, IANA was brought under full ICANN control last October, finally becoming fully independent. This to the great dismay of many Republican lawmakers; particularly senator Ted Cruz, who has been fighting to stop the process for years.
If the US government does decide to overturn the transition (and Trump has certainly shown enthusiasm for overturning decisions of the previous administration), it will do a lot of damage to the American-led governance process. How much credibility can it have when the most important partner doesn't even play by the rules?
As these tensions increase, we'll likely see a push for more government bodies to take control of internet governance (such as the short-lived, Brazil-led NETMundial initiative), abandoning the more inclusive and cooperative approach involving businesses and civil society organisations. Then if the process fell even further apart, it would be a substantial challenge to the interoperable global internet, as regulations and standards swiftly went in different directions.
The Big Four
Though the internet was initially heralded as the greatest democratiser of information since Gutenberg, most data now flows through only a handful of companies. Silicon Valley tech giants, with the 'Big Four' of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon at the helm, rake in most of the spoils of the all-conquering global online economy.
In their ambition to expand even further, these tech companies are themselves also an important cause of internet fragmentation, erecting 'walled gardens' all over the world. Facebook's controversial Free Basics service, which offers free data plans to users in developing countries, but which restricts access to a small number of Facebook-approved websites, is a prime example. Some call it digital colonialism.
These moves aimed at generating even more revenue, concentrated in the hands of the few as inequality rises, understandably cause concern among governments and citizens alike. But our main worry should not be about economics. The Big Four – controlling our data, as well as our access to information – wield an inordinate amount of power. Indeed, Denmark recently announced it would appoint a igital ambassador specifically to deal with these technology giants, citing their influence as larger than that of many countries.
Citizens worldwide have become so dependent on these platforms that there are effectively no readily available alternatives to move to if things turn sour. The sheer scale of the Women's March and similar demonstrations in recent weeks would not have been possible without the ability to organise online. What if these channels fall away, their freedom restricted by companies under the yoke of a hostile government?
Though many American technology companies have already pledged they will not assist with the creation of a 'Muslim registry' – and have pushed back on Trump’s latest immigration restrictions
–
we have to be very aware that the amount of personal data they have on each of us would make it far too easy for them to do so.
Foreign governments, which in the current political climate cannot rely on Google abiding by its mantra, 'Don't be evil', will aggressively start to pursue the construction of domestic alternatives. It is something we are already seeing happening worldwide.
The splinternet
Though the dream of the web internet pioneers was one of a completely open, non-hierarchical internet, over the years barriers have been springing up that restrict this freedom. Bit by bit, the internet is becoming more cordoned off.
The idea of splitting up the internet into different, Balkanised internets – with a completely separate infrastructure – is not new. After the Snowden revelations, Germany took action and started looking into the construction of the 'Internetz', a German-only network (although one that allows for the possibility of expanding to the rest of the EU).
We do not currently have an example of a real internet island in place, but the closest version we see is probably the Great Firewall of China. Though China hasn't built an entirely separate infrastructure, its internet looks entirely different from what we are used to, with content heavily censored and many platforms and websites completely banned.
Russia appears to be following suit. Last November, Russia banned LinkedIn from operating in the country because the social network did not adhere to a new law decreeing that all data generated by Russian users should be stored within Russia itself. In recent weeks, news has also emerged that Moscow has been working with Beijing to implement something similar to the Great Firewall for its own domestic users. Democracies and autocracies alike have long come to understand the great power of the internet and have learned how to both harness and restrict it.
Who will be the first to go it alone? It's difficult to say yet but the usual suspects are lining up: China; Russia; Europe; even Trump's America
.
Other countries like Brazil or Turkey might see a compelling reason to do so as well.
Now that we are so used to a ubiquitous and global internet, it's hard to imagine what a world of fragmented, national internets might look like. What we do know is that the internet of fun and games, of unfettered access, is quickly coming to an end. When it does, it will be another big nail in the coffin for globalisation.
Breaking free
The idea of a Balkanised internet, of different national and supranational internet islands, is a dark one. What living in such a future would look like, no one knows. Inevitably, though, it would herald a world of less mutual understanding, less shared prosperity and shrinking horizons.
However, the fragmentation of the internet need not be bad news. As the limitations of its original incarnation are becoming increasingly clear, starting from scratch provides us with an important opportunity to right our initial wrongs. We can build a network or networks that are more ethical, inclusive and resilient to outside threats.
