Poor little Peewee! Too bad she hadn’t drawn and quartered him! But the story sounded true for it was the way Peewee would behave—sure of herself, afraid of no one, unable to resist any “educational” experience.
Jock went on, “It wasn’t the brat he wanted. He wanted her old man. Had some swindle to get him to the Moon, didn’t work.” Jock grinned sourly. “That was a bad time, things ain’t good when he don’t have his own way. But he had to settle for the brat. Tim here pointed out to him he could trade.”
Tim chucked in one word which I took as a general denial. Jock raised his eyebrows. “Listen to vinegar puss. Nice manners, ain’t he?”
Maybe I should have kept quiet since I was digging for facts, not philosophy. But I’ve got Peewee’s failing myself; when I don’t understand, I have an unbearable itch to know why. I didn’t (and don’t) understand what made Jock tick. “Jock? Why did you do it?”
“Huh?”
“Look, you’re a human being.” (At least he looked like one.) “As you pointed out, we humans had better stick together. How could you bring yourself to kidnap a little girl—and turn her over to him?”
“Are you crazy, boy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You talk crazy. Have you ever tried not doing something he wanted? Try it some time.”
I saw his point. Refusing Wormface would be like a rabbit spitting in a snake’s eye—as I knew too well. Jock went on, “You got to understand the other man’s viewpoint. Live and let live, I always say. We got grabbed while we were messin’ around, lookin’ for carnotite—and after that, we never stood no chance. You can’t fight City Hall, that gets you nowhere. So we made a dicker—we run his errands, he pays us in uranium.”
My faint sympathy vanished. I wanted to throw up. “And you got paid?”
“Well…you might say we got time on the books.”
I looked around our cell. “You made a bad deal.”
Jock grimaced, looking like a sulky baby. “Maybe so. But be reasonable, kid. You got to cooperate with the inevitable. These boys are moving in—they got what it takes. You seen that yourself. Well, a man’s got to look out for number one, don’t he? It’s a cinch nobody else will. Now I seen a case like this when I was no older than you and it taught me a lesson. Our town had run quietly for years, but the Big Fellow was getting old and losing his grip…whereupon some boys from St. Louis moved in. Things were confused for a while. A man had to know which way to jump—else he woke up wearing a wooden overcoat, like as not. Those that seen the handwriting made out; those that didn’t…well, it don’t do no good to buck the current, I always say. That makes sense, don’t it?”
I could follow his “logic”—provided you accepted his “live louse” standard. But he had left out a key point. “Even so, Jock, I don’t see how you could do that to a little girl.”
“Huh? I just explained how we couldn’t help it.”
“But you could. Even allowing how hard it is to face up to him and refuse orders, you had a perfect chance to duck out.”
“Wha’ d’you mean?”
“He sent you to Luna City to find her, you said so. You’ve got a return-fare benefit—I know you have, I know the rules. All you had to do was sit tight, where he couldn’t reach you—and take the next ship back to Earth. You didn’t have to do his dirty work.”
“But—”
I cut him off. “Maybe you couldn’t help yourself, out in a lunar desert. Maybe you wouldn’t feel safe even inside Tombaugh Station. But when he sent you into Luna City, you had your chance. You didn’t have to steal a little girl and turn her over to a—a bug-eyed monster!”
He looked baffled, then answered quickly. “Kip, I like you. You’re a good boy. But you ain’t smart. You don’t understand.”
“I think I do!”
“No, you don’t.” He leaned toward me, started to put a hand on my knee; I drew back. He went on, “There’s something I didn’t tell you…for fear you’d think I was a—well, a zombie, or something. They operated on us.”
“Huh?”
“They operated on us,” he went on glibly. “They planted bombs in our heads. Remote control, like a missile. A man gets out of line…he punches a button—blooie! Brains all over the ceiling.” He fumbled at the nape of his neck. “See the scar? My hair’s getting kind o’ long…but if you look close I’m sure you’ll see it; it can’t ’ave disappeared entirely. See it?”
I started to look. I might even have been sold on it—I had been forced to believe less probable things lately. Tim cut short my suspended judgment with one explosive word.
Jock flinched, then braced himself and said, “Don’t pay any attention to him!”
I shrugged and moved away. Jock didn’t talk the rest of that “day.” That suited me.
