The 20th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Evelyn E. Smith Page 22
"He was too good for this ship, that's what," the radio operator said, glaring at the captain. "Too fine and brave and—and noble."
"Yes," Harkaway agreed. "What truly sensitive soul could exist in a stultifying atmosphere like this?"
All the officers glared at the captain. He glared back with right good will. "How come you gentlemen are still with us?" he inquired. "One would have thought you would have perished of pure sensibility long since, then."
"It's not nice to talk that way," the chief petty officer burst out, "not with him lying there not yet cold.... Ah," he heaved a long sigh, "we'll never see his like again."
"Ay, that we won't," agreed the crew, huddled in the corridor outside the captain's cabin.
Iversen sincerely hoped not, but he forbore to speak.
* * * *
Since Bridey had reached the ultimate point in his life cycle, it seemed certain that he was not going to change into anything else and so he was given a spaceman's burial. Feeling like a put-upon fool, Captain Iversen read a short prayer as Bridey's slight body was consigned to the vast emptiness of space.
Then the airlock clanged shut behind the last mortal remains of the ill-fated extraterrestrial and that was the end of it.
But the funereal atmosphere did not diminish as the ship forged on toward Earth. Gloomy days passed, one after the other, during which no one spoke, save to issue or dispute an order. Looking at himself one day in the mirror on his cabin wall, the captain realized that he was getting old. Perhaps he ought to retire instead of still dreaming of a new command and a new crew.
And then one day, as he sat in his cabin reading the Spaceman's Credo, the lights on the Herringbone went out, all at once, while the constant hum of the motors died down slowly, leaving a strange, uncomfortable silence. Iversen found himself suspended weightless in the dark, for the gravity, of course, had gone off with the power. What, he wondered, had come to pass? He often found himself thinking in such terms these days.
Hoarse cries issued from the passageway outside; then he heard a squeak as his cabin door opened and persons unknown floated inside, breathing heavily.
"The power has failed, sir!" gasped the first officer's voice.
"That has not escaped my notice," Iversen said icily. Were not even his last moments to be free from persecution?
"It's all that maniac Smullyan's fault. He stored his mk'oog in the fuel tanks. After emptying them out first, that is. We're out of fuel."
The captain put a finger in his book to mark his place, which was, he knew with a kind of supernal detachment, rather foolish, because there was no prospect of there ever being lights to read by again.
"Put him in irons, if you can find him," he ordered. "And tell the men to prepare themselves gracefully for a lingering death."
Iversen could hear a faint creak as the first officer drew himself to attention in the darkness. "The men of the Herringbone, sir," he said, stiffly, "are always prepared for calamity."
"Ay, that we are," agreed various voices.
So they were all there, were they? Well, it was too much to expect that they would leave him in death any more than they had in life.
"It is well," Iversen said. "It is well," he repeated, unable to think of anything more fitting.
* * * *
Suddenly the lights went on again and the ship gave a leap. From his sprawling position on the floor, amid his recumbent officers, Iversen could hear the hum of motors galvanized into life.
"But if the fuel tanks are empty," he asked of no one in particular, "where did the power come from?"
"I am the power," said a vast, deep voice that filled the ship from hold to hold.
"And the glory," said the radio operator reverently. "Don't forget the glory."
"No," the voice replied and it was the voice of Bridey, resonant with all the amplitude of the immense chest cavity he had acquired. "Not the glory, merely the power. I have reached a higher plane of existence. I am a spaceship."
"Praise be to the Ultimate Nothingness!" Harkaway cried.
"Ultimate Nothingness, nothing!" Bridey said impatiently. "I achieved it all myself."
"Then that's how the Flimbotzi spaceships were powered!" Iversen exclaimed. "By themselves—the Flimbotzik themselves, I mean—"
"Even so," Bridey replied grandly. "And this lofty form of life happens to be one which we poor humans cannot reach unassisted. Someone has to build the shell for us to occupy, which is the reason humans dwell together in fellowship and harmony—"
"You purposely got Harkaway to take you aboard the Herringbone," Iversen interrupted wrathfully. "You—you stowaway!"
