MacEwan thought that the right thing to do would be to mentally spit in its eye. But he had stopped doing the right things recently - he had gone all emotional. Instead he thought, That was a very nice landing you pulled off. A very fine landing.
With the rapport existing between them MacEwan now knew that this was the Orlig pilot.
Surprise and increased confusion greeted this, then: Thank you, the creature’s mind replied. At the time I did not know I had a passenger to observe it.
Maybe it was due to an accident of phrasing, but MacEwan thought that there was an undercurrent of surprisingly Human humour in the thought. But it was lost abruptly in an upsurge of the ever-present antagonism and revulsion, and the flood of sight, sound and pain impressions that, although shockingly clear in themselves, were roaring through the Orligian’s brain at a speed too fast for words. The screaming hail of metal from the attacking Earth ship, searching out its Family one by one, ripping them into bloody ruin and continuing to churn horribly at what was left. As the most junior member of the Family with the fastest reflexes it had been in the pilot’s position, and relatively safe. But it had felt and seen its brothers being cut to pieces, and when its father had left the control room to take over a firing position, the mentacom had sent him the feelings of its parent gasping frenziedly for air in a compartment which had suddenly been blasted open to space by MacEwan’s guns...
You started this war not us! MacEwan broke in, suddenly angry because he shared identical feelings about Reviora and other acquaintances that he had been careful to avoid thinking of as friends. He was remembering the Starfinder.
The reply he got staggered him. It was his own race, not the Orligs, who were responsible for the war, and looking at it from the other’s point of view he could see that it was so.
* * * *
What a perfectly ghastly mess! MacEwan thought. And Nyberg, poor, brave, ignorant Captain Nyberg. If only he had realised that a feeling of instinctive friendship towards these newly-discovered aliens - because they were so soft and furry and so reminiscent of a child’s first non-adult friend, a teddy-bear - did not necessarily have to be reciprocated. On the Orlig’s home planet there was a species which resembled the Earthmen as closely as Orligs did teddybears. Its habits were dirty, it was vicious, cowardly and possessed just enough intelligence to be depraved. To the Orlig mentality that species was like fat, wet things under rocks, and things that itched and stank. One of their tricks was to play and cavort within sight of groups of Orlig cubs until one or more, intrigued and as yet not intelligent enough to know better, would wander off after them. The species was, of course, carnivorous ...
And Captain Nyberg, impatient to broaden Earth’s mental horizon by contact with an extra-terrestrial civilisation and puzzled by the alien’s tendency to shy away, had crossed to the Orlig ship. He had been admitted by beings whose conditioning from earliest childhood towards things like him were diametrically opposed to his feelings for them. But that alone might not have led to war. If only Nyberg had not tried too hard to win friends and influence Orligs by the tactic so beloved of Earth politicians.
If only he had not tried to kiss babies.
The Orligs were a very emotional race and things had happened very quickly after that incident. There were not enough beings on the ship possessing the objectivity to realise that Nyberg’s action might only have appeared threatening...
But why, MacEwan wondered, had not one of the mentacom gadgets been handy. Instead of halting words and actions, both of which were wide open to misunderstanding, there would have been full comprehension of the potentially explosive differences in the backgrounds of both races. The Starfinder incident would never have happened, there would not have been a war and he, MacEwan, would not be dying. Even at this late date he wondered what the Earth authorities might do if the true situation was explained to them. They, too, like Captain Nyberg, had been at one time anxious for contact with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species.
* * * *
But the flood of the Orlig’s thinking was pouring over him again. The main torrent roared through his brain, but not so loudly that the small, revealing side streams went unnoticed. Things like the fact that large-scale war had been unknown on Orligia - though small ones, something like feuds, tended to be rugged - because the Family system made them impossible. There were no nations on the planet, just Families, which were small, close-knit groups of up to fifteen who submitted willingly to the near-Godlike authority of the male parent until they showed sufficient aptitude to form a family group of their own.
It was an intensely conservative type of culture with very complicated and inflexible codes of manners, and Nyberg’s misadventure proved the severity of punishments for offences against this code. And the mentacom, it seemed, had been recently developed from existing instruments in use by Orligian psychologists. Apparently the noise of a space battle played hob with the delicately modulated whines and growls which were the Orlig spoken language so that they had been forced to develop a method of mechanical telepathy to solve the communications problem.
Just like that, MacEwan thought dryly, then he concentrated on the mainstream of thought being radiated at him. It was so much easier to do that.
He was cold all over now, his mouth and tongue burned with a raging thirst and he could not believe that a human body could feel so utterly and completely weary and still remain awake. Had the conversation been in spoken words MacEwan knew that he could never have carried it on, he was too far gone. His brain felt funny, too, as if a cold, dark something was pushing at it around the edges. Fatigue, loss of blood and oxygen starvation were probably responsible for that effect, he thought, and wondered ironically what particular code he would break if he died on the Orlig in the middle of a conversation.
A sudden new urgency had come into the Orlig’s thoughts. They were on the Starfinder incident again, and apparently there were those in that Orlig ship’s crew who had felt themselves unduly constrained by their home planet’s codes of behaviour and of thinking. In their opinion the planet was too hide-bound and conservative and contact with an alien culture was just what it needed if stasis and decadence were to be warded off. The Families in the Earth ship were, it was true, outwardly loathsome to an infinite degree, but perhaps the visual aspect, thought some, was not of primary importance...
MacEwan felt a sudden wild hope growing in him as he guessed the trend of the other’s thinking. But an equally great despair followed it. What could he do, he was as good as dead?
Do I understand, he thought as distinctly as he could, that you would like peace?
The Orlig’s thoughts fairly boiled out at him. Their centuries-old civilisation was being disrupted. Though warships were generally crewed by one or more complete Families, for technical reasons some Families had to be split up. The pain and tragedy of this process could only be appreciated by an Orligian. And hundreds of other Families, the very best Families who specialised in the various technologies, were being lost every year in the war. Most decidedly the Orlig, and quite a few of his acquaintances, would like peace!
We, also, thought MacEwan fervently, would like peace. Then suddenly he cursed. A door had been opened, just the barest crack, and it was heavy with the inertia of past guilt and blood and misunderstanding. How could a dying man push it wide and cross the threshold?
