Assignment in Tomorrow

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  ASSIGNMENT

  IN TOMORROW

  Edited

  and with an introduction by

  Frederik Pohl

  A rocketing voyage into the worlds of tomorrow, this new anthology brings together a short novel, three novelettes, and twelve short stories. Such top-flight authors as Ray Bradbury, Fletcher Pratt, H.L. Gold, and C.M. Kornbluth give a provocative preview of a future of unpredictable robots, supersonic speeds, and exploration of strange worlds in stranger machines—of the worlds that lie just beyond the horizons of our imagination. But this is not a mere collection of gimmick tales. Concerned rather with the plight of man trying to survive in an ever-more-complicated world, these ingenious tales range from the powerful and tense account of a man who could not resist his destructive urge to power, to the tale of an interplanetary hobo in search of a shot of whiskey. From the question of what forms the devil might assume to the horrors wreaked by a manufactured philosopher-king, here is an exciting, often amusing, and always entertaining sampling of speculation on the worlds to come.

  Assignment in Tomorrow

  AN ANTHOLOGY

  EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

  Frederik Pohl

  HANOVER HOUSE, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 54-9852

  Copyright, 1954, by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved

  Printed in the United States

  First Edition

  Contents

  Theodore Sturgeon MR. COSTELLO, HERO

  Jerome Bixby ANGELS IN THE JETS

  C.M. Kornbluth THE ADVENTURER

  Ray Bradbury SUBTERFUGE

  Lester del Rey HELEN O’LOY

  Alfred Bester 5,271,009

  Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. THE BIG TRIP UP YONDER

  James H. Schmitz WE DON’T WANT ANY TROUBLE

  Jack Williamson THE PEDDLER’S NOSE

  Algis Budrys THE FRIGHTENED TREE

  H.L. Gold A MATTER OF FORM

  Richard Wilson BACK TO JULIE

  Peter Phillips SHE WHO LAUGHS . . .

  Fletcher Pratt OFFICIAL RECORD

  Fredric Brown HALL OF MIRRORS

  Philip Jose Farmer Mother

  Introduction

  This marks the third time that I have had the pleasure of casting a net into a sea of science-fiction magazines, seining out the pick of the stories to make into an anthology. Each time it has seemed that this was the last, best catch of all—and, each time, no sooner was a selection made than a dozen new stories bobbed to the surface, each so handsome and attractive that it was obviously a crime to have left it out.

  There was once a time when, as part of my job, I had to read at least an occasional issue of almost every magazine in the country which published fiction. I read big magazines and little ones, magazines printed on the shiniest of paper and magazines printed on ragged pulp. There were occasional good stories in magazines of every variety, stories which showed talent and creative imagination and skill.

  And an astonishing number of the very best stories of all were in the magazines called “science-fiction pulps.”

  It takes talent to write a good science-fiction story. Not every writer can do it; and those who can ordinarily can master just about any other field they try. The sixteen writers in this book, for instance, are right at the top of the science-fiction field; but if their science-fiction stories had never been written, you would still know Fletcher Pratt for his histories, Fredric Brown for his mysteries, Alfred Bester for his brilliant “straight” novel Who He?, and many of the others—Bradbury, Vonnegut, and Gold, to name but three—for their frequent contributions to the mass-circulation slick magazines. Were their science-fiction writings abolished, you might not know the names of C. M. Kombluth and Lester del Rey—but you would know their work; for both have a healthy library of “straight” short stories and novels in print under pen names.

  As long as skillful practitioners like these are using the science-fiction magazines to give the rest of us a glimpse of their private wonderlands, there is small danger that anthologists will run out of first-rate stories to put in their books. You can’t fish the sea out—it keeps replenishing itself.

  Science fiction is fun. It’s fun to write (which is why men like these keep at it); and it’s fun to read—but that you can see for yourself in the sixteen stories which follow. They are perhaps not the most significant, the most world-shaking, the most unforgettable stories ever to appear; they are merely sixteen science-fiction stories which I have enjoyed reading very, very much. I hope you will like them as well.

  It would have been impossible to assemble this book without help from many sources; but a particular debt of gratitude exists to Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, for gracefully waiving prior claims; to Horace Gold, for first bringing to light nearly half the stories included (and for having written one of the best!); and to all the other editors, the writers, and their agents whose names cannot be listed but whose help was indispensable.

  —Frederik Pohl

  Assignment in Tomorrow

  THEODORE STURGEON

  Once upon a time there was a young man named Theodore Sturgeon. He thought he might be a writer, so he sat down and wrote It, Killdozer, Microcosmic God, and a dozen other stories that made editors rejoice and other science-fiction writers beat their wives. Having made his point, he went on to fresh glories in advertising and in television; but public pressure dragged him back and chained him to a typewriter in a Hudson River hamlet where, surrounded by an armed guard of science-fiction fans and publishers’ representatives, he is compelled to cut and polish a daily quota of gems of science-fiction like——

  Mr. Costello, Hero

  “Come in, Purser. And shut the door.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” The Skipper never invited anyone in—not to his quarters. His office, yes, but not here.

