The Second IF Reader of Science Fiction Page 10

  “I—I guess so.”

  “You guess so? A soldier lets out a yelp that can be heard halfway across the spiral, and he only guesses that he did it?”

  “I did it, I-I—”

  “You did. Never mind the guessing. Why did you do it? You know why we’re here?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “You know what we’re doing here?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “In fact, up to now you’ve been helping to do it.”

  “Yes, Sergeant”

  “And you know why we’ve been sweeping this stuff together.”

  “Yes, Sergeant. To clear a path for—”

  “Shut up. How much use will the path be if the Flickers find it before our boys have a chance to come through?”

  “Not much, I suppose, Sergeant.”

  “You suppose. Well, I suppose I should be glad it even occurred to you. Now that you’ve squealed like a stuck baby, how long do you suppose it will be before Flicker scouts are poking around this cloud?”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant.”

  “I don’t know either, but I’ll be very surprised if we drift a hundredth of the way around the spiral. If it were possible to travel faster than radiation, they’d be spearing you before you cleared another cubic parsec.”

  “They may show up anyway; we can’t tell yet.”

  “That, soldier—I use the term loosely—is the only reason you’re not under formal charges right now. If we’re spotted in the next little while—say, before the cloud you’re sweeping up right now starts to radiate—I’ll assume it wasn’t your fault. But if we’re found after that, when that squeal of yours has spread out a few hundred parsecs, you’re in for it. What I ever did to be saddled with a—”

  “But, Sergeant, I couldn’t help it. Something bit me.”

  “So something bit you. Let it bite! Since when—”

  “But I really couldn’t help it. It did something to my muscles, and I twitched so I thought someone might spot me anyway; but I relaxed and even damped out the spot with dope. I know how important it is not to make a disturbance. The sensation quit for a moment, but then it came back stronger than before, and before I could take another tranquilizer I cramped up tight all over. I couldn’t help giving a little yelp—”

  “Little? It was loud enough to—never mind. I hope you can produce whatever bit you; it may help in court After all, I suppose anything which can interfere with even a sloppy soldier’s self-control might be usable as a weapon. If we could breed more of ‘em—that’s an idea. See if you can catch it, without making too much noise.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t think of that in time, Sarge. We’ll never catch that one. The whole business was just reflex, and I’m very sorry, but I swatted it without thinking.”

  In addition to their voice qualities, sergeants are sometimes known for a certain gift of rhetoric. This one, DA-6641, of the 44th Company, 6261st Field Engineering Battalion, Army of the Republic of Whilth, was no exception.

  If he had not been careful to use only short radiation in his remarks, they would have been audible back in Whilth, in the spiral arm of the Milky Way next outward from Sol’s. Even with the short waves, he might possibly have made an impression on the Holiad’s instruments; but of course the Holiad was no longer there.

  Long before he had really made himself clear about just what sort of poor excuse for a soldier the unfortunate VA741 was, both Elvin Toner and Dick Ledermann were dead of old age.

  TOYS FOR DEBBIE

  by David A. Kyle

  The locomotive, with flashing eye, roared out of the tunnel in the hill and rushed along the curving track. Halfway through the long bend, the speeding engine suddenly trembled and swayed. Then, within a few noisy seconds, most of the train separated from the rails, coaches ramming each other, sliding and slamming together over and around the engine. The locomotive died with a scream of steam, blotting out with its ferocious shhushh all the other screams . . .

  The child jumped up and down with sudden exhilaration and looked at the wreck.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” she said. “It’s crashed!”

  Her father, Frank Curtis, stopped talking with the insurance salesman and stepped back from the other end of the living room.

  The salesman, stiff and motionless, watched the father put the toy cars back on the tracks.

  “If you’re going to wreck your toys, well, all right then, Debbie,” Frank Curtis said. “But can’t you remember we have a guest? Can’t you wait later to play rough?” He adjusted the silk ribbon in her hair.