* * * *
MacEwan felt that his mind as well as his body was packing up on him. It would be so nice and easy just to let everything stop. But he was Iron Man MacEwan, he reminded himself goadingly; MacEwan the Indestructible, the big bodied and even bigger headed Superman, the perfect killing machine. Now he had something which was really worthwhile to strive for, and all he wanted to do was give up because he felt tired. Think, damn you! he raged at himself. Think, you stinking lousy quitter ... !
And he did think. Weakly, urgently he pleaded with the Orlig to relay his suggestions to the other’s superiors. He thought in terms of an Armistice preparatory to peace talks, and explained how this might be brought about by using the Earth device of a flag of truce. A raid on an Earth base in which message containers only were dropped, followed by a single ship with a white flag painted prominently on the hull. The Earth forces would be suspicious, but MacEwan did not think they would blow the ship out of the sky ...
At that point MacEwan blanked out. It was as if the peaks and hollows of his brain waves had suddenly evened themselves out, leaving him with the knowledge of being alive but with no other sensations at all. He didn’t know how long it lasted but when he came round again the Orlig pilot was pleading with him desperately not to die, that medical help was on the way together with a flotilla which was escorting the rescue ship - and that he must live until the other’s superiors talked with him.
MacEwan was icy cold and sick and his thirst was a dry acid in his throat. The antipain was not working so well anymore, but he knew that he would never be able to keep a clear head - or even stay conscious - if he took another dose. He thought longingly of water; he knew the Orligs used it.
But the Orlig sent him a firm, sorrowful negative. He did not know much of Earthmen’s physiology, but he was very sure that food or drink would do further harm considering the seriousness and position of MacEwan’s injuries. There was a queer, guilty undertone to the thought. MacEwan fastened on it, prised it open, and felt a sensation of hurt which had nothing to do with his wounds. As well as the reasons stated the Orlig had been trying to hide the fact that he did not want to have to touch the Earthman again at any price.
Tell me of yourself, the Orlig went on hastily, of your world, your background, your friends and Family. I must know as much as possible in case ... It tried to stop the thought there, but only succeeded in accentuating it: there can be no tact in a meeting of minds ... In case you die before my superiors arrive.
* * * *
MacEwan fought pain and thirst and soft encroaching darkness as he tried to tell the Orlig about Earth, his friends and himself. He was pleading a case, and a successful decision meant the end of the war. But he could not be eloquent, nor could he cover up the unpleasant aspects of certain things, because it was impossible to lie with the mind. Several times he slid into a kind of delirium wherein he fought out the last engagement which had killed Hoky and Reviora, right down to the crash, the explosion and the meeting with the Orlig pilot. He could do nothing to stop it, this recurrent nightmare which just might end on a note of hope.
The Orligian was horrified at MacEwan’s personal score of kills, but at the same time he seemed to feel just a little sympathy for the loss of Hokasuri and Reviora. And there was a peculiar thought, which MacEwan did not catch properly because he was slipping into a delirious spell at the time, about the Weapon that was somehow tied in with the strange belief on the Orlig’s part that no civilised being could attack knowing he had a fifty-fifty chance of being killed; such bravery was incredible.
But what impressed the other most was the knowledge that the long-dead Captain Nyberg’s actions had been motivated by friendship towards the Orligians. And that there were creatures on Earth closely resembling the Orligians which the Humans liked and treated as pets, whereas positions were completely reverse on Orligia. It meant that the unfortunate Captain had been slain unjustly, and if it could convince its superiors of that, the groundwork for understanding and eventual peace might be laid.
A severe mental struggle became apparent in the Orlig pilot’s mind at that point, so intense that the other seemed deaf to MacEwan’s thinking even though he was in one of his rare lucid periods. The being rose to his feet and padded up and down the clear deck area of the wrecked control room. Its mental distress was extreme. Finally it stopped, crouching above MacEwan, and began to bend forward. It was fighting hard, every inch of the way.
A stubby, hairy hand found MacEwan’s, held it and actually squeezed it for all of two seconds before being hastily pulled away.
My name is Grulyaw-Ki, it said.
MacEwan could not think of a reply for several seconds because there was a funny tightness in his throat - which when he came to think of it was silly.
MacEwan.
Things were hazy after that. They talked a good deal through the mentacom, mostly about the war and regarding tactics and installations in a way which would have had the security officers of both sides tearing their hair. It came as a shock to see that the control room suddenly contained three more Orligs, who eyed him keenly and touched him in several places without any particularly strong signs of repugnance. Obviously Medics are used to horrible sights since the war. They withdrew and immediately afterwards he noticed a large section of the control room wall being cut away, revealing a blue sky, the slender pillar of the rescue ship and a barren stretch of desert. An intricate piece of electronic gadgetry was being assembled in the gap, with power lines running from it to the wrecked Orlig ship. MacEwan could not ask about it because the power cable to the mentacom had been taken out and plugged into this new mechanism.
The Orlig medics had cleaned Grulyaw-Ki up but had not been able to do much for his face, and the being had steadfastly refused to leave MacEwan and go to the rescue ship for proper treatment. It seemed that the Orlig felt deeply obligated to MacEwan because of the Captain’s earlier decision not to kill it when he had had the gun and the Orlig was lying helpless on the deck. The Orlig had got the memory of that little item from MacEwan when he had been delirious, apparently. He wanted to stay with the Earthman until...
The mentacom had been disconnected at that point.
Officers of ever increasing seniority arrived and talked with Grulyaw-Ki. Some hurried away again and the others stayed and looked down at MacEwan from positions behind the electronic gadget - still apparently arguing with the Orlig pilot, who seemed to be refusing to move more than a few feet from MacEwan’s side.
There was something going on here, MacEwan knew suddenly, something which was not consistent with the things he had expected from reading the Orlig’s mind. For instance why, after pleading with him to stay alive until the arrival of Orligian higher-ups had the pilot allowed the mentacom to be disconnected immediately after the arrival of the medical officers? Why weren’t they asking him questions over the mentacom instead of whining and growling urgently at the Orlig pilot from behind the now apparently complete mechanism a dozen feet away? What was the blasted thing, anyway ... ?
