The car rolled forward, carrying them towards the distant peak that jutted up from the plain.
Chapter 8
THE sun had begun to set when the creaking old car, with its huge wooden water tank, reached the Grahams’ farm. The driver, whose name was Reg Frankis, brought the vehicle to a halt. The five of them sat in silence, gazing at the land ahead.
A flat expanse lay before them, covered with brittle, spiny shrubs, as orange as everything else on the planet. Here and there rested a boulder, and, at one end, an enormous tree.
And the house. Nick stared in amazement at the building. So large a place for them…not like an apartment on Earth. With no other buildings nearby, the house stood alone, a solitary structure which seemed quite solid. Prepared, Nick thought, to last nearly forever.
“Typical government-built house,” the driver, Reg Frankis, said. The sight of it did not particularly impress him. Probably all the houses on Plowman’s Planet were exactly like this, built by robot work-teams. “Ten acres of land, all flat. There’s machinery over there.” He pointed. “Farm machinery to plough the land. Elsewhere water is scarce, but you have your own spring.” He held out his hand. “Now let me have the book.”
Nick’s father passed him the little book. Mr. Frankis glanced through it, and, satisfied, put it in the glove compartment of his old car.
“What are you going to do with the book?” Nick’s father asked.
“Sell it to the printers,” Mr. Frankis said cheerfully. “Now, if you’ll unload your things, I’ll get started; I have a long way to go. to get back onto my water route.”
Nick and his parents unloaded their parcels and suitcases. When the last one had been removed from the car, Mr. Frankis started up the engine and put-putted away. They watched him go until the car disappeared from sight among a grove of spindly trees.
“I wonder how close our neighbors are,” Nick’s mother said in a small, uncertain voice. “It’s so strange, no one living nearby…it makes me…” She gestured. “…feel insecure, I guess.”
“We’ll get used to it,” Nick’s father assured her.
Horace had remained quiet during the car trip, but now he all at once became active. He hopped from Nick’s arms and trotted off, his tail held low, his head thrust forward as if he were listening.
“Will he run away?” Nick asked his father.
“I doubt it. He seems to know we’ve arrived.” Nick’s father began carrying packages towards the house. Nick and his mother helped, and fairly soon they had taken everything inside.
“Almost no furniture,” his mother said critically, as she surveyed the empty, echoing rooms.
Nick’s father said, “We’re lucky they supplied any. In fact we’re fortunate that they supplied the house, and the land, and the machinery.”
“If they hadn’t,” Nick’s mother pointed out. “we wouldn’t have come here.”
“Well, there’s that,” his father said.
Horace, meanwhile, had gone off somewhere. Nick saw him wander into a clump of bushes, briefly emerge, then disappear once again.
A great yowl came from Horace, invisible as he was within the shrubbery.
Nick raced in that direction, his heart hammering. What had the cat found? A creature of Plowman’s Planet? He caught up with Horace, whose fur had fluffed out and whose tail had become enormous. Horace hissed, his ears flat, fangs showing; then, seeing Nick, he gave out a plaintive miaow, as if apologizing.
Into the evening darkness a small many-legged shape scuttled, an animal with several rope-like tails. It hurried as fast as it could, then vanished, evidently into a burrow. Horace rubbed against Nick’s legs, showing no desire to follow the creature.
“What is it, Nick?” his father called from the porch of their new house.
“A thing that lives here,” Nick said.
“Better get inside,” his dad called. “We don’t know yet which fauna here are harmless and which aren’t. Don’t take any chances. And get Horace; bring him, too.”
At its burrow the many-tailed creature poked up its head, a wary, energetic creature which chattered now, as if signaling to others of its kind. Nick heard scurryings in the nearby bushes; he sensed more of them, whatever they were, answering in agitation, worried by Horace and by Horace’s fangs and yowl. Nick said, “It’s okay. Horace was just taken by surprise,” He listened. The creatures, here and there, continued to chatter. “My cat won’t hurt you,” Nick said to them.