While this is a moment of disharmony and uncertainty for the European project, the EU has much it agrees upon when it comes to policy and regulating the internet's mostly American corporate giants: from its ambitious data protection policies and the right to be forgotten, to Apple tax case. But it could do more. The global internet as we know it today began as a public space where everyone had an equal opportunity to use it as we liked. But it has quickly privatised, locking us into platforms that 'harvest' our data. As European citizens grow increasingly concerned about the negative impacts of the internet, the EU has a great opportunity.
The EU should take a different approach to the internet and, rather than making it an unregulated free-for-all, consider it a 'commons': a public good open to all, excluding none. The EU could create and fund the infrastructure for this and help ensure safety for all. Meanwhile, small businesses and individuals would do their bit by creating a variety of tools to add to this commons, which would become fully interoperable through shared standards and underpinning technologies.
One necessary component of such an internet commons is that it should be decentralised. Decentralising the internet and rethinking its structure would allow users to take back control over the network of networks, letting them manage their own personal data rather than giving it away to large companies, as well as offering them more choice over the tools they use. It is also often said that distributed internets would also inherently be much safer: largescale cyber-attacks are easier to prevent if we reduce the number of central nodes that traffic can travel through.
But a European internet would above all need to be radically ambitious – especially with the EU in a fractured state. The rules for the decentralised, new internet are still wide open, and we have the opportunity to set them. The emergence of a new world order is forcing Europe to rethink itself, come closer together and defend its values in the world. Creating a completely new internet built around these values – and open to any like-minded country to join – might be one extraordinarily effective way of achieving it.
This is an extended version of a piece originally published in Nesta's 10 predictions for 2017 series
Correction 20 February 2017: this article was updated to correct a few instances of 'web' to 'internet'
This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.
Question and Possible Answers:
The author is afraid
(A) that the dark web is going to cause long-lasting issues.
(B) government is going to cause a revolt through their internet sanctions.
(C) people have lost sight of what the internet is for.
(D) that huge problems can come from not having proper defenses in place on the internet.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 16,867 | 16,869 | 17,208 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
32665_VRYQXG3Y_9 | 32665_VRYQXG3Y_9_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
The Anglers of Arz
By Roger Dee
Illustrated by BOB MARTIN
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science
Fiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
There were two pinkish, bipedal fishermen on the tiny
islet.
In order to make Izaak Walton's sport complete, there must
be an angler, a fish, and some bait. All three existed on Arz but there
was a question as to which was which.
The third night of the
Marco Four's
landfall on the moonless Altarian
planet was a repetition of the two before it, a nine-hour intermission
of drowsy, pastoral peace. Navigator Arthur Farrell—it was his turn to
stand watch—was sitting at an open-side port with a magnoscanner ready;
but in spite of his vigilance he had not exposed a film when the
inevitable pre-dawn rainbow began to shimmer over the eastern ocean.
Sunrise brought him alert with a jerk, frowning at sight of two pinkish,
bipedal Arzian fishermen posted on the tiny coral islet a quarter-mile
offshore, their blank triangular faces turned stolidly toward the beach.
"They're at it again," Farrell called, and dropped to the mossy turf
outside. "Roll out on the double! I'm going to magnofilm this!"
Stryker and Gibson came out of their sleeping cubicles reluctantly,
belting on the loose shorts which all three wore in the balmy Arzian
climate. Stryker blinked and yawned as he let himself through the port,
his fringe of white hair tousled and his naked paunch sweating. He
looked, Farrell thought for the thousandth time, more like a retired
cook than like the veteran commander of a Terran Colonies expedition.
Gibson followed, stretching his powerfully-muscled body like a wrestler
to throw off the effects of sleep. Gibson was linguist-ethnologist of
the crew, a blocky man in his early thirties with thick black hair and
heavy brows that shaded a square, humorless face.
"Any sign of the squids yet?" he asked.
"They won't show up until the dragons come," Farrell said. He adjusted
the light filter of the magnoscanner and scowled at Stryker. "Lee, I
wish you'd let me break up the show this time with a dis-beam. This
butchery gets on my nerves."
Stryker shielded his eyes with his hands against the glare of sun on
water. "You know I can't do that, Arthur. These Arzians may turn out to
be Fifth Order beings or higher, and under Terran Regulations our
tampering with what may be a basic culture-pattern would amount to armed
invasion. We'll have to crack that cackle-and-grunt language of theirs
and learn something of their mores before we can interfere."
Farrell turned an irritable stare on the incurious group of Arzians
gathering, nets and fishing spears in hand, at the edge of the
sheltering bramble forest.
"What stumps me is their motivation," he said. "Why do the fools go out
to that islet every night, when they must know damned well what will
happen next morning?"