Tenuous as mist, with neither strength, directional properties or even clarity, an Orlig thought sequence seeped through his mind. The mentacom beside him was disconnected, but somewhere - at extreme range and probably on the rescue ship - there was another which was operating, and there was an Orligian near it who was thinking about him. There was an undercurrent of excitement in the thought, and hope, and the overall and everpresent problems of strategy and supply - the thought of a very important and responsible Orlig, obviously. MacEwan was a very brave entity, the thought went on, but even so it was better that the Earth-being should not be told what was to happen to him ...
Rage exploded so violently in MacEwan that he forgot his wounds, and his anger was matched only by his utter self-loathing. He had been a blind, stupid fool! He had talked too much, betrayed his friends, his race and his world. He had told everything to the Orlig pilot, and with knowledge of the spatial co-ordinates of Earth a planet-wrecker or a few bacteriological bombs would soon end the war. Of course the Orlig had given him equally vital information, but with the difference that MacEwan was hardly in a position to pass it on. Now apparently, they were too impatient even to wait for MacEwan to die, because the mechanism which had been set up and which was now focused on his huddled, near-corpse was nothing less than The Weapon.
The sheer force of his emotions sent him crawling towards Grulyaw-Ki. Mounting waves of pain pounded and roared over the small, feeble core of purpose in his brain and he dared not look down at his injuries. But the Orlig pilot was looking, and his companions behind The Weapon, and a ragged, tortured whine of sympathy and horror was dragged from their throats at the sight. They had feelings; he had met one of them mind to mind and he knew. It didn’t fit, what they were going to do to him - Grulyaw-Ki’s mind had not even considered his being killed out of hand. Maybe that was why the pilot was electing to go with him, because he disapproved of the treachery of his brothers.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw certain coils within the complex mass of The Weapon glow brightly, and he hunched himself desperately forward. We’re not all bad, his mind screamed, in a vain attempt to reach them without benefit of a mentacom. Maybe you’ve tricked me, but there can be peace ... peace ... He tried to reach out and grasp the Orlig pilot’s hand, to show them that he meant what he was thinking, but his stupid, senseless lump of an arm refused to move any more for him, and off to one side The Weapon was about ready to project its radiation, or force pattern, or field of stress ...
... After two hundred and thirty-six years the Orligians were getting another War Memorial, were being forced to get another War Memorial. And the Orligians were a very emotional race.
It was after dawn when the noisy festivities died down and the crowd silent now and strangely solemn - began to gather round the protective plastic of the old Memorial, the most gruesomely effective War Memorial ever known. They had remained far away from it during the night’s celebrations, it would not have been proper to indulge in merrymaking in this place, but now they were gathering from all over the city. They came and stood silent and grave and still moving only to let through the ground vehicles of off-planet dignitaries or the numerous other technicians and specialists who had business at the Memorial. Some of them cried a little.
At midday the Elected Father of Orligia rose to address them. He spoke of both the joy and solemnity of this occasion, and pointed with pride at the ages-frozen figure of the mighty Grulyaw-Ki, the Orligian who, despite, the urgings of his friends and the orders of his superiors, had determined to discharge his obligation towards this great Earth-being MacEwan.
The time stasis field projector, once an Orligian weapon of war but now in use in hospitals on every planet of the Union, had made this possible. With great difficulty the Stopped bodies of MacEwan and Grulyaw-Ki had been sealed up and moved to Orligia, there to wait while the first shaky peace between Earth and Orligia ripened into friendship and medical science progressed to the point where it was sure of saving the terribly injured Earthman. Grulyaw-Ki had insisted on being Stopped with his friend so that he could see MacEwan cured for himself. And now the two greatest heroes of the war - heroes because they had ended it - were about to be brought out of Stasis. To them no time at all would have passed between that instant more than two hundred years ago and now, and perhaps now for the first time the truly great of history would receive the reward they deserved from posterity. The technicians were ready, the medical men were standing by, the moment was now...!
The crowd in the immediate vicinity saw the figures come alive again, saw MacEwan twitching feebly and Grulyaw-Ki bending over him, saw the bustle as they were transferred into the waiting ambulance and - temporarily Stopped again until the hospital would be reached by a small and more refined projector - hurried away. The throng went wild then, so that the noise of the previous night would have been restful by comparison. Some of them stayed out of deference to the sculptor for the unveiling of the new memorial, a towering, beautiful thing of white stone that caught at the throat, but only a few thousand. And of these there were quite a few who, when the ceremony was over, went to look through the little peep holes set at intervals around its base.
Through them could be seen a tiny, three-dimensional picture in full detail and colour of the original war memorial, placed there to remind viewers that there was nothing great or noble or beautiful about war.
* * * *
ARTHUR SELLINGS: Starting Course
In Volume one I referred to the Observer’s short story contest AD 2500, that brought us Aldiss’s Not For An Age. That competition led to the publication of a book of the twenty-one best entries, chosen by Angus Wilson. Besides the Aldiss offering, and a tale by Robert Wells (an author finally making his mark), it also included The Mission by Arthur Sellings.
Sellings was the pen-name of Robert Arthur Ley, born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in 1921. He moved early to London where he had a vivid recollection of seeing both Metropolis and The Girl in the Moon - two classic early and influential German sf films - and soon after he discovered H. G. Wells and the US sf magazines.
He did not turn his hand to writing, however, until 1953, with the sale of The Haunting to Authentic. Thereafter, he sold regularly, predominantly to the United States, in particular to Galaxy Magazine. His appearances in the British magazines were few and far between but they were no less entertaining as Starting Course from the January 1961 New Worlds shows only too well. Two collections of Sellings’ short stories exist as well as several novels including the powerful Telepath (1962) and the fascinating The Power of Y(1965).
Science fiction was dealt a tragic blow when Sellings died on September 24th, 1968, aged only 47. Several stories appeared posthumously, the last, prophetically entitled The Last Time Round, being published in the November 1970 If. I leave you with these words from his widow, Gladys Ley:
‘As a friend said to me, never to converse with Arthur, share his enthusiasms and his love of life again; we have lost so much.’
* * * *
STARTING COURSE
Arthur Sellings
‘Good afternoon, sir. Mr Trendall? I’m from Android Bank.’
Trendall looked past the visitor, looking for - what? - a gyrotruck, a crate? Then he realised. This was it - him. He looked down at the neat bag in the young man’s hand, then up past trim slacks and jerkin of dark grey to the fresh, strangely new, face.
‘Uh - well, come in.’
He was conscious that his voice sounded hollow. Hell, it wasn’t his fault. Just how did you welcome an android into your family?
