Nightmares & Geezenstacks (7 page)

She had been frightened, badly frightened, ever since her father had given her in marriage to the strange big man with the bright beard.

There was something so—so sinister about him, about his great strength, about his hawklike eyes and the way they watched her. And there was that rumor—but of course it was only a rumor—that he’d had other wives and that nobody knew what had happened to them. And there was that strange business of the closet which he had warned her that she must never enter or even look into.

Until today she had obeyed him—especially after she had tried the door of the closet and found that it was kept locked.

But now she stood in front of it with the key, or what she felt sure was the key, in her hand. It was a key she had found only an hour ago in her husband’s den; it had no doubt dropped from one of his pockets, and it looked just the right size for the keyhole of the door to the forbidden closet.

She tried it now and it was the right key; the door opened. Inside the closet was—not what she had, however subconsciously, feared to find, but something more bewildering. Bank upon bank of what looked like tremendously complicated electronic equipment.

“Well, my dear,” said a sardonic voice from just behind her, “do you know what it is?”

She whirled to face her husband. “Why-I think it’s—it looks like—”

“Exactly, my dear: It’s a radio, but an extremely powerful one which can transmit and receive over interplanetary distances. With it I can and do communicate with the planet Venus. You see, my dear, I am a Venusian.”

“But I don’t under—”

“You don’t have to understand, but I may as well tell you—now. I am a Venusian spy, advance guard, as it were, for a pending invasion of Earth. What did you think? That my beard is blue and that you would find a closet of murdered former wives? I know that you are color-blind, but surely your father told you my beard is red?”

“Of course, but—”

“But your father was wrong. He saw it as red, since whenever I leave the house I dye my hair and beard red, with an easily removable dye. At home, however, I prefer to have it its natural color, which is green. That is why I chose a color-blind wife, since she would not notice the difference,

“That is why all of my wives have been chosen, because they were color-blind.” He sighed deeply. “Alas, regardless of the color of my beard, sooner or later each one of them became too curious, too inquisitive, as you have. But I do not keep them in a closet; they are all buried in the cellar.”

His terribly strong hand closed about her upper arm.

“Come, my dear, and I will show you their graves.”

“Walter, what’s a Jaycee?” Mrs. Ralston asked her husband, Dr. Ralston, across the breakfast table.

“Why—I believe it used to be a member of what they called a Junior Chamber of Commerce. I don’t know if they still have them or not. Why?”

“Martha said Henry was muttering something yesterday about Jaycees, fifty million Jaycees. And swore at her when she asked what he meant.” Martha was Mrs. Graham and Henry her husband, Dr. Graham. They lived next door and the two doctors and their wives were close friends.

“Fifty million,” said Dr. Ralston musingly. “That’s how many parthies there are.”

He should have known; he and Dr. Graham together were responsible for parthies—parthenogenetic births. Twenty years ago, in 1980, they had together engineered the first experiment in human parthenogenesis, the fertilization of a female cell without the help of a male one. The offspring of that experiment, named John, was now twenty years old and lived with Dr. and Mrs. Graham next door; he had been adopted by them after the death of his mother in an accident some years before.

No other parthie was more than half John’s age. Not until John was ten, and obviously healthy and normal, had the authorities let down bars and permitted any woman who wanted a child and who was either single or married to a sterile husband to have a child parthenogenetically. Due to the shortage of men—the disastrous testerosis epidemic of the 1970s had just killed off almost a third of the male population of the world—over fifty million women had applied for parthenogenetic children and borne them. Luckily for redressing the balance of the sexes, it had turned out that all parthenogenetically conceived children were males.

“Martha thinks,” said Mrs. Ralston, “that Henry’s worrying about John, but she can’t think why. He’s such a
good
boy.”

Dr. Graham suddenly and without knocking burst into the room. His face was white and his eyes wide as he stared at his colleague. “I was right,” he said.

“Right about what?”

“About John. I didn’t tell anyone, but do you know what he did when we ran out of drinks at the party last night?”

Dr. Ralston frowned. “Changed water into wine?”