Gibson answered him with an older problem, his square face puzzled. "For
that matter, what became of the city I saw when we came in through the
stratosphere? It must be a tremendous thing, yet we've searched the
entire globe in the scouter and found nothing but water and a scattering
of little islands like this one, all covered with bramble. It wasn't a
city these pink fishers could have built, either. The architecture was
beyond them by a million years."
Stryker and Farrell traded baffled looks. The city had become something
of a fixation with Gibson, and his dogged insistence—coupled with an
irritating habit of being right—had worn their patience thin.
"There never was a city here, Gib," Stryker said. "You dozed off while
we were making planetfall, that's all."
Gibson stiffened resentfully, but Farrell's voice cut his protest short.
"Get set! Here they come!"
Out of the morning rainbow dropped a swarm of winged lizards, twenty
feet in length and a glistening chlorophyll green in the early light.
They stooped like hawks upon the islet offshore, burying the two Arzian
fishers instantly under their snapping, threshing bodies. Then around
the outcrop the sea boiled whitely, churned to foam by a sudden
uprushing of black, octopoid shapes.
"The squids," Stryker grunted. "Right on schedule. Two seconds too late,
as usual, to stop the slaughter."
A barrage of barbed tentacles lashed out of the foam and drove into the
melee of winged lizards. The lizards took the air at once, leaving
behind three of their number who disappeared under the surface like
harpooned seals. No trace remained of the two Arzian natives.
"A neat example of dog eat dog," Farrell said, snapping off the
magnoscanner. "Do any of those beauties look like city-builders, Gib?"
Chattering pink natives straggled past from the shelter of the thorn
forest, ignoring the Earthmen, and lined the casting ledges along the
beach to begin their day's fishing.
"Nothing we've seen yet could have built that city," Gibson said
stubbornly. "But it's here somewhere, and I'm going to find it. Will
either of you be using the scouter today?"
Stryker threw up his hands. "I've a mountain of data to collate, and
Arthur is off duty after standing watch last night. Help yourself, but
you won't find anything."
The scouter was a speeding dot on the horizon when Farrell crawled into
his sleeping cubicle a short time later, leaving Stryker to mutter over
his litter of notes. Sleep did not come to him at once; a vague sense of
something overlooked prodded irritatingly at the back of his
consciousness, but it was not until drowsiness had finally overtaken him
that the discrepancy assumed definite form.
He recalled then that on the first day of the
Marco's
planetfall one
of the pink fishers had fallen from a casting ledge into the water, and
had all but drowned before his fellows pulled him out with extended
spear-shafts. Which meant that the fishers could not swim, else some
would surely have gone in after him.
And the Marco's crew had explored Arz exhaustively without finding any
slightest trace of boats or of boat landings. The train of association
completed itself with automatic logic, almost rousing Farrell out of his
doze.
"I'll be damned," he muttered. "No boats, and they don't swim.
Then how
the devil do they get out to that islet?
"
He fell asleep with the paradox unresolved.
Stryker was still humped over his records when Farrell came out of his
cubicle and broke a packaged meal from the food locker. The visicom over
the control board hummed softly, its screen blank on open channel.
"Gibson found his lost city yet?" Farrell asked, and grinned when
Stryker snorted.
"He's scouring the daylight side now," Stryker said. "Arthur, I'm going
to ground Gib tomorrow, much as I dislike giving him a direct order.
He's got that phantom city on the brain, and he lacks the imagination to
understand how dangerous to our assignment an obsession of that sort can
be."
Farrell shrugged. "I'd agree with you offhand if it weren't for Gib's
bullheaded habit of being right. I hope he finds it soon, if it's here.
I'll probably be standing his watch until he's satisfied."
Stryker looked relieved. "Would you mind taking it tonight? I'm
completely bushed after today's logging."
Farrell waved a hand and took up his magnoscanner. It was dark outside
already, the close, soft night of a moonless tropical world whose moist
atmosphere absorbed even starlight. He dragged a chair to the open port
and packed his pipe, settling himself comfortably while Stryker mixed a
nightcap before turning in.
Later he remembered that Stryker dissolved a tablet in his glass, but at
the moment it meant nothing. In a matter of minutes the older man's
snoring drifted to him, a sound faintly irritating against the velvety
hush outside.
Farrell lit his pipe and turned to the inconsistencies he had uncovered.
The Arzians did not swim, and without boats....
It occurred to him then that there had been two of the pink fishers on
the islet each morning, and the coincidence made him sit up suddenly,
startled. Why two? Why not three or four, or only one?