He showed the young man into the lounge and called his wife in from the kitchen where she’d hidden herself. She entered nervously.
‘Oh, May, this is our guest, Mr -’
Trendall felt suddenly even more awkward, and cursed both that and the fact that he’d been pressured into this. He was a solid twenty-second century citizen, integrated in his job and in his social sector, and unused to feeling awkward. The schmooze about that being the very reason he’d been selected! He hadn’t swallowed that - no sir. But how about the thinly-veiled threats of penalties, down-grading of status? He had the kids to think of, hadn’t he? But he was beginning now to regret desperately that he hadn’t made a stand.
The young man spoke - in the same careful, rather flat, tone in which he had announced himself. ‘Just call me Eddie. I do have a surname - A hyphen Smith. A for android, of course. But that’s only for the records. A surname is rather superfluous in my case, don’t you think?’
Trendall felt oddly grateful. That seemed to put the matter in perspective somehow. His wife said, ‘Oh dear, yes, why of course -’ He shot her a meaningful look.
‘Well then - uh - Eddie. Take a seat.’ He noticed now the curious correctness with which the visitor moved. They all sat down. There was an awkward silence.
‘Perhaps you’d like to freshen up,’ May blurted.
Was that the right thing? Trendall wondered. Did they? Have need to, that was?
‘No, thank you, ma’am. I’ve come straight from the Bank.’
* * * *
Heck, thought Trendall, he says it as if he had just stepped out of the vat!
That was how they bred them, the man from the Bank had said. Up from single artificial cells, emerging as a human being - or a damn good copy. Forget that, the official had said - treat him just as an ordinary, if immature, human. They had given him a basic education. Now he had to live with a family for six months. A finishing course, the official had said with a slight smile.
May tried again. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes, thank you, ma’am,’ said the young man, to Trendall’s surprise. May heaved a visible sigh of relief and went out to the kitchen. Trendall felt less constrained now. He could talk to the other, man ... as it were ... to man.
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Of me? Oh androids, you mean? About fifty, I think. I was in a class of twenty-five. There was one other class. I think we’re the only bank so far in the world.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ Trendall confessed, ‘is why -’
He faltered, realising that that was one question he couldn’t ask - why there was need for androids, anyway. As well ask an ordinary man why he thought he had a right to live!
‘Why the Bank sent me here?’ the young man suggested.
‘Why, yes, that’s just it.’ That was the second time the android Eddie, he’d have to get used to calling him that - had helped him out. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult after all.
‘Because my life has been all theory so far. The syllabus at our school would probably strike you as odd. We get the three Rs, naturally. But basic reflexes, that’s one early course. Then advanced reflexes, speech modulation, social orientation, they’re a few of the others. You see, we’re fully intelligent when we - come out. An ordinary human as an infant learns as it develops, by experience, trial and error. We’re taught everything, in capsule courses. With us there’s no time for experience.’
This was a chance, a clue. ‘Time? Why, what’s the hurry?’
But the chance disappeared, or was it side-stepped? ‘No hurry. It’s just because of the way we’re made. The point is, after the basic courses, we have to gain real human experience. We have to learn how to adjust to people, to learn the right thing to do or say.’ His voice became suddenly earnest. ‘So, please, if I say or do the wrong thing, please don’t blame me too much. I’ll try to learn.’
Trendall felt touched and embarrassed simultaneously.
‘Why, sure, son ... I - you —’ Heck, ordinary human kids weren’t as eager to please as this. They were on their own feet by eight, going their own way - too much their own way, he thought sometimes. And how old was this one - about eighteen, nineteen?
May came in with the tea and handed it round.
‘By the way, son,’ Trendall asked, ‘how old are you?’
‘Five,’ the other said simply.
Trendall spluttered into his teacup. That was another one I shouldn’t have asked, he thought ruefully. Eddie seemed quite unconcerned as he sipped his tea. But what could you say to follow that one? Really? Or You’re a big lad for your age?
* * * *
He didn’t have to worry, because Kathy, sixteen and breathless, came bouncing in just then. She pulled up short when she saw their visitor. Eddie rose.
‘This is Eddie, our guest I told you about,’ Trendall said.
Kathy, in shimmering kneelength pants and cape, just stood there and burst out laughing.
Eddie looked desperately from Trendall to his wife. He saw no help there, only a scandalised look focused on their daughter.
But Kathy only went on laughing.
‘I - I think I’ll go and unpack,’ Eddie said quietly.
‘I’ll show you your room,’ said May. They went upstairs hurriedly.
‘You’ll have to excuse Kathy,’ May said as she showed him into the little spare room. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with kids these days,’ she added as she left him.
Eddie unpacked his change of clothes, his books, then sat down on the bed. Would he get to understand people? They were polite, as anxious obviously to accommodate themselves to him as he to them. Then this curious girl behaved the way she did. Ah well, he had a job to do. He mustn’t let such things deflect him. He opened his books and got down to study.
A short while later there came a knock on his door.
‘Come in,’
The door opened, just wide enough to admit a slim form. It was Kathy.
He smiled - yes, that was the required thing.
‘I came to apologise.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘Is that all? Is that what you’re told to say?’
‘I’m not told to say anything. I’m just told to try and fit in. Why, what should I say?’
‘You’re funny. You should be annoyed and ask me why I laughed.’
‘Should I? Then, why did you laugh?’
‘It was Dad calling you Eddie.’
‘But that’s my name.’ He got the point. ‘Why, do you think a number would be better?’
Quite suddenly and shockingly she burst into tears. He didn’t have a clue what to do. He had never met tears before. All he could do was wait for her to stop.
She did, as suddenly as she had begun.
‘Trust me! I never start off right with anybody. I was determined to with you. I made it a test, because - because you’re different. There I go again!’ She gesticulated with both hands above her smooth black hair as if tearing it up by the roots.
‘It’s all right,’ Eddie said. ‘I am different.’
‘But don’t you see?’ she burst out. ‘You can say that. But it doesn’t make me right. And we’re all of us different. It’s everybody trying to make out that we’re not that gripes me.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But no amount of talking now can put it right. I’ll try and make a fresh start - but not now. I’ll have to wait.’
And, turning, she fled, banging the door after her, leaving Eddie standing there, utterly confused. After a long moment he went back to his books. Mathematical symbols he could understand; if he couldn’t, they would yield to his searching. But human beings!