“Into gin; we were having martinis. And just now he left to go water skiing—and he isn’t taking any water skis. Told me that with faith he wouldn’t need them.”

“Oh,
no
,” said Dr. Ralston. He dropped his head into his hands.

Once
before in history there’d been a virgin birth. Now fifty million virgin-born boys were growing up. In ten more years there’d be fifty million—Jaycees.

“
No
,” sobbed Dr. Ralston, “
no!
”

Dhar Ry sat alone in his room, meditating. From outside the door he caught a thought wave equivalent to a knock, and, glancing at the door, he willed it to slide open. It slid open. “Enter, my friend,” he said. He could have projected the idea telepathically, but with only two persons present, speech was more polite.

Ejon Khee entered. “You are up late tonight, my leader,” he said.

“Yes, Khee. Within an hour the Earth rocket is due to land, and I wish to see it. Yes, I know, it will land a thousand miles away, if their calculations are correct. Beyond the horizon. But if it lands even twice that far the flash of the atomic explosion should be visible, and I have waited long for first contact. For even though no Earthman will be on that rocket, it will still be first contact—for them. Of course our telepath teams have been reading their thoughts for many centuries, but—this will be the first
physical
contact between Mars and Earth.”

Khee made himself comfortable in one of the low chairs. “True,” he said. “I have not followed recent reports too closely, though. Why are they using an atomic warhead? I know they think our planet is probably uninhabited, but still—”

“They will watch the flash through their lunar telescopes and get a—what do they call it?—a spectroscopic analysis, which will tell them more than they know now (or think they know; much of it is erroneous) about the atmosphere of our planet and the composition of its surface. It is—call it a sighting shot, Khee. They’ll be here in person within a few oppositions. And then—”

Mars was holding out, waiting for Earth to come. What was left of Mars, that is; this one small city of about nine hundred beings. The civilization of Mars was older than that of Earth, but it was a dying one. This was what remained of it, one city, nine hundred people. They were waiting for Earth to make contact, for a selfish reason and for an unselfish one.

Martian civilization had developed in a quite different direction from that of Earth. It had developed no important knowledge of the physical sciences, no technology. But it had developed social sciences to the point where there had not been a single crime, let alone a war, on Mars for fifty thousand years. And it had developed fully the parapsychological sciences, the sciences of the mind, that Earth was just beginning to discover.

Mars could teach Earth much. How to avoid crime and war, two simple things, to begin with. Beyond those simple things, telepathy, telekinesis, empathy…

And Earth would, Mars hoped, teach them something even more valuable to Mars: how, by science and technology—which it was too late for Mars to develop now, even if they had the type of minds which would enable them to develop these things—to restore and rehabilitate a dying planet, so that an otherwise dying race might live and multiply again. Each planet would gain greatly, and neither would lose.

And tonight was the night when Earth would make its first contact, a sighting shot. Its next shot, a rocket containing Earthmen or at least an Earthman, would be at the next opposition, two Earth years, or roughly four Martian years, hence. The Martians knew this because their teams of telepaths were able to catch at least some of the thoughts of Earthmen, enough to know their plans. Unfortunately, at that distance, the connection was one-way and Mars could not ask Earth to hurry its program. Or tell Earth scientists the facts about Mars’ composition and atmosphere which would have made this preliminary shot unnecessary.

Tonight Ry, the leader (as nearly as the Martian word can be translated), and Khee, his administrative assistant and closest friend, sat and meditated together until the time was near. Then they drank a toast to the future—in a beverage based on menthol, which had the same effect on Martians as alcohol on Earthmen—and climbed to the roof of the building in which they had been sitting. They watched toward the north, where the rocket should land. The stars shone brilliantly through the thin atmosphere…

In Observatory No. 1 on Earth’s moon, Rog Everett, his eye at the eyepiece of the spotter scope, said triumphantly, “Thar she blew, Willie. And now, as soon as the films are developed, we’ll know the score on that old planet Mars.”