  “Be a good girl for Daddy, dear.” The father straightened up and looked into the smooth, impassive face of the salesman.

  “Nothing broken, Mr. Black,” Frank Curtis said.

  “She’s an unusual child,” Mr. Black said. “I mean, girls don’t play with toy trains ordinarily.”

  “Well, she is unusual, Mr. Black,” the father said. “She likes all the stuff that girls play with, too.”

  “Was this hers, also, sir?” Mr. Black asked. He tipped his head toward the book shelf near where they stood As Frank Curtis was nodding his head in reply, the salesman reached out and caressed the broken body of a model commercial airliner.

  “You saw the picture in the paper?” the father asked. “Oh, I did, yes.” The man quickly drew his hand away. “It was a tragic accident.”

  “Tragic?” Frank Curtis looked and sounded puzzled. “I think it can be mended. She broke it weeks after they took her picture with it . . .”

  “That picture,” Mr. Black said sharply, his dark eyes dropping their gaze swiftly to the floor and then back to the six-year-old girl sitting on the sofa. She looked back at him serenely. “She’s an attractive child, takes a wonderful picture.” He was speaking rapidly. “Yes, I saw her picture—with that airplane, of course—in the local paper. It was a nice story, about a little girl who likes boys’ toys as much as girls’. Yes, I read about her.”

  Frank Curtis hesitated a moment, then said, “Oh.” and smiled.

  Mr. Black continued. “Yes, I read about her. I read a lot, I keep up with things.” He stopped abruptly and then added: “You must be proud of your daughter, Mr. Curtis, very proud.” The father responded with a warm grin, a bit modest.

  “Yes, when I read that article, even though it was brief, I felt I knew Debbie. And I wanted to do something for her.” The salesman squeezed the other man’s shoulder. “I’m so anxious to make you one of our clients, Mr. Curtis, that I’m going to give you a deal you simply can’t afford to turn down.”

  It was just such a deal and Frank Curtis did not turn it down. That was why Mr. Black returned the following month on the first regular collection call. With him he brought a doll for the little girl. She was really appreciative, even if her father did have to remind her to thank the nice man, and she took it up on the couch with her to play.

  “They tell me you’re a new man,” Frank Curtis said, “but a good one.”

  Mr. Black raised his heavy black eyebrows in honest surprise. “Oh, you checked up on me? That was the right thing to do.” He paused for a moment, as if making a decision, then added, “I’m a veteran. I had many years service—demolitionist.” The smile stayed warm and frank. “I find my new work even more exciting—and more satisfying, of course, because of its humanitarianism.”

  Mr. Black picked up his red-and-black plaid cap and as he was leaving, said to Debbie, “It’s a very special doll, you know, honey.” He hesitated before adding, casually, “I mean, it’s practically unbreakable.”

  Debbie’s father looked startled, his mouth opening and closing silently.

  On the following monthly visit when Mr. Black came, he said to her, while her father was getting his check book, “I’m sorry your dolly lost its arm.”

  She crawled under the sofa and brought out the doll; it was in a sorry state, dirty and ragged, nearly bald, its left arm gone, exposing the hollow shoulder socket.

  “Thank you, I’m s
ure,” the little girl said, looking up with wide soft eyes. “How did you know?” Mr. Black avoided her stare and then Mr. Curtis came in and saw the doll.

  “It’s a shame,” Frank Curtis said. “I’d hoped we’d keep it a secret from you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it shouldn’t be any surprise.”

  “It’s quite all right, sir. It was only a cheap doll and it’s served its purpose.”

  “You know,” the father said slowly, “those grown-up dolls—I can’t get used to them. The obvious maturity . . .” He picked up the boy and examined it carefully. “Why,” he said, genuinely surprised, “I think it has real hair!” He put the doll on the bookcase shelf. “I hope my daughter isn’t just plain vicious.”

  “Oh, no! She’s just completely human, I assure you.” Mr. Black sighed. “She’s mischievous, but really quite innocent.”