  He made an abrupt gesture, and I came in and closed the door. It was about as luxurious as a compartment on a spaceship can get. I tried not to goggle at it as if it was the first time I had ever seen it, just because it was the first time I had ever seen it.

  I sat down.

  He opened his mouth, closed it, forced the tip of his tongue through his thin lips. He licked them and glared at me. I’d never seen the Iron Man like this. I decided that the best thing to say would be nothing, which is what I said.

  He pulled a deck of cards out of the top-middle drawer and slid them across the desk. “Deal.”

  I said, “I b——”

  “And don’t say you beg my pardon!” he exploded.

  Well, all right. If the Skipper wanted a cozy game of gin rummy to while away the parsecs, far be it from me to . . . I shuffled. Six years under this cold-blooded, fish-eyed automatic computer with eyebrows, and this was the first time that he——

  “Deal,” he said. I looked up at him. “Draw, five-card draw. You do play draw poker, don’t you, Purser?”

  “Yes, sir.” I dealt and put down the pack. I had three threes and a couple of court cards. The Skipper scowled at his hand and threw down two. He glared at me again.

  I said, “I got three of a kind, sir.”

  He let his cards go as if they no longer existed, slammed out of his chair and turned his back to me. He tilted his head back and stared up at the see-it-all, with its complex of speed, time, position and distance-run coordinates. Borinquen, our destination planet, was at spitting distance—only a day or so off—and Earth was a long, long way beh
ind. I heard a sound and dropped my eyes. The Skipper’s hands were locked behind him, squeezed together so hard that they crackled.

  “Why didn’t you draw?” he grated.

  “I beg your——”

  “When I played poker—and I used to play a hell of a lot of poker—as I recall it, the dealer would find out how many cards each player wanted after the deal and give him as many as he discarded. Did you ever hear of that, Purser?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “You did.” He turned around. I imagine he had been scowling this same way at the see-it-all, and I wondered why it was he hadn’t shattered the cover glass.

  “Why, then, Purser,” he demanded, “did you show your three of a kind without discarding, without drawing—without, mister, asking me how many cards I might want?”

  I thought about it. “I—we—I mean, sir, we haven’t been playing poker that way lately.”

  “You’ve been playing poker without drawing!” He sat down again and beamed that glare at me again. “And who changed the rules?”

  “I don’t know, sir. We just—that’s the way we’ve been playing.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Now tell me something, Purser.

  How much time did you spend in the galley during the last watch?”

  “About an hour, sir.”

  “About an hour.”

  “Well, sir,” I explained hurriedly, “it was my turn.”

  He said nothing, and it suddenly occurred to me that these galley-watches weren’t in the ship’s orders.

  I said quickly, “It isn’t against your orders to stand such a watch, is it, sir?”

  “No,” he said, “it isn’t.” His voice was so gentle, it was ugly. “Tell me, Purser, doesn’t Cooky mind these galley-watches?”

  “Oh no, sir! He’s real pleased about it.” I knew he was thinking about the size of the galley. It was true that two men made quite a crowd in a place like that. I said, “That way, he knows everybody can trust him.”

  “You mean that way you know he won’t poison you.”

  “Well-yes, sir.”

  “And tell me,” he said, his voice even gentler, “who suggested he might poison you?”

  “I really couldn’t say, Captain. It’s just sort of something that came up. Cooky doesn’t mind,” I added. “If he’s watched all the time, he knows nobody’s going to suspect him. It’s all right.”

  Again he repeated my words. “It’s all right.” I wished he wouldn’t, I wished he’d stop looking at me like that. “How long,” he asked, “has it been customary for the deck-officer to bring a witness with him when he takes over the watch?”

  “I really couldn’t say, sir. That’s out of my department.”

  “You couldn’t say. Now think hard, Purser. Did you ever stand galley-watches, or see deck-officers bring witnesses with them when they relieve the bridge, or see draw poker played without drawing—before this trip?”

  “Well, no sir. I don’t think I have. I suppose we just never thought of it before.”

  “We never had Mr. Costello as a passenger before, did we?”

  “No, sir.”

  I thought for a moment he was going to say something else, but he didn’t, just: “Very well, Purser. That will be all.”

  I went out and started back aft, feeling puzzled and sort of upset. The Skipper didn’t have to hint things like that about Mr. Costello. Mr. Costello was a very nice man. Once, the Skipper had picked a fight with Mr. Costello. They’d shouted at each other in the dayroom. That is, the Skipper had shouted—Mr. Costello never did. Mr. Costello was as good-natured as they come. A big good-natured soft-spoken man, with the kind of face they call open. Open and honest. He’d once been a Triumver back on Earth—the youngest ever appointed, they said.

  You wouldn’t think such an easygoing man was as smart as that. Triumvers are usually lifetime appointees, but Mr. Costello wasn’t satisfied. Had to keep moving, you know. Learning all the time, shaking hands all around, staying close to the people. He loved people.