He straightened up—there’d be no more to see now—and he and Willie Sanger shook hands solemnly; it was a historical occasion.

“Hope it didn’t kill anybody. Any Martians, that is. Rog, did it hit dead center in Syrtis Major?”

“Near as matters. The pix will show exactly but I’d say it was maybe a thousand miles off, to the south. And that’s damn close on a fifty-million-mile shot. Willie, do you really think there are any Martians?”

Willie thought a second and then said, “No.”

Willie was right.

Garn Roberts, also known—but only to the Galactic Federation’s top security officers—as Secret Agent K-1356, was sleeping in his one-man spaceship which was coasting at fourteen light-years an hour on automatics two hundred and six light-years from Earth. A bell rang, instantly awakening him. He hurried to the telecom and turned it on. The face of Daunen Brand, Special Assistant to the President of the Federation, sprang onto the screen, and Brand’s voice came from the speaker.

“K-1356, I have an assignment for you. Do you know the sun called Novra, in the constellation—”

“Yes,” Roberts said quickly; communication at this distance was wasteful power, especially on tight beam, and he wanted to save the Special Assistant all the time he could.

“Good. Do you know its planetary system?”

“I’ve never been there. I know Novra has two inhabited planets, that’s all.”

“Right. The inner planet is inhabited by a humanoid race, not too far from ours. The outer planet is inhabited by a race who are outwardly similar to terrestrial horses except that they have a third pair of limbs which terminate in hands, which has enabled them to reach a fairly high state of civilization. Their name for themselves is unpronounceable for Earthmen, so we call them simply the Horses. They know the derivation of the name, but don’t mind; they’re not sensitive that way.”

“Yes, sir,” said Roberts, as Brand paused.

“Both races have space travel, although not the faster-than-light interstellar drive. Between the two planets—you can look up the names and co-ordinates in the star guide—is an asteroid belt similar to that of the solar system, but even more extensive, the residue of the break-up of a large planet that had once had its orbit between the orbits of the two inhabited planets.

“Neither inhabited planet has much in the way of minerals; the asteroids are rich with them and are the major source of supply for both planets. A hundred years ago they went to war over this, and the Galactic Federation arbitrated the war and ended it by getting both races, the Humanoids and the Horses, to agree that one individual of either race could stake claim, for his lifetime, to one asteroid and only one asteroid.”

“Yes, sir. I remember reading about it in Galactic history.”

“Excellent. Here is the problem. We have a complaint from the Humanoids claiming that the Horses are breaking this treaty, claiming asteroids under false names of nonexistent Horses in order to get more than their share of the minerals.

“Your orders: Land on the Horses’ planet. Use your trader identity; it will not be suspect since many traders go there. They are friendly; you’ll have no trouble. You’ll be welcome as a trader from Earth. You are to prove or disprove the assertion of the Humanoids that the Horses are violating the treaty by staking claims to more asteroids than their numbers justify.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will report back to me by tight beam as soon as you have accomplished your mission and left the planet.”

The screen went blank. Garn Roberts consulted his guides and charts, reset the automatic controls and went back to his bunk to resume his interrupted sleep.

A week later, when he had accomplished his mission and was a safe ten light-years out from the Novra system, he sent a tight-beam signal to the Special Assistant to the President of the Galactic Federation, and in minutes Daunen Brand’s face appeared on the screen of the telecom.

“K-1356 reporting on the Novra situation, sir,” Garn Roberts said. “I managed to get access to the census statistics of the Horses; they number a little over two million. Then I checked the claims of the Horses to Asteroids; they have filed claims on almost four million of them. It is obvious that the Humanoids are right and that the Horses are violating the treaty.

“Otherwise, why are there so many more Horses’ asteroids than there are Horses?”

He lived in a hut on the side of a mountain. Often he would climb to the peak and look down into the valley. His red sandals were drops of blood upon the snow of the peak.

In the valley people lived and died. He watched them.

He saw the clouds that drifted over the peak. The clouds took strange shapes. At times they were ships or castles or horses. More often they were strange things never seen by anyone save him, and he had seen them only ill his dreams. Yet in the strange shapes of drifting clouds he recognized them.