He stepped out through the open lock and paced restlessly up and down on
the springy turf, feeling the ocean breeze soft on his face. Three days
of dull routine logwork had built up a need for physical action that
chafed his temper; he was intrigued and at the same time annoyed by the
enigmatic relation that linked the Arzian fishers to the dragons and
squids, and his desire to understand that relation was aggravated by the
knowledge that Arz could be a perfect world for Terran colonization.
That is, he thought wryly, if Terran colonists could stomach the weird
custom pursued by its natives of committing suicide in pairs.
He went over again the improbable drama of the past three mornings, and
found it not too unnatural until he came to the motivation and the means
of transportation that placed the Arzians in pairs on the islet, when
his whole fabric of speculation fell into a tangled snarl of
inconsistencies. He gave it up finally; how could any Earthman
rationalize the outlandish compulsions that actuated so alien a race?
He went inside again, and the sound of Stryker's muffled snoring fanned
his restlessness. He made his decision abruptly, laying aside the
magnoscanner for a hand-flash and a pocket-sized audicom unit which he
clipped to the belt of his shorts.
He did not choose a weapon because he saw no need for one. The torch
would show him how the natives reached the outcrop, and if he should
need help the audicom would summon Stryker. Investigating without
Stryker's sanction was, strictly speaking, a breach of Terran
Regulations, but—
"Damn Terran Regulations," he muttered. "I've got to
know
."
Farrell snapped on the torch at the edge of the thorn forest and entered
briskly, eager for action now that he had begun. Just inside the edge of
the bramble he came upon a pair of Arzians curled up together on the
mossy ground, sleeping soundly, their triangular faces wholly blank and
unrevealing.
He worked deeper into the underbrush and found other sleeping couples,
but nothing else. There were no humming insects, no twittering
night-birds or scurrying rodents. He had worked his way close to the
center of the island without further discovery and was on the point of
turning back, disgusted, when something bulky and powerful seized him
from behind.
A sharp sting burned his shoulder, wasp-like, and a sudden overwhelming
lassitude swept him into a darkness deeper than the Arzian night. His
last conscious thought was not of his own danger, but of Stryker—asleep
and unprotected behind the
Marco's
open port....
He was standing erect when he woke, his back to the open sea and a
prismatic glimmer of early-dawn rainbow shining on the water before him.
For a moment he was totally disoriented; then from the corner of an eye
he caught the pinkish blur of an Arzian fisher standing beside him, and
cried out hoarsely in sudden panic when he tried to turn his head and
could not.
He was on the coral outcropping offshore, and except for the involuntary
muscles of balance and respiration his body was paralyzed.
The first red glow of sunrise blurred the reflected rainbow at his feet,
but for some seconds his shuttling mind was too busy to consider the
danger of predicament.
Whatever brought me here anesthetized me first
,
he thought.
That sting in my shoulder was like a hypo needle.
Panic seized him again when he remembered the green flying-lizards; more
seconds passed before he gained control of himself, sweating with the
effort. He had to get help. If he could switch on the audicom at his
belt and call Stryker....
He bent every ounce of his will toward raising his right hand, and
failed.
His arm was like a limb of lead, its inertia too great to budge. He
relaxed the effort with a groan, sweating again when he saw a fiery
half-disk of sun on the water, edges blurred and distorted by tiny
surface ripples.
On shore he could see the
Marco Four
resting between thorn forest and
beach, its silvered sides glistening with dew. The port was still open,
and the empty carrier rack in the bow told him that Gibson had not yet
returned with the scouter.
He grew aware then that sensation was returning to him slowly, that the
cold surface of the audicom unit at his hip—unfelt before—was pressing
against the inner curve of his elbow. He bent his will again toward
motion; this time the arm tensed a little, enough to send hope flaring
through him. If he could put pressure enough against the stud....
The tiny click of its engaging sent him faint with relief.
"Stryker!" he yelled. "Lee, roll out—
Stryker
!"
The audicom hummed gently, without answer.
He gathered himself for another shout, and recalled with a chill of
horror the tablet Stryker had mixed into his nightcap the night before.
Worn out by his work, Stryker had made certain that he would not be
easily disturbed.
The flattened sun-disk on the water brightened and grew rounder. Above
its reflected glare he caught a flicker of movement, a restless
suggestion of flapping wings.
He tried again. "Stryker, help me! I'm on the islet!"
The audicom crackled. The voice that answered was not Stryker's, but
Gibson's.
"Farrell! What the devil are you doing on that butcher's block?"