“You want to bet?” a tiny voice came, from the shrubbery.
Nick said. “He’s just a cat. Cats don’t hurt anyone.”
“Oh, come on,” the tiny voice answered. “Don’t give us that. Look at those teeth he has. Assassination city. We’ll report him to the Grand Four—he’s a menace!” The voice rattled with indignation.
“What are you?” Nick asked.
“Spiddles,” the invisible creatures said, several of them in unison. “Are you the people who are going to live here?” one of them asked. “And you’re bringing that vicious carnivore with you? We’ll move out; we’ll leave.” Others chimed in: “Yes, we’ll leave!” The first one added, “That wise-guy cat of yours is riding for a fall. It’s either him or us.”
“He’s part of the family.” Nick said.
“Oh wow,” the spiddle complained. “Commotion city. Look, mister. We’re fighting a war. Have you heard about the war? You have heard about the war, haven’t you? Have you heard about werjes? Have you heard about Glimmung?”
“Yes,” Nick said. It was the first time anyone—or anything— had called him ‘mister’. He found he liked it. “I met Glimmung,” he said. “And it gave me a book, by mistake. I mean, it intended to give me a book, but not the one it gave me.”
“Glimmung gives every newcomer to this planet a copy of The Last and Final War,” the spiddle said. “It tells how right they are and how wrong the Grand Four are. There must be a thousand copies of it floating around Plowman’s Planet. Lies, all lies.”
Nick said, “But that’s not the book Glimmung gave me. Or the werj gave me. I couldn’t tell which. One Summer Day, it was called.”
“You have that book with you?” the spiddle asked.
“No,” Nick said.
“You lost it. You gave it to a wub and the wub ate it. You made a fire with it. You—”
“We traded it to an Earth colonist,” Nick said. “Mr. Frankis. We gave it to him for bringing us here.”
“Good old Frankis,” the spiddle said, and, in the darkness, its companions chattered with disgust. “Reg Frankis,” the spiddle said, “is a thief. Who knows what goes on in his brain? He’s what we call a water man; he transports water and sells it at a high price which no one can afford. You’ve got to get that book back from him.”
“Why?” Nick said.
“Because we need it. The Grand Four, in fact, need it. If we’re to win the war. Reg Frankis will set so high a price on it that we won’t be able to pay. And the Glimmung will buy it back. They have plenty of money. We’re broke. Poverty city; that’s what this is, around here. Why do you think we live in burrows in the ground? Because we like to? I’ll tell you why; it’s because we can’t afford anything better.” The spiddle’s voice shook with indignation.
“You’re lucky,” another spiddle, from the darkness, said. “You have that house. All you Earth colonists are lucky. Who looks after us? Disinterest city; that’s what it is.”
To Nick, the first spiddle said. “Do you suppose you could get that book back from Frankis?”
Hesitating, Nick said, “We made a deal. It’s his property now.”
“Couldn’t you steal it?” several spiddles asked in unison.
“I—don’t think so,” Nick said. It did not sound right to him, doing that. The trade had been made in good faith.
A spiddle said, “You could have done a great deal to help end the war, to give us a final victory. One Summer Day lists the weaknesses of every creature on this planet, trobes and werje
s included. Even klakes; no one is missing from its pages. True, the book does tend to drone on, and to stray from the subject… Glimmung’s mind is very disordered. But, somewhere in the book, it’s all there. Everything—the past and the future. Both.”
“And now that profiteer Frankis has it,” another spiddle said in disgust. “Bad luck city; that’s what this is.”
“Bad luck for Glimmung, though,” another spiddle said. “To have let the book leave his hands. He must be worried. By now he’ll have discovered his loss. Look here, Earth-person; Glimmung will be searching for you, trying to get his book back again. You’d better dig in. Besieged city; that’s what you are.”