* * * *
Despite his misgivings, Eddie gradually settled in. An absolute lack of communication reigned between him and Kathy, but since they only met at meal times that was no great problem. He thought it best to make no effort himself. In spite of her outburst in his room that first day, Kathy seemed well integrated and popular with a wide circle of friends. She was out every evening, to parties or tennis or to the Free Fall Drome - while he studied or watched TV with the family. Once Mrs Trendall suggested she take Eddie to the Drome with her party. He was pleased because it was one of several little indications that he was getting to be accepted. All the same he was relieved when Kathy ducked out by saying it was club night.
Mr and Mrs Trendall seemed much less complex characters than their daughter. TV, drinks, a few friends in, seemed the round of their life. Eddie was introduced to the friends, who seemed as easy-going - and faintly bored - as the Trendalls. He learned to differentiate between them, to laugh at their standard jokes, to serve them the drinks they preferred. None of them showed any curiosity about him or mentioned his background - and Eddie had an idea that his host had never told them. By now he had recognised Mr Trendall as a man who took the easy way.
With the other member of the Trendall family he got off on the right foot immediately. That was Steve, who had been away at the jetball finals in Paris the day he’d arrived. Steve was twelve and his hobby was making midget two-way TV sets. As Eddie was not only studying electronics but also possessed a keen eye and a deft hand, it was a natural.
* * * *
Steve never asked him questions - not personal ones, anyway. But he asked him plenty on math and lattice equations and micro-junctions - and listened - and talked. That was the main thing. Eddie learned when to accept a statement straight, when to read the opposite, when to know it was in code for something entirely unrelated. Most important of all, he began himself to ask questions.
‘What are you going to do, Steve, when you leave school?’ he asked one day. He was over half-way through his stay with the Trendalls by then.
‘Oh, join the ranks of the button pushers,’ Steve said casually.
‘Is that what you want to do?’
‘That’s all anybody can do, isn’t it? Boy, it makes me cackle. We work our brains to the bone, getting our heads stuffed with a lot of facts - just so we can read what’s on the right button!’
‘But won’t you go into electronics?’
Steve shrugged. ‘Probably - but in industry it’s all done by robot mechanisms - self-repairing ones. I’ll be responsible - if I get that far - for one tiny bit that won’t make much sense at all on its own. I know, brother.’
He suddenly grinned. ‘Hey, why’d you get me started on this? I’ll settle for what I can. Didn’t you learn history? People have been working for ages to get what we’ve got now. I’m not complaining.’
* * * *
He sounded very mature for a twelve-year old, but his next words were more in keeping. ‘Gosh, I’m just waiting for my first pay cheque. I’m gonna go straight out and get me a stereo tube. What are you going to do, Eddie?’
‘When I get my first pay cheque?’
‘No, crazy. When you finish studies.’
‘I’m listed for colonisation.’
‘Wha-at?’ Steve waved a hand. ‘You mean out there?’
‘One or another of the outposts.’
‘Rather you than me. I’ve been up to the moon. Great - for once. Real free fall and, boy, the stars! Fine for astronomers, I guess, but catch me living out there! Strictly twentieth century.’
‘But there’s some interesting stuff out there. Creatures, landscapes.’
‘I can see it all on TV. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to spend the best years of my life on some weird mudball back of nowhere. As I see it, there’s the grind of school, then before you know where you are you get hooked by some dame and settle down in a dinky little box like this. You’ve only got a few years really to live.’
That seemed to settle that. But Steve suddenly looked at Eddie in a way he never had before. ‘Is that why you people were made - to go out there?’
‘I guess so. That’s what we’re being used for, anyway.’
‘Used for!’ Steve exploded. ‘You take it lying down, just like that? But you’ve got rights, man. You’re a human being.’
‘Thank you, Steve,’ Eddie murmured. Then, in a more normal tone,
‘But I want to go. You see, people made me. Anything I can do is only a small repayment of that debt.’
Steve looked horrified. ‘Nobody owes anybody anything. Hey, I bet they planted that feeling in you when they made you.’
‘I don’t think so. It seems natural to me. If your father was in danger, wouldn’t you go to help him?’
‘I guess so.’ Steve grimaced. ‘But heck, he’s too careful. He’d never get in danger. But that’s beside the point. I think you chaps ought to make a fight against being forced. Lead a revolt, that’s it! Want any help?’
‘No thanks,’ Eddie laughed.
When he left Steve’s den he went to his own room and got out his books. But he was in no mood to study. His chat with Steve had unsettled him. He went over to the window and looked out.
They were like boxes, the thousands of little houses stretching to the horizon, punctuated by skyscraper blocks pointing up to the sky. A few gyros flitted about in the twilight like dragon-flies. Everywhere, even in the graceful gyros, men made little boxes for themselves. And yet, out there, becoming visible now as the sky darkened, lay the stars.
He thought of what Steve had said - you could see it all on TV. And it seemed wrong, terribly wrong for a twelve-year old. Yet Steve was ready to help him revolt!
Eddie smiled sadly. Steve, and probably all the other young people like him, had plenty of spirit, but it seemed as if it was all... kind of turned in.
The midget TV bleeped then. He switched it on without turning from the window, and said, ‘Hi, Steve.’
‘It’s not Steve, silly. It’s me.’
He turned. It was Kathy, her big eyes appealing in the tiny colour screen.
‘Can I come and see you?’
‘Sure.’
The screen faded. A moment later she came dashing into his room.
‘I just heard from Steve. I -’
Eddie smiled. ‘Come and sit down. Or you’ll fall over your feet again.’
‘Thanks. I don’t think I will this time. But is that right what Steve told me, that you’re going into space?’
‘Yes. Why, do you want to join Steve’s revolt?’
She tossed her head and said, ‘Steve,’ with all the contempt of a sixteen year old for a twelve. ‘Man, is he wet behind the ears!’ Her big eyes became grave. ‘Eddie, can I come out there with you?’
He gaped at her.
‘Why not? If it’s good enough for you -’ She winced. ‘There I go again. But can I, Eddie, can I?’
‘I don’t know. But are you serious?’
‘Never been more in my life. When Steve told me it all came flooding in on me. It’s all wrong that it should be put on - people like you. Ordinary people should go.’