The next “morning” I was roused by Jock’s hand on my shoulder. “Wake up, Kip! Wake up!”
I groped for my toy weapon. “It’s over there by the wall,” Jock said, “but it ain’t ever goin’ to do you any good now.”
I grabbed it. “What do you mean? Where’s Tim?”
“You didn’t wake up?”
“Huh?”
“This is what I’ve been scared of. Cripes, boy! I just had to talk to somebody. You slept through it?”
“Through what? And where’s Tim?”
Jock was shivering and sweating. “They blue-lighted us, that’s what. They took Tim.” He shuddered. “I’m glad it was him. I thought—well, maybe you’ve noticed I’m a little stout…they like fat.”
“What do you mean? What have they done with him?”
“Poor old Tim. He had his faults, like anybody, but—He’s soup, by now…that’s what.” He shuddered again. “They like soup—bones and all.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re trying to scare me.”
“So?” He looked me up and down. “They’ll probably take you next. Son, if you’re smart, you’ll take that letter opener of yours over to that horse trough and open your veins. It’s better that way.”
I said, “Why don’t you? Here, I’ll lend it to you.”
He shook his head and shivered. “I ain’t smart.”
I don’t know what became of Tim. I don’t know whether the wormfaces ate people, or not. (You can’t say “cannibal.” We may be mutton, to them.) I wasn’t especially scared because I had long since blown all fuses in my “scare” circuits.
What happens to my body after I’m through with it doesn’t matter to me. But it did to Jock; he had a phobia about it. I don’t think Jock was a coward; cowards don’t even try to become prospectors on the Moon. He believed his theory and it shook him. He halfway admitted that he had more reason to believe it than I had known. He had been to Pluto once before, so he said, and other men who had come along, or been dragged, on that trip hadn’t come back.
When feeding time came—two cans—he said he wasn’t hungry and offered me his ration. That “night” he sat up and kept himself awake. Finally I just had to go to sleep before he did.
I awoke from one of those dreams where you can’t move. The dream was correct; sometime not long before, I had surely been blue-lighted.
Jock was gone.
I never saw either of them again.
Somehow I missed them… Jock at least. It was a relief not to have to watch all the time, it was luxurious to bathe. But it gets mighty boring, pacing your cage alone.
I have no illusions about them. There must be well over three billion people I would rather be locked up with. But they were people.
Tim didn’t have anything else to recommend him; he was as coldly vicious as a guillotine. But Jock had some slight awareness of right and wrong, or he wouldn’t have tried to justify himself. You might say he was just weak.
But I don’t hold with the idea that to understand all is to forgive all; you follow that and first thing you know you’re sentimental over murderers and rapists and kidnappers and forgetting their victims. That’s wrong. I’ll weep over the li
kes of Peewee, not over criminals whose victims they are. I missed Jock’s talk but if there were some way to drown such creatures at birth, I’d take my turn as executioner. That goes double for Tim.
If they ended up as soup for hobgoblins, I couldn’t honestly be sorry—even though it might be my turn tomorrow.
As soup, they probably had their finest hour.
Chapter 8
I was jarred out of useless brain-cudgeling by an explosion, a sharp crack—a bass rumble—then a whoosh! of reduced pressure. I bounced to my feet—anyone who has ever depended on a space suit is never again indifferent to a drop in pressure. I gasped, “What the deuce!”
Then I added, “Whoever is on watch had better get on the ball—or we’ll all be breathing thin cold stuff.” No oxygen outside, I was sure—or rather the astronomers were and I didn’t want to test it.
Then I said, “Somebody bombing us? I hope.”
“Or was it an earthquake?”
This was not an idle remark. That Scientific American article concerning “summer” on Pluto had predicted “sharp isostatic readjustments” as the temperature rose—which is a polite way of saying, “Hold your hats! Here comes the chimney!”
I was in an earthquake once, in Santa Barbara; I didn’t need a booster shot to remember what every Californian knows and others learn in one lesson: when the ground does a jig, get outdoors!
Only I couldn’t.
I spent two minutes checking whether adrenalin had given me the strength to jump eighteen feet instead of twelve. It hadn’t. That was all I did for a half-hour, if you don’t count nail biting.