“Tell Glimmung right off,” a spiddle suggested. “Say, ‘Reg Frankis, the water man—he has your book.’ For your own protection. Otherwise it’s Vengeance city, Earth-person.”
“A rub-out,” another spiddle chimed m. “Rub-out city.”
“What’s that mean?” Nick said. He had difficulty understanding the peculiar speech of the spiddles.
“It means,” a spiddle said, “that Glimmung will take you apart bolt by bolt. To find his missing book. Did you look at it? Did you have a chance to read any of it?”
“Only a paragraph or two,” Nick admitted. What an opportunity they had lost, he realized. And now it was too late.
“This was once a happy place,” a spiddle said wistfully. “Before Glimmung came. He came here slowly, by small, stealthy steps, one after another. There was no particular, exact time when he entered our world. We became aware of him gradually.”
“First we heard rumors,” another spiddle added. “Vague accounts, nothing definite; the rumors told of something bad, of a wicked thing that existed…but not here. Then, one day. it seemed as if he were almost here, that he had come a little closer. And then we heard from the nunks that he was actually here. And so it went, day by day. The werjes were glad; evidently they flocked to him. And the trobes, of course; they rejoiced—they screamed in the night with pleasure.”
“And then we knew Glimmung was everywhere,” another spiddle said. “And so we joined with the last of the printers. Because it was the printers that Glimmung wanted most to destroy. We heard that Glimmung had come to this planet to seek out the printers, that their struggle began before this planet existed. That it was, in fact, as old as time. The printers have never said; they do the best they can, and that is all. They are almost worn-out, our printers; what they make is puddinged, now, very indistinct and almost useless. We pretend, of course, that it’s otherwise.”
“But it’s wise,” an additional spiddle added. “Not otherwise.”
From within the house, Nick’s mother called, “Nick. Time to come inside. You can look around in the morning.”
“Goodbye,” Nick said to the spiddles. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.” Excusing himself, he made his way through the darkness towards the brightly lit house.
By the side of the house a clump of what looked like bamboo jutted up. Nick started to pass by it, then stopped.
In the bamboo something grew. A shape, silent and unmoving that rose up from the soil like some nocturnal mushroom. A white column, a pulpy mass that glistened moistly in the dim light. Webs covered it a moldy cocoon. It had vague arms and legs. An indistinct half-formed head. As yet the features hadn’t appeared. But he could tell what it was.
A father-thing.
Chapter 9
THE father-thing was almost ready. Another few days and it would reach full maturity. It was still a larva, white and soft and pulpy. But the sun of day would dry and warm it. Harden its shell. Turn it dark and strong. It would emerge from its cocoon, and one day when his father came by this spot…
Behind the father-thing were other pulpy while larvae, recently laid. Small. Just coming into existence.
Nick began to move numbly away. Weakly he reached into the darkness, trying to find something to lean on; he fell terribly dizzy and afraid. Turning, he walked a few steps away from the father-thing and the other, newer, larvae—then saw something else. Something which up to this moment he had not been able to fathom.
Another one. Another larva. It wasn’t white. It had already turned dark. The web, the pulpy softness, the moistness, all had gone. It was ready. It stirred a little, moved its arms feebly.
A Nick-thing.
“Dinner’s ready,” his mother called from within the house. “Go and get your father, Nick, and tell him to wash his hands. The same applies to you, young man.” Nick could smell food cooking: their first meal on Plowman’s Planet.
He made his way into the house, found the kitchen and entered it. His mother was carrying a steaming casserole to the neatly set table.
“What’s wrong?” she said when she saw him.
“Something I have to tell Dad,” Nick mumbled, still stricken with numbing fear.
“Pete!” his mother called anxiously. “Nick looks really scared; you’d better come in here. You can finish shaving after dinner.”
His father, strong and good-looking and alert, strode into the kitchen. “What is it, Nick?” he asked, seeing his son’s face.