‘I don’t think enough ordinary people want to go. But, Kathy -’ he reached out and took her hand - ‘that’s not the real reason, is it?’
She looked down at his hand.
‘That’s just for friendship,’ he murmured.
She smiled. ‘I know. You are nice, at that. No the reason I said, that’s part of it. But the main thing is, I want like hell to get away.’
‘Steve says it’s the best year’s of anyone’s life.’
‘Then why waste it here, mouldering? On this world you can’t get away from people enough. I don’t like people that much.’
‘But, Kathy, are you sure - but this is difficult - I don’t want us to get snarled up again. We seem to be understanding each other -’
‘Please say it.’
‘Well, are you sure this isn’t just a phase? I mean, being young, having trouble adjusting?’
‘Sure. I spend all my time adjusting. But is it worth it, adjusting to a lot of creeps?’
‘I couldn’t give an opinion on that. Nobody can be - what you call them
- to me. Anyway, is that enough reason to want to go off to somewhere entirely new and strange, leaving everything behind?’
‘It’s the same for you, isn’t it?’
‘No. I don’t have a home, for one thing, not a permanent one. Nor parents. In any case, Kathy, I’m sure you’re too young to be allowed to go on your own.’
‘Well, I’m going, you see. Watch out, you’ll be coming round the mountain on Sirius Four and you’ll bump right into little old me.’
* * * *
Eddie got up next morning, feeling ten feet high. He was doing what he had been sent here to do - making contact with people, learning how they felt. And they knew now what his purpose was.
The feeling didn’t last long. Steve was moody. As for Kathy, the barriers were obviously down between them, but now he seemed to be included with her in some conspiracy. She winked at him over the breakfast table and giggled and generally behaved in a fashion that seemed decidedly odd.
And seemed so not only to Eddie. He caught her parents looking at her and then at each other with perplexity. As for Steve, his sister’s antics or was it only that? - made him leave his breakfast and slam out of the house long before he had to catch the gyrobus for school.
The atmosphere lasted several days before things came to a head. Eddie was in his room, studying, when a knock came at the door.
‘Come in,’ he called, expecting Kathy. She had been a frequent visitor these evenings. She hadn’t mentioned another word about space. She had just chattered and clowned - and he had found her highly amusing.
But it was Mr Trendall, looking untypically perturbed. He wasted no time coming to the point.
‘Look here. What’s going on between you and Kathy?’
‘I - I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Don’t you? Then what’s all this nonsense about her wanting to go off with you into space?’
‘That was her idea, not mine. I told her it couldn’t be done.’
‘No? Well, she’s made an application. I can veto that. But what kind of hold have you got on the girl?’
‘Hold? I still don’t understand. I haven’t influenced Kathy.’
‘Maybe you don’t think so, but it’s pretty plain you have. Come on now, what have you and Kathy been up to?’
‘Nothing. It wasn’t forbidden for Kathy to come and talk to me, was it?’
‘Only talk? You think I’d believe that? Kathy’s an independent girl. I never question her choice of friends, but’ - Trendall shook - ‘I’m not having her messing around with a damn android.’
Eddie got to his feet slowly, but said nothing. He just stood there, looking at Trendall. Finally he said, ‘I’d better leave.’
* * * *
Trendall made no answer, nor did he meet Eddie’s gaze. He had plainly said more than he had intended.
‘But before I do,’ Eddie said, ‘let me tell you two things. First, I’m not leaving because I’m offended. I’m not, nor could I be allowed to leave on those grounds. I know I’m different, so you can call me what you like. And that’s the second point, there couldn’t be anything between Kathy and me.’
He knew what Trendall meant - not because he’d had a course ... that would have been superfluous - but because he’d learned a lot in the past few months, even if a lot of it had been secondhand, from TV.
‘Why not?’ Trendall said gruffly. ‘Because you’ve got orders to behave yourself? I don’t take much notice of that. And don’t tell me you’re too young - you said yourself your kind come out fully developed.’
‘That’s the point - not in that respect. Nor will I ever be. That’s the only real difference between us and real humans - we don’t breed.’
Trendall’s eyes jerked up to meet Eddie’s for a shocked moment. He looked away again, muttering something inaudible, then groped for the door. Eddie heard his footsteps descend the stairs.
He turned and began methodically to pack. There was nothing else to do, no stopping now to wonder just how he had failed. He didn’t have instructions as to what to do in this case - it obviously hadn’t been expected of him - but there was only one thing for it. Report back to the Bank.
But he had accumulated things since he had come here - more books, the little TV which Steve had given him, the jerkin Mrs Trendall had spun for him, things too personal to leave behind, even if he were leaving under a cloud. They added up to more than he could pack in the single small bag he had brought. He would have to go down and ask if he could borrow another one.
He heard footsteps on the stair again. Mrs Trendall came in.
‘You can unpack,’ she said firmly. ‘Tom told me. I’m dreadfully sorry. So’s Tom, more than he can say. It makes his accusations about you and Kathy seem pretty horrible.’
‘All the same, Mrs Trendall, perhaps I ought to leave. I’ve caused you all too much upset.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. Perhaps we were due to be upset. Perhaps it will do us good. Perhaps it would do everybody a bit of good. We all go on our little way, thinking all’s right with the world. Nobody asks any sacrifices of us. We think it’s all handed to us on a plate.
‘Then somebody like you turns up. You’ve been brought into this world just to do a job that nobody else wants to do - none of us ordinary people who’ve got everything to live for and be thankful for. And when one of our own kids realises that fact before we do and wants to take her share, all we can do is turn it into something nasty.’
This forceful speech was quite unlike the mild self-effacing manner that Eddie had come to regard as normal in Mrs Trendall. He certainly had started something!
‘No, Eddie - you’ve opened my eyes. And Kathy’s going into space, I can promise you that, and if she’s too young to go on her own, then I’m going with her?’
* * * *
May spoke truer than she knew, and certainly more than Eddie could have ever guessed.
A few days later it was Steve who was deputed to tell Eddie the news.
‘We’re all coming with you, Eddie! Dad just got the papers from the Colonisation Board. Procyon Three, leaving on the twenty fifth.’
‘Wha-at! That’s great! But - I can’t believe it. Kathy - yes. And your mother. But your dad - I can’t see him wanting to go.’