  For the first time Frank Curtis seemed to sense something behind Mr. Black’s speech. “You seem to know more about my child than I do.”

  Mr. Black’s stare was fixed on the floor. “I generalize, of course. All children have two natures—one is primeval, selfish and savage, the other is moral, unselfish and civilized. Children who are still innocent express themselves either way—sometimes both ways simultaneously.” He lifted his head and looked Frank Curtis deep in the eyes. The gaze, unlike the charged and forceful speech, was cool and calm.

  “Forget about the doll,” Mr. Black said. He put his right hand in his pocket and pulled out a small package. “Here’s something for her train. I made them for a nephew years ago, but unfortunately he died and I saved them to give to someone else some day.”

  He began to unwrap the package.

  “Really, Mr. Black, you’re more than kind, but all this gift-giving . . .”

  “This is nothing, believe me. It’s more a personal thing than a present.” He opened the package. Inside were a number of narrow strips of paper.

  Frank Curtis examined them. They were all gummed on one side and had the names of some famous railroads printed on them. A few of them read: 20TH CENTURY LIMITED.

  In answer to the bewildered look, the salesman said: “It’s very simple, sir. I thought my nephew’s trains would look more real with these glued over the brand name. I thought you might let me fasten them on Debbie’s trains . . .”

  For one of those rare times, the two men looked each other squarely in the face. Frank Curtis chewed on the inside of his cheek for several moments.

  “Why should I?”

  Mr. Black said wistfully, but persuasively, “I loved my nephew very much—it’s something I wanted to do for him.” He made a little, pensive “hmmph” in his throat. “Children like to associate toys with real things. That’s all.”

  Debbie’s father shook his head, frowning. “It sounds foolish. Why should a grown man like you think of such a thing?”

  “What would you have me think of? A new style doll, its pleasure measured by its expensiveness? A costly garment, to be outgrown quickly with fashionable waste? A pretty picture book, beautifully, scientifically and heartlessly manufactured?” Mr. Black said this utterly without a trace of bitterness and the smile on his face was overwhelmingly disarming. “The small things often become the important things, the cherished things . . . And I loved my nephew!”

  Frank Curtis said, “You’re a real salesman!” There was a touch of awe in his admiration.

  So Mr. Black, with Mr. Curtis’ help, changed the name of the train.

  Afterwards they decided to run the train a few times, just to see how it looked.

  It went around the track several times without incident and then Mr. Black bent down and said softly to Debbie: “Can you make it run faster?”

  The locomotive, with flashing eye, roared out of the tunnel . . .

  Mr. Black towered above the layout, his feet planted on either side of the cardboard tunnel.

  . . . and rushed along the curving track . . .

  The father started to say, “It’s going too fast . . .”

  The speeding engine trembled . . . swayed . . .

  Mr. Black’s face was expressionless and colorless and he picked up his plaid cap in preparation for leaving.

  . . . The train separated from the rails . . .

  “Ooops, off the track,” Mr. Black said in a small voice, strolling toward the door. “Thank you for everything . . .”

  The locomotive died with a scream of steam, blotting out with its ferocious shhushh all other screams.

  The following month both the incident and the real tragedy were barely mentioned. “A terrible coincidence,” said Frank Curtis to his caller, which is precisely what he had said to himself when he had picked up the next day’s newspaper and saw the headline. Now no reminder remained, for the paper names on the train had soon dried up and peeled away.

  Mr. Black had another present for Debbie, but her father, more out of a reflex of custom, rather than a subconscious nervousness, was unwilling to accept it. Mr. Black was magnificently persuasive. He finally got an agreement after he said that he was going away and promised that this present would be the absolute end.

  Mr. Curtis opened the box and looked inside. What was it Mr. Black had said, Debbie was just mischievous, just human?

  The gift was an exquisite glass globe reproduction of the Earth.

  It looked quite fragile, so Frank Curtis put it on the shelf for when Debbie would be older and could cherish it.