Standing alone in the doorway of his hut, he always watched the sun spring from the dew of earth. In the valley they had told him that the sun did not rise but that the earth was round like an orange and turned so that every morning the burning sun seemed to leap into the sky.

He had asked them why the earth revolved and why the sun burned and why they did not fall from the earth when it turned upside down. He had been told that it was so today because it had been so yesterday and the day that was before yesterday, and because things never changed. They could not tell him why things never changed.

At night he looked at the stars and at the lights of the valley. At curfew the lights of the valley vanished, but the stars did not vanish. They were too far to hear the curfew bell.

There was a bright star. Every third night it hung low just above the snow-covered peak of the mountain, and he would climb to the peak and talk to it. The star never replied.

He counted time by the star and by the three days of its progress. Three days made a week. To the people of the valley, seven days made a week. They had never dreamed of the land of Saarba where water flows upstream, where the leaves of trees burn with a bright blue flame and are not consumed, and where three days make a week.

Once a year he went down into the valley. He talked with people, and sometimes he would dream for them. They called him a prophet, but the small children threw sticks at him. He did not like children, for in their faces he could see written the evil that they were to live.

It has been a year since he had last been to the valley, and he left his hut and went down the mountain. He went to the market and talked to people, but no one spoke to him or looked at him. He shouted but they did not reply.

He reached with his hand to touch a market woman upon the shoulder to arrest her attention, but the hand passed through the woman’s shoulder and the woman walked on. He knew then that he had died within the past year.

He returned to the mountain. Beside the path he saw a thing that lay where once he had fallen and had risen and walked on. He turned when he reached the doorway of his hut, and saw the people of the valley carrying away the thing which he had passed. They dug a grave in the earth and buried the thing.

The days passed.

From the doorway of his hut he watched the clouds drift by the mountain. The clouds took strange shapes. At times they were birds or swords or elephants. More often they were strange things never seen save by him. He had dreamed of seeing them in the land of Saarba where bread is made of stardust, where sixteen pounds make an ounce, and where. clocks run backward after dark.

Two women climbed the mountain and walked through him into the hut. They looked about them.

—They be nothing here, said the elder of the women. —Where might be his sandals, I ken not.

—Go ye back, said the younger woman. —Late it grows. Come sunrise, I will find they.

—Be ye not afraid?

—The shepherd cares for his sheep, said the young woman.

The older woman trudged down the path into the valley. Darkness fell, and the younger lighted a candle. She !r seemed afraid of the darkness.

He watched her, but she saw him not. Her hair, he saw, was black as night, and her eyes were large and lustrous, but her ankles were thick.

She removed her garments and lay upon the bed. In sleep, she tossed uneasily, and the blanket slipped to the floor. The candle still burned upon the table.

The light of the candle flame fell upon a small black crucifix that lay in the white hollow between her breasts. It rose and fell.

He heard the curfew bell and knew that it was time to go to the top of the peak, for it was the third night.

Upon the mountain had descended a storm. The wind shrieked about the hut but the woman did not awaken.

He went’ out into the storm. The wind was cruel as never before. The hand of fear gripped his heart. Yet the star was waiting.

The cold grew more intense, the night blacker. A blanket of snow drifted over the mountain, covering the spot where he fell.

In the morning the woman found the red sandals in the thawing snow and took them back to the valley.

—A strange dream I had, said the elder woman. —A man writhed on a cross.

The younger woman crossed herself. —The Christus?

—Not, said the elderly woman. —Shouted he about Saarba and oblivion.

—I ken them not, said the younger woman. —They be no such places.

—That shouted he, said the elder. —Remember I now.

—La, laughed the younger woman. —Dreams be only dreams. Things what be be and things what be not be not.

—So, said the elder. She shrugged.

Clouds take strange shapes. At times they are wagons or swans or trees. More often they are strange things never seen save in the land of Saarba.

Clouds are impersonal. They drift by an empty peak as readily.