Steve grinned. ‘Kathy and Mom are a combo even I couldn’t resist. And Dad’s not such a stick-in-the-mud after all, it seems. He’s the keenest of any of us now.’
‘But you, Steve, now about you? The best years of your life remember?’
Steve grinned even wider. ‘I’ve grown up since then. And I’ve been reading up on Procyon Three. It’s got a very near satellite. We could have fun bouncing stuff off that!’
‘You bet!’ said Eddie.
* * * *
After that, it was all rush, getting ready for the big day. Clearing up, choosing what to take and what to leave behind. A hundred things - forms to be filled in, shots to get. Eddie was told that shots weren’t necessary for him. That should have made him suspect something, but he just accepted it as being due to his different physical make-up.
As it was, when the big day dawned and they took a gyrocab for the spaceport, he was unprepared.
They were about to leave the control building for the great ship, waiting in the middle of the ferroconcrete field, when an official in the grey of Android Bank stepped out of nowhere and took Eddie by the arm.
‘Can I see you for a moment?’
‘Of course.’ Eddie gestured to the Trendalls. ‘Go on. I’ll see you on board.’
‘Sit down, Eddie,’ said the official. ‘I’ve got a shock for you. You’re not going.’
Eddie stared at him. ‘Wha - what do you mean? How about those people?’
‘This is only the first time,’ the official said gently. ‘We had to play it like this. It won’t be so hard the next time and the time after that. You see, it’s not you we want in space.’
He nodded in the direction of the four Trendalls, their figures tiny now against the huge bulk of the starship. ‘It’s them, and other people like them.’
‘You mean - it was a kind of trick?’
‘If you like - but one played in the best of interests. We’ve reached a danger point. It was bad enough when man had pushed out to the frontiers and there was nowhere left to push out to - on the eve of the Space Age. They had the opposite kind of problem then. But by the time the frontiers were open again - wide open - men had got too comfortable. And that was infinitely worse. Because it seemed there was nothing that could be done about it. If there’s a pressure it will eventually break out. But how to create a pressure when none exists?
‘They tried selling the idea of colonisation. That wasn’t successful enough. Money, status, meant nothing to people because they didn’t see the colony worlds as places where they could enjoy either. Oh, we could always get the wrong types, the ones who couldn’t make a go of things here and couldn’t on any other world. No, it was ordinary people like the Trendalls that were needed out there.
‘Now, we had the know-how to make your kind - but to what end?
Then somebody had the idea. This idea. You see, Eddie your job wasn’t really to adjust to people - it was to disadjust them. Not so much your finishing course as their starting course.’
* * * *
Eddie got up and looked out of the plexiglass windows. The Trendalls had been swallowed up in the ship. Now the massive port was closing on them.
‘But what will they think? Of me? My kind? Couldn’t I even have said goodbye to them?’
The official laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Believe me, this is the best way. There’s a note on board for them from the Bank, making excuses. They’ve only signed on for a three-year term to begin with, anyway. And they won’t have any regrets, I know that.’
Bells rang stridently, once, twice. It was the departure signal. The ship began to glow greenly as the drive generators started up.
Eddie’s throat felt suddenly tight. ‘But why couldn’t I have gone with them?’
The official smiled. The ship was lifting now.
‘Because you’re too valuable, son. Look at that ship. You cost considerably more than that did. And you’re considerably more important. You’ve notched the first score in the campaign - one out of one, a hundred per cent so far. If we can keep up that record well soon have enough people out there to make the colonies self-sufficient. By that time your job will be done. You’ll be free to join your friends out there if you want. And the ones that come after.’
The great ship was suspended fifty feet up now, supported in a green glowing web. Then, so fast that the eye could not catch it, it was gone, leaving only a red after-image that soon died.
Eddie stood there, feeling that a piece of him had died too, gone with the Trendalls out beyond the daylight of this world, out into the black distances. Would it always be like this, a piece of him dying every time?
The official had said that next time it would be better. But would it, now. that he knew his purpose? Wouldn’t it be all the harder? And he realised now just how much more he had to learn - that for him, as for the Trendalls, the starting course had only just begun.
* * * *
KENNETH BULMER: Advertise Your
Cyanide
One of the mainstays of the British magazines throughout the 1950s was Kenneth Bulmer. As a rule Bulmer concentrated on the longer stories, in fact he does not consider himself a short story writer. He prefers the length of a novel which allows him space to develop his characters and his often bizarre themes.
Henry Kenneth Bulmer was born in London on January 14th, 1921, and was an avid sf fan from his early days producing seven issues of his own fanzine Star Parade during 1941. Then Bulmer became entangled in the war, in the Royal Corps of Signals, but afterwards returned to the sf fold. After an apprenticeship on the Panther series of sf novels for Hamilton’s, Bulmer sold a short story, First Down, to Authentic and it appeared in the April 1954 issue. Thereafter he appeared regularly in the magazines, under his own name and a few aliases like Nelson Sherwood and H Philip Stratford. Also he collaborated on scientific articles with research chemist John Newman under the name Kenneth Johns.
In 1970 Bulmer edited a fantasy companion magazine to Vision of Tomorrow, called Sword and Sorcery, but after two issues were set in type the magazine was aborted because of the crippling distribution problems which also killed Vision. Most of the unused material was snapped up by other magazines and the experience stood Bulmer in good stead. Today he successfully edits the original anthology series New Writings in SF, which he took over after John Carnell’s death in 1972.
Readers of New Writings 24 will have noticed Ken Bulmer drew attention to a story Advertise Your Cyanide in his introduction. That story first appeared in the April 1958 Nebula, a magazine edited and published single-handedly by Glasgow fan Peter Hamilton. The drive and tenacity of Hamilton produced a highly memorable and exciting (if amateurish looking) magazine that often contained superior fiction to New Worlds and the other publications. Hamilton produced the magazine frequently if sometimes erratically, from 1952 to 1959 when, after 41 issues, everything finally became too much. Thereupon Hamilton disappeared from the scene, and I sincerely hope that if he is reading this he will contact me. Nebula is a suitable monument to the memory of what one man can do for science fiction and it is fitting that its shade should be invoked by Advertise Your Cyanide, undoubtedly one of the finest stories it ever published.