  FOREST IN THE SKY

  by Keith Laumer

  I

  As Second Secretary of Embassy Jame Retief stepped from the lighter which had delivered the Terran Mission to the close-cropped turquoise sward of the planet Zoon, a rabbit-sized creature upholstered in deep blue-violet angora bounded into view from behind an upthrust slab of scarlet granite. It sat on its oddly arranged haunches a few yards from the newcomers, twitching an assortment of members as though testing the air for a clue to their origin. First Secretary Magnan’s narrow face registered apprehension as a second furry animal, this one a yard-wide sphere of indigo fuzz, came hopping around the prow of the vessel.

  “Do you suppose they bite?”

  “They’re obviously grass-eaters,” Colonel Smartfinger, the military attaché, stated firmly. “Probably make most affectionate pets. Here, ah, kitty, kitty.” He snapped his fingers and whistled. More bunnies appeared.

  “Ah—Colonel.” The agricultural attaché touched his sleeve. “If I’m not mistaken, those are immature specimens of the planet’s dominant life form!”

  “Eh? Oldtrick pricked up his ears. “These animals? Impossible!”

  “They look just like the high-resolution photos the Sneak-and-peek teams took. My, aren’t there a lot of them!”

  “Well, possibly this is a sort of playground for them. Cute little fellows.” Oldtrick paused to kick one which had opened surprising jaws for a nip at his ankle.

  “That’s the worst of these crash operations.” The economic officer shied as a Terrier-sized fur-bearer darted in close and crunched a shiny plastic button from the cuff of his mauve, late midmorning, semi-informal hip-huggers. “One never knows just what one may be getting into.”

  “Oh-oh.” Magnan nudged Retief as a technician bustled from the lock, heavy-laden. “Here comes the classified equipment the ambassadors been sitting on since we left Sector HQ.”

  “Ah!” Ambassador Oldtrick rubbed his small, well-manicured hands briskly together, lifted an article resembling a Mae West life jacket from the stack offered.

  “Here, gentlemen, is my personal contribution to, ahem, high-level negotiations!” He smiled proudly and slipped his arms through a loop of woven plastic. “One-man, self-contained, power-boosted aerial lift units,” he announced. “With these, gentlemen, we will confront the elusive Zooner on his home ground!”

  “But—the post report said the Zooners are a sort of animated blimp!” the information officer protested. “Only a few of them have been seen, and those were cruising at high altitude! Surely we�
��re not going after them?”

  “It was inevitable, gentlemen.” Oldtrick winced as the technician tugged the harness strap tight across his narrow chest. “Sooner or later man was bound to encounter lighter-than-air intelligence—a confrontation for which we of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne are eminently well qualified!”

  “But, your excellency,” First Secretary Magnan spoke up. “Couldn’t we have arranged to confront these, er, gaseous brains here on solid land?”

  “Nonsense, Magnan! Give up this superb opportunity to display the adaptability of the trained diplomat? Since these beings dwell among the clouds of their native world, what more convincing evidence of good will could we display than to meet them on their own grounds, so to speak?”

  “Of course,” the corpulent political officer put in, “we aren’t actually sure there’s anyone up there.” He squinted nervously up at the lacy mass of land-coral that reached into the Zoonian sky, its lofty pinnacles brushing a seven-thousand-foot stratum of cumulonimbus.

  “That’s where we’ll steal a march on certain laggards,” Oldtrick stated imperturbably. “The survey photos clearly show the details of a charming aerial city nestled on the reef. Picture the spectacle, gentlemen, when the mission descends on them from the blue empyrean to open a new era of Terran-Zoon relations!”

  “Yes—a striking mis en scene indeed, as your excellency points out” The economic officer’s cheek gave a nervous twitch. “But what if something goes wrong with the apparatus? The steering mechanism, for example, appears a trifle insubstantial—”

  “These devices were designed and constructed under my personal supervision, Chester,” the ambassador cut him off coolly. “However,” he continued, “don’t allow that circumstance to prevent you from pointing out any conceptual flaws you may have detected.”