“Outside the house,” Nick said. “I’ll show you; come on.” He led the way out of their new house, into the night darkness, to the spot where the bamboo-like plant grew—grew with its inner colony of larvae in various stages.
After he had looked at the larvae for a long time, Nick’s father said, “These plants are terribly dangerous.”
“I know,” Nick said.
“It’s good you found them in time,” his father said. “Another few days—”
“Can we kill them?” Nick asked.
His father said, “I don’t see why not.” He continued to stare at the father-thing, “I would have been replaced,” he said, “By one of it.”
“Me, too,” Nick said.
“Yes, yours is almost finished. And it looks like you.” His father’s voice shook. “Exactly like you.”
Nick’s mother came out on to the porch of their new house. “What is it, Pete?” she called anxiously. “Can I see?”
“No,” Nick’s father said. “You go back inside.” To Nick he said, “If we only had some gasoline. We could burn them up.”
“Maybe they’re already dry enough to—” Nick began, and then broke off in horror.
The last shred of moist webs had fallen from the Nick-thing. The Nick-thing moved, swayed; it broke itself loose from the base on which it had grown, then tottered out. It floundered uncertainly. Its mouth opened and closed, and then it reached towards Nick.
His father tugged him back, away from it.
“There’s a phone in the house,” his father said. “We’ll go inside and lock the door; I’ll call the local police, here on this planet. There must be some kind of way they have for dealing with these father-things.”
“Why are they called ‘father-things’?” Nick asked as the two of them swiftly entered the house and bolted the door behind them.
“Evidently they usually start out by imitating grown men,” his father said. “In this case, however, they were more after you than me.”
“Please tell me what’s out there,” Nick’s mother said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of rolls which she had removed from the oven. “Is it very bad?”
“It’s very bad,” Nick’s father answered. “A Nick-thing. And right outside our new house. How could they have known?”
“In Glimmung’s book,” Nick said. “It foretold our coming here; remember?”
“That’s true.” his father said. He picked up the receiver of the phone. On the small grey screen the face of an operator formed. “Give me the police,” Nick’s father said gravely.
THE police came very soon, and, outside in the darkness with their flashlights and equipment, they destroyed the bamboo-like growth with its larvae. Afterwards, one of the policemen talked with Nick’s father in the front room of the house. The door was closed, but Nick and his mother could still hear. Nick tried not to, b
ut whole sentences floated to him from beyond the closed door.
“You understand.” the policeman was saying to his father, “that we didn’t get the mature one which had already broken loose. My men are combing this area with infra-red searchlights, but so far I’m afraid they haven’t found it.”
“The Nick-thing?” his lather asked. “You mean it’s gone?”
“Exactly,” the policeman said.
“Can you leave a man here to watch for it?” his father asked.
“We’re too short-handed. I’m afraid not. You’ll have to spot the Nick-thing yourself and then call us. They’re easily destroyed; just an ordinary match held to it will burn it up.”
“What would it do to Nick if it caught him?”
The policeman said, “Replace him.”
“But do exactly what with Nick? Kill him?”
Nick could not hear the policeman’s answer. It was spoken very low.
“Is there any other kind of help we can get?” his father asked. “From anyone? Other colonists, perhaps?”
“You have quite a number of spiddles living on your land,” the policeman said. “Ask their help. Spiddles are good friends to have; many human colonists have discovered that.”
“They would be able to tell the Nick-thing from Nick?” his father asked.
“Every time,” the policeman assured him.
The door of the living room opened. His father and the policeman came out, their faces grim.
“Nick,” his father said, “as soon as you see the Nick-thing, tell me. Instantly. We’ll keep all the doors and windows of the house locked, and you stay inside until—”
“I don’t want to stay inside,” Nick said “Anyway if I stay inside I won’t be able to persuade the spiddles to help.”
“Let him talk to the spiddles,” the policeman said. “But during the day time, so he can see if the Nick-thing is trying to creep up on him.”