Ken Bulmer had the following to relate about the tale:
‘The origins of this story may be traced back to Manhattan and a New York newspaper. It is one of the results of the USA’s sledgehammer effect on my sensibilities. In addition the disquieting facts being turned up during the course of my work as ‘Kenneth Johns’ gave the background story to the foreground action racketing away. The newspaper claimed that as so many million more mouths would have to be fed, and bodies clothed and housed and provided with wheels, in the near future, mammoth building programmes were under way for the wholesale production of every conceivable product. The disquieting facts were showing that there was a limit to certain commodities.
‘All this now screeches at us from every form of media, and in fact has almost been oversold. Back twenty years it was not fashionable.
‘The form of the story is presented in a way that is now remarkably familiar to the many New Wave stories of a few years ago. This presentation was a conscious attempt, given that form and content are indivisible, to make the form work hard and punch home the content. The story was written in 1955 and took some time to sell. I concur with the preceding remarks about Nebula. One reader wrote to Peter Hamilton saying I was either a madman or a genius. Peter was considerate in his reply. Now, in these latter days, the form as well as the content has perhaps been oversold.
‘One final thing: Advertise Your Cyanide - there may be a sequel one day called Hoard Your Psionide - remains firmly in the sf canon. It deals with specific problems that are within the province of sf. I also write funny stories, too. You may find many rewarding stories covering the whole gamut of sf within the pages of New Writings in SF. I like to think, had I been editing NWinSF then, I’d have had Peter Hamilton’s courage and accepted Advertise Your Cyanide.
* * * *
ADVERTISE YOUR CYANIDE
Kenneth Bulmer
Time: 2100.
The porage flooded into his forearm vein with its usual high-kick bloating impact. That was better! Now he could hit the sky! The needle dangled from his fingers.
Consider this man.
Index: T/A/77894S.
Name: Spencer Lord.
Age: 32. Height: 179 cms. Hair: Black. Eyes: Brown. Ex-Captain Terran Space Force. Athletic. First class shot. Twice wounded. Decorations: Gold Star, Space Cross. Security Risk Rating AAA. Terran Secret Service Operative.
The paper was yellow, thin, official. You ate it when you’d read it.
From: Security Bureau.
To: Op.K.2.
Subject: Sahndran Ambassador. Coverage and Protection Advert. Convention.
You will protect the life of His Excellency Josiah Gosheron at all times during the convention. His Excellency must not rpt not be aware of this protection. You will rpt will consider yourself expendable.
Bolz.
Lord put the needle back into its nest and thrust the plastic case on to the dressing table. The lightning pulsing through his body ironed out the shivers. He ate the yellow message form.
STAB WITH ME,
JAB WITH ME,
COME ON, BABY, GRAB WITH ME!
Lord blinked, pulled on his weapons belt, adjusted his anti-grav and flung his huge synthiermine cape over one arm. His stiff, jewelled guantlets snapped magnetically to the over-cape’s garish hem, ready for use. Expendable, huh? So he was supposed to worry?
He opened the window.
Predatory jungle of light and noise and smell. Neons and lumivapour writhing intestinal convulsions across a slate dinosaur-back horizon. Inside out. Screeching beast-hum of the city; pulsing colour and movement; insistent scraping at nerves deadened and excrutiatingly excited by drugs in pain-pleasure cycles.
The world of logical licence. Culture-arid. Scrabbling up a side-avenue of time, self-consciously aware of know-how, worshipping it, refusing to face life and hurrying helter-skelter into experience
SCOOT WITH ME ON MY ATOMIC-SLED,
ROOT AND TOOT AND SLIDE TO BED!
Consider the past years.
The middle period of the twentieth century put the waste of the planet’s resources on an organised footing. By that time America had used up in the preceding half-century more raw materials than had all of recorded history. One family - two cars. A spoonful of coffee - use a tree trunk to wrap it. A pack of cigarettes - use two tree trunks. Smooch in the Drive-In burn a few gallons of gas, they’re cheap. Mine the iron, mine the rare metals, process them, turn them into guns and planes and tanks. Let them rust into red wasteful ruin. Cut those trees, men; dig that ore. We won’t freeze, men; there’s plenty more.
Only there wasn’t.
Lord stepped smartly off the windowsill, dropped a sheer hundred stories, then activated his anti-grav belt and swept up and away, relishing that first delirious plunge. He headed over the scarlet-lipped neon of a nude a block wide. She puffed smoke in sulphurous clouds, perfect ring after perfect ring. Her wooden framework was half charred away.
CLEAR THAT BLOCK AND BE A CLEAR,
BLOCK THAT CLEAR AND BE A DEAR.
Cut through the ring of smoke like a shot from a gun in Security HQ
target range, spurn that dust, hit the clouds. His Excellency Josiah Gosheron. He savoured the name sourly. The damned old Terran hater. Another all night assignment and Katy on the loose. This convention promised to be dull, too - until you thought about it.
He was speeding above the city now, the wind slapping at his stator field and rushing past his ears. Other citizens sliced across on the downtown levels. Their lights were like frenetic dances of doom, writhing before some obscene idol in a torch-lit temple. Which reminded him of Katy.
She might make it to the convention, she’d said. She might be tippling with some half-crazy spacemen. She might be parading that body of hers on tridi. She might be doing anything. Lord bet a million credits she wasn’t thinking of him. The knowledge was an ice-barb in his guts.
Time: 2114.
He slanted in towards the hotel rooftop, where uniformed lackeys stood with magnetoclamps, waiting for outer clothing and hand luggage from guests.
All across the horizon in an unvarying arc marched the squat gloomy bulks of the accumulator stations, waiting insatiably for the energy to quench their bottomless thirst. Now they were giving of their stored wealth, providing the sustenance for a night’s squandering. Lord angled his downward plunge to miss the stacked solar mirrors on the hotel’s roof and hoped that tomorrow would be fine: the city’s power supply was down to danger level and if storm clouds banked heavily tomorrow it might cost more in weather control than would be got out of the sun when it reluctantly appeared.
His feet hit the wooden roof with a jolt. Damn porage wasn’t spreading evenly yet: his reflexes were still slightly out of skew. If Katy was here he’d find her. Gosheron permitting. Lord began to walk across the roof towards the attendants.
Get the old Terran hater drunk; that was the idea. Souse him, douse him, light and louse him. Lord smiled and flung his cape at the attendants. His fingers twitched. He needed a drink.
HIT THAT SYNAPSE WITH A WHIZ,