Farrell fought down an insane desire to laugh. "Never mind that—get
here fast, Gib! The flying-lizards—"
He broke off, seeing for the first time the octopods that ringed the
outcrop just under the surface of the water, waiting with barbed
tentacles spread and yellow eyes studying him glassily. He heard the
unmistakable flapping of wings behind and above him then, and thought
with shock-born lucidity:
I wanted a backstage look at this show, and
now I'm one of the cast
.
The scouter roared in from the west across the thorn forest, flashing so
close above his head that he felt the wind of its passage. Almost
instantly he heard the shrilling blast of its emergency bow jets as
Gibson met the lizard swarm head on.
Gibson's voice came tinnily from the audicom. "Scattered them for the
moment, Arthur—blinded the whole crew with the exhaust, I think. Stand
fast, now. I'm going to pick you up."
The scouter settled on the outcrop beside Farrell, so close that the hot
wash of its exhaust gases scorched his bare legs. Gibson put out thick
brown arms and hauled him inside like a straw man, ignoring the native.
The scouter darted for shore with Farrell lying across Gibson's knees in
the cockpit, his head hanging half overside.
Farrell had a last dizzy glimpse of the islet against the rush of green
water below, and felt his shaky laugh of relief stick in his throat. Two
of the octopods were swimming strongly for shore, holding the rigid
Arzian native carefully above water between them.
"Gib," Farrell croaked. "Gib, can you risk a look back? I think I've
gone mad."
The scouter swerved briefly as Gibson looked back. "You're all right,
Arthur. Just hang on tight. I'll explain everything when we get you safe
in the
Marco
."
Farrell forced himself to relax, more relieved than alarmed by the
painful pricking of returning sensation. "I might have known it, damn
you," he said. "You found your lost city, didn't you?"
Gibson sounded a little disgusted, as if he were still angry with
himself over some private stupidity. "I'd have found it sooner if I'd
had any brains. It was under water, of course."
In the
Marco Four
, Gibson routed Stryker out of his cubicle and mixed
drinks around, leaving Farrell comfortably relaxed in the padded control
chair. The paralysis was still wearing off slowly, easing Farrell's fear
of being permanently disabled.
"We never saw the city from the scouter because we didn't go high
enough," Gibson said. "I realized that finally, remembering how they
used high-altitude blimps during the First Wars to spot submarines, and
when I took the scouter up far enough there it was, at the ocean
bottom—a city to compare with anything men ever built."
Stryker stared. "A marine city? What use would sea-creatures have for
buildings?"
"None," Gibson said. "I think the city must have been built ages ago—by
men or by a manlike race, judging from the architecture—and was
submerged later by a sinking of land masses that killed off the original
builders and left Arz nothing but an oversized archipelago. The squids
took over then, and from all appearances they've developed a culture of
their own."
"I don't see it," Stryker complained, shaking his head. "The pink
fishers—"
"Are cattle, or less," Gibson finished. "The octopods are the dominant
race, and they're so far above Fifth Order that we're completely out of
bounds here. Under Terran Regulations we can't colonize Arz. It would be
armed invasion."
"Invasion of a squid world?" Farrell protested, baffled. "Why should
surface colonization conflict with an undersea culture, Gib? Why
couldn't we share the planet?"
"Because the octopods own the islands too, and keep them policed,"
Gibson said patiently. "They even own the pink fishers. It was one of
the squid-people, making a dry-land canvass of his preserve here to pick
a couple of victims for this morning's show, that carried you off last
night."
"Behold a familiar pattern shaping up," Stryker said. He laughed
suddenly, a great irrepressible bellow of sound. "Arz is a squid's
world, Arthur, don't you see? And like most civilized peoples, they're
sportsmen. The flying-lizards are the game they hunt, and they raise the
pink fishers for—"
Farrell swore in astonishment. "Then those poor devils are put out there
deliberately, like worms on a hook—angling in reverse! No wonder I
couldn't spot their motivation!"
Gibson got up and sealed the port, shutting out the soft morning breeze.
"Colonization being out of the question, we may as well move on before
the octopods get curious enough about us to make trouble. Do you feel up
to the acceleration, Arthur?"
Farrell and Stryker looked at each other, grinning. Farrell said: "You
don't think I want to stick here and be used for bait again, do you?"
He and Stryker were still grinning over it when Gibson, unamused,
blasted the
Marco Four
free of Arz.
Question and Possible Answers:
Of the following options, what is a potential moral of this story?
(A) Exploration of the unknown can lead to many surprises.
(B) Discovery is fun and can be done without inherently endangering one's wellbeing.
(C) Communication with other species and cultures is a delicate process that needs to be done with care.
(D) Learning is a process that takes time and can be best done independently.
Answer:
| A | 195 | 19,349 | 19,351 | 19,780 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
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