Bridey's laugh rang through the ship, setting the loose parts quivering. "Of course. When first I set eyes upon this vessel of yours, I saw before me the epitome of all dreams. Never had any of our kind so splendid an encasement. And, upon determining that the vessel was, as yet, a soulless thing, I got myself aboard; I was born, I died, and was reborn again with the greatest swiftness consonant with comfort, so that I could awaken in this magnificent form. Oh, joy, joy, joy!"
"You know," Iversen said, "now that I hear one of you talk at length, I really can't blame Harkaway for his typically imbecilic mistake."
"We are a wordy species," Bridey conceded.
"You had no right to do what you did," Iversen told him, "no right to take over—"
"But I didn't take over," Bridey the Herringbone said complacently. "I merely remained quiescent and content in the knowledge of my power until yours failed. Without me, you would even now be spinning in the vasty voids, a chrome-trimmed sepulcher. Now, three times as swiftly as before, shall I bear you back to the planet you very naively call home."
"Not three times as fast, please!" Iversen was quick to plead. "The ship isn't built—we're not built to stand such speeds."
* * * *
The ship sighed. "Disappointment needs must come to all—the high, the low, the man, the spaceship. It must be borne—" the voice broke—"bravely. Somehow."
"What am I going to do?" Iversen asked, turning to the first officer for advice for the first time ever. "I was planning to ask for a transfer or resign my command when we got back to Earth. But how can I leave Bridey in the hands of the IEE(E)?"
"You can't, sir," the first officer said. "Neither can we."
"If you explain," Harkaway offered timidly, "perhaps they'll present the ship to the government."
Both Iversen and the first officer snorted, united for once. "Not the IEE(E)," Iversen said. "They'd—they'd exhibit it or something and charge admission."
"Oh, no," Bridey cried, "I don't want to be exhibited! I want to sail through the trackless paths of space. What good is a body like this if I cannot use it to its fullest?"
"Have no fear," Iversen assured it. "We'll just—" he shrugged, his dreams of escape forever blighted—"just have to buy the ship from the IEE(E), that's all."
"Right you are, sir," the first officer agreed. "We must club together, every man Jack of us, and buy her. Him. It. That's the only decent thing to do."
"Perhaps they won't sell," Harkaway worried. "Maybe—"
"Oh, they'll sell, all right," Iversen said wearily. "They'd sell the chairman of the board, if you made them an offer, and throw in all the directors if the price was right."
"And then what will we do?" the first officer asked. "Once the ship has been purchased, what will our course be? What, in other words, are we to do?"
It was Bridey who answered. "We will speed through space seeking, learning, searching, until you—all of you—pass on to higher planes and, leaving the frail shells you now inhabit, occupy proud, splendid vessels like the one I wear now. Then, a vast transcendent flotilla, we will seek other universes...."
"But we don't become spaceships," Iversen said unhappily. "We don't become anything."
"How do you know we don't?" Smullyan demanded, appearing on the threshold. "How do you know what we become? Build thee more stately spaceships, O my soul!"
Above all else, Iversen was a space officer and dereliction of duty could not be condoned even in exceptional circumstances. "Put him in irons, somebody!"
"Ask Bridey why there were only forty-five spaceships on his planet!" the doctor yelled over his shoulder as he was dragged off. "Ask where the others went—where they are now."
But Bridey wouldn't answer that question.
THE BLUE TOWER
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, Feb. 1958
Ludovick Eversole sat in the golden sunshine outside his house, writing a poem as he watched the street flow gently past him. There were very few people on it, for he lived in a slow part of town, and those who went in for travel generally preferred streets where the pace was quicker.
Moreover, on a sultry spring afternoon like this one, there would be few people wandering abroad. Most would be lying on sun-kissed white beaches or in sun-drenched parks, or, for those who did not fancy being either kissed or drenched by the sun, basking in the comfort of their own air-conditioned villas.