  I don’t know why the Skipper couldn’t get along with him. Everybody else did. And besides—Mr. Costello didn’t play poker; why should he care one way or the other how we played it? He didn’t eat the galley food—he had his own stock in his cabin—so what difference would it make to him if the cook poisoned anyone? Except, of course, that he cared about us. People—he liked people.

  Anyway, it’s better to play poker without the draw. Poker’s a good game with a bad reputation. And where do you suppose it gets the bad reputation? From cheaters. And how do people cheat at poker? Almost never when they deal. It’s when they pass out cards after the discard. That’s when a shady dealer knows what he holds, and he knows what to give the others so he can win. All right, remove the discard and you remove nine-tenths of the cheaters. Remove the cheaters and the honest men can trust each other.

  That’s what Mr. Costello used to say, anyhow. Not that he cared one way or the other for himself. He wasn’t a gambling man.

  I went into the dayroom and there was Mr. Costello with the Third Officer. He gave me a big smile and a wave, so I went over.

  “Come on, sit down, Purser,” he said. “I’m landing tomorrow. Won’t have much more chance to talk to you.”

  I sat down. The Third snapped shut a book he’d been holding open on the table and sort of got it out of sight.

  Mr. Costello laughed at him. “Go ahead, Third, show the Purser. You can trust him—he’s a good man. I’d be proud to be shipmates with the Purser.”

  The Third hesitated and then raised the book from his lap. It was the Space Code and expanded Rules of the Road. Every licensed officer has to bone up on it a lot, to get his license. But it’s not the kind of book you ordinarily kill time with.

  “The Third here was showing me all about what a captain can and can’t do,” said Mr. Costello.

  “Well, you asked me to,” the Third said.

  “Now just a minute,” said Mr. Costello rapidly, “now just a minute.” He had a way of doing that sometimes. It was part of him, like the thinning hair on top of his head and the big smile and the way he had of cocking his head to one side and asking you what it was you just said, as if he didn’t hear so well. “Now just a minute, you wanted to show me this material, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, Mr. Costello,” the Third said.

  “You’re going over the limitations of a spacemaster’s power of your own free will, aren’t you?”

  “Well,” said the Third, “I guess so. Sure.”

  “Sure,” Mr. Costello repeated happily. “Tell the Purser the part you just read to me.”

  “The one you found in the book?”

  “You know the one. You read it out your own self, didn’t you?”

  “Oh,” said the Third. He looked at me—sort of uneasily, I thought—and reached for the book.

  Mr. Costello put his hand on it. “Oh, don’t bother looking it up,” he said. “You can remember it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” the Third admitted. “It’s a sort of safeguard against letting a skipper’s power go to his head, in case it ever does. Suppose a time comes when a captain begins to act up, and the crew gets the idea that a lunatic has taken over the bridge. Well, something has to be done about it. The crew has the power to appoint one officer and send him up to the Captain for an accounting. If the Skipper refuses, or if the crew doesn’t like his accounting, then they have the right to confine him to his quarters and take over the ship.”

  “I think I heard about that,” I said. “But the Skipper has rights, too. I mean the crew has to report everything by space-radio the second it happens, and then the Captain has a full hearing along with the crew at the next port.”

  Mr. Costello looked at us and shook his big head, full of admiration. When Mr. Costello thought you were good, it made you feel good all over.

  The Third looked at his watch and got up. “I got to relieve the bridge. Want to come along, Purser?”

  �
��I’d like to talk to him for a while,” Mr. Costello said. “Do you suppose you could get somebody else for a witness?”

  “Oh, sure, if you say so,” said the Third.

  “But you’re going to get someone.”

  “Absolutely,” said the Third.

  “Safest ship I was ever on,” said Mr. Costello. “Gives a fellow a nice feeling to know that the watch is never going to get the orders wrong.”

  I thought so myself and wondered why we never used to do it before. I watched the Third leave and stayed where I was, feeling good, feeling safe, feeling glad that Air. Costello wanted to talk to me. And me just a Purser, him an ex-Triumver.

  Mr. Costello gave me the big smile. He nodded toward the door. “That young fellow’s going far. A good man. You’re all good men here.” He stuck a sucker-cup in the heater and passed it over to me with his own hands. “Coffee,” he said. “My own brand. All I ever use.”

  I tasted it and it was fine. He was a very generous man. He sat back and beamed at me while I drank it.

  “What do you know about Borinquen?” he wanted to know.

  I told him all I could. Borinquen’s a pretty nice place, what they call “four-nines Earth Normal”—which means that the climate, gravity, atmosphere and ecology come within .9999 of being the same as Earth’s. There are only about six known planets like that. I told him about the one city it had and the trapping that used to be the main industry. Coats made out of glunker fur last forever. They shine green in white light and a real warm ember-red in blue light, and you can take a fullsized coat and scrunch it up and hide it in your two hands, it’s that light and fine. Being so light, the fur made ideal space-cargo.

  Of course, there was a lot more on Borinquen now—rare isotope ingots and foodstuffs and seeds for the drug business and all, and I suppose the glunker trade could dry right up and Borinquen could still carry its weight. But furs settled the planet, furs supported the city in the early days, and half the population still lived out in the bush and trapped.