Some would, like Ludovick, be writing poems; others composing symphonies; still others painting pictures. Those who were without creative talent or the inclination to indulge it would be relaxing their well-kept golden bodies in whatever surroundings they had chosen to spend this particular one of the perfect days that stretched in an unbroken line before every member of the human race from the cradle to the crematorium.
Only the Belphins were much in evidence. Only the Belphins had duties to perform. Only the Belphins worked.
Ludovick stretched his own well-kept golden body and rejoiced in the knowing that he was a man and not a Belphin. Immediately afterward, he was sorry for the heartless thought. Didn't the Belphins work only to serve humanity? How ungrateful, then, it was to gloat over them! Besides, he comforted himself, probably, if the truth were known, the Belphins liked to work. He hailed a passing Belphin for assurance on this point.
Courteous, like all members of his species, the creature leaped from the street and listened attentively to the young man's question. "We Belphins have but one like and one dislike," he replied. "We like what is right and we dislike what is wrong."
"But how can you tell what is right and what is wrong?" Ludovick persisted.
"We know," the Belphin said, gazing reverently across the city to the blue spire of the tower where The Belphin of Belphins dwelt, in constant communication with every member of his race at all times, or so they said. "That is why we were placed in charge of humanity. Someday you, too, may advance to the point where you know, and we shall return whence we came."
"But who placed you in charge," Ludovick asked, "and whence did you come?" Fearing he might seem motivated by vulgar curiosity, he explained, "I am doing research for an epic poem."
* * * *
A lifetime spent under their gentle guardianship had made Ludovick able to interpret the expression that flitted across this Belphin's frontispiece as a sad, sweet smile.
"We come from beyond the stars," he said. Ludovick already knew that; he had hoped for something a little more specific. "We were placed in power by those who had the right. And the power through which we rule is the power of love! Be happy!"
And with that conventional farewell (which also served as a greeting), he stepped onto the sidewalk and was borne off. Ludovick looked after him pensively for a moment, then shrugged. Why should the Belphins surrender their secrets to gratify the idle curiosity of a poet?
Ludovick packed his portable scriptwriter in its case and went to call on the girl next door, whom he loved with a deep and intermittently requited passion.
As he passed between the tall columns leading into the Flockhart courtyard, he noted with regret that there were quite a number of Corisande's relatives present, lying about sunning themselves and sipping beverages which probably touched the legal limit of intoxicatability.
Much as he hated to think harshly of anyone, he did not like Corisande Flockhart's relatives. He had never known anybody who had as many relatives as she did, and sometimes he suspected they were not all related to her. Then he would dismiss the thought as unworthy of him or any right-thinking human being. He loved Corisande for herself alone and not for her family. Whether they were actually her family or not was none of his business.
"Be happy!" he greeted the assemblage cordially, sitting down beside Corisande on the tessellated pavement.
"Bah!" said old Osmond Flockhart, Corisande's grandfather. Ludovick was sure that, underneath his crustiness, the gnarled patriarch hid a heart of gold. Although he had been mining assiduously, the young man had not yet been able to strike that vein; however, he did not give up hope, for not giving up hope was one of the principles that his wise old Belphin teacher had inculcated in him. Other principles were to lead the good life and keep healthy.
"Now, Grandfather," Corisande said, "no matter what your politics, that does not excuse impoliteness."
Ludovick wished she would not allude so blatantly to politics, because he had a lurking notion that Corisande's "family" was, in fact, a band of conspirators ... such as still dotted the green and pleasant planet and proved by their existence that Man was not advancing anywhere within measurable distance of that totality of knowledge implied by the Belphin.
You could tell malcontents, even if they did not voice their dissatisfactions, by their faces. The vast majority of the human race, living good and happy lives, had smooth and pleasant faces. Malcontents' faces were lined and sometimes, in extreme cases, furrowed. Everyone could easily tell who they were by looking at them, and most people avoided them.
* * * *
It was not that griping was illegal, for the Belphins permitted free speech and reasonable conspiracy; it was that such behavior was considered ungenteel. Ludovick would never have dreamed of associating with this set of neighbors, once he had discovered their tendencies, had he not lost his heart to the purple-eyed Corisande at their first meeting.
"Politeness, bah!" old Osmond said. "To see a healthy young man simply—simply accepting the status quo!"
"If the status quo is a good status quo," Ludovick said uneasily, for he did not like to discuss such subjects, "why should I not accept it? We have everything we could possibly want. What do we lack?"
"Our freedom," Osmond retorted.
"But we are free," Ludovick said, perplexed. "We can say what we like, do what we like, so long as it is consonant with the public good."
"Ah, but who determines what is consonant with the public good?"
Ludovick could no longer temporize with truth, even for Corisande's sake. "Look here, old man, I have read books. I know about the old days before the Belphins came from the stars. Men were destroying themselves quickly through wars, or slowly through want. There is none of that any more."
"All lies and exaggeration," old Osmond said. "My grandfather told me that, when the Belphins took over Earth, they rewrote all the textbooks to suit their own purposes. Now nothing but Belphin propaganda is taught in the schools."
"But surely some of what they teach about the past must be true," Ludovick insisted. "And today every one of us has enough to eat and drink, a place to live, beautiful garments to wear, and all the time in the world to utilize as he chooses in all sorts of pleasant activities. What is missing?"
"They've taken away our frontiers!"
Behind his back, Corisande made a little filial face at Ludovick.
Ludovick tried to make the old man see reason. "But I'm happy. And everybody is happy, except—except a few killjoys like you."
"They certainly did a good job of brainwashing you, boy," Osmond sighed. "And of most of the young ones," he added mournfully. "With each succeeding generation, more of our heritage is lost." He patted the girl's hand. "You're a good girl, Corrie. You don't hold with this being cared for like some damn pet poodle."
"Never mind Osmond, Eversole," one of Corisande's alleged uncles grinned. "He talks a lot, but of course he doesn't mean a quar
ter of what he says. Come, have some wine."
* * * *
He handed a glass to Ludovick. Ludovick sipped and coughed. It tasted as if it were well above the legal alcohol limit, but he didn't like to say anything. They were taking an awful risk, though, doing a thing like that. If they got caught, they might receive a public scolding—which was, of course, no more than they deserved—but he could not bear to think of Corisande exposed to such an ordeal.
"It's only reasonable," the uncle went on, "that older people should have a—a thing about being governed by foreigners."
Ludovick smiled and set his nearly full glass down on a plinth. "You could hardly call the Belphins foreigners; they've been on Earth longer than even the oldest of us."
"You seem to be pretty chummy with 'em," the uncle said, looking narrow-eyed at Ludovick.
"No more so than any other loyal citizen," Ludovick replied.
The uncle sat up and wrapped his arms around his thick bare legs. He was a powerful, hairy brute of a creature who had not taken advantage of the numerous cosmetic techniques offered by the benevolent Belphins. "Don't you think it's funny they can breathe our air so easily?"
"Why shouldn't they?" Ludovick bit into an apple that Corisande handed him from one of the dishes of fruit and other delicacies strewn about the courtyard. "It's excellent air," he continued through a full mouth, "especially now that it's all purified. I understand that in the old days——"
"Yes," the uncle said, "but don't you think it's a coincidence they breathe exactly the same kind of air we do, considering they claim to come from another solar system?"
"No coincidence at all," said Ludovick shortly, no longer able to pretend he didn't know what the other was getting at. He had heard the ugly rumor before. Of course sacrilege was not illegal, but it was in bad taste. "Only one combination of elements spawns intelligent life."
"They say," the uncle continued, impervious to Ludovick's unconcealed dislike for the subject, "that there's really only one Belphin, who lives in the Blue Tower—in a tank or something, because he can't breathe our atmosphere—and that the others are a sort of robot he sends out to do his work for him."