Then I heard my name! “Kip! Oh, Kip!”
“Peewee!” I screamed. “Here! Peewee!”
Silence for an eternity of three heartbeats—“Kip?”
“Down HERE!”
“Kip? Are you down this hole?”
“Yes! Can’t you see me?” I saw her head against the light above.
“Uh, I can now. Oh, Kip, I’m so glad!”
“Then why are you crying? So am I!”
“I’m not crying,” she blubbered. “Oh Kip…Kip.”
“Can you get me out?”
“Uh—” She surveyed that drop. “Stay where you are.”
“Don’t go ’way!” She already had.
She wasn’t gone two minutes; it merely seemed like a week. Then she was back and the darling had a nylon rope!
“Grab on!” she shrilled.
“Wait a sec. How is it fastened?”
“I’ll pull you up.”
“No, you won’t—or we’ll both be down here. Find somewhere to belay it.”
“I can lift you.”
“Belay it! Hurry!”
She left again, leaving an end in my hands. Shortly I heard very faintly: “On belay!”
I shouted, “Testing!” and took up the slack. I put my weight on it—it held. “Climbing!” I yelled, and followed the final “g” up the hole and caught it.
She flung herself on me, an arm around my neck, one around Madame Pompadour, and both of mine around her. She was even smaller and skinnier than I remembered. “Oh, Kip, it’s been just awful.”
I patted her bony shoulder blades. “Yeah, I know. What do we do now? Where’s W—”
I started to say, “Where’s Wormface?” but she burst into tears.
“Kip—I think she’s dead!”
My mind skidded—I was a bit stir-crazy anyhow. “Huh? Who?”
She looked as amazed as I was confused. “Why, the Mother Thing.”
“Oh.” I felt a flood of sorrow. “But, honey, are you sure? She was talking to me right up to the last—and I didn’t die.”
“What in the world are you talk—Oh. I don’t mean then, Kip; I mean now.”
“Huh? She was here?”
“Of course. Where else?”
Now that’s a silly question, it’s a big universe. I had decided long ago that the Mother Thing couldn’t be here—because Jock had brushed off the subject. I reasoned that Jock would either have said that she was here or have invented an elaborate lie, for the pleasure of lying. Therefore she wasn’t on his list—perhaps he had never seen her save as a bulge under my suit.
I was so sure of my “logic” that it took a long moment to throw off prejudice and accept fact. “Peewee,” I said, gulping, “I feel like I’d lost my own mother. Are you sure?”
“‘Feel as if,’” she said automatically. “I’m not sure sure…but she’s outside—so she must be dead.”
“Wait a minute? If she’s outside, she’s wearing a space suit. Isn’t she?”
“No, no! She hasn’t had one—not since they destroyed her ship.”
I was getting more confused. “How did they bring her in here?”
“They just sacked her and sealed her and carried her in. Kip—what do we do now?”
I knew several answers, all of them wrong—I had already considered them during my stretch in jail. “Where is Wormface? Where are all the wormfaces?”
“Oh. All dead. I think.”
“I hope you’re right.” I looked around for a weapon and never saw a hallway so bare. My toy dagger was only eighteen feet away but I didn’t feel like going back down for it. “What makes you think so?”
Peewee had reason to think so. The Mother Thing didn’t look strong enough to tear paper but what she lacked in beef she made up in brains. She had done what I had tried to do: reasoned out a way to take them all on. She had not been able to hurry because her plan had many factors all of which had to mesh at once and many of them she could not influence; she had to wait for the breaks.
First, she needed a time when there were few wormfaces around. The base was indeed a large supply dump and space port and transfer point, but it did not need a large staff. It had been unusually crowded the few moments I had seen it, because our ship was in.
Second, it also had to be when no ships were in because she couldn’t cope with a ship—she couldn’t get at it.
Third, H-Hour had to be while the wormfaces were feeding. They all ate together when there were few enough not to have to use their mess hall in relays—crowded around one big tub and sopping it up, I gathered—a scene out of Dante. That would place all her enemies on one target, except possibly one or two on engineering or communication watches.
“Wait a minute!” I interrupted. “You said they were all dead?”
“Well… I don’t know. I haven’t seen any.”
“Hold everything until I find something to fight with.”
“But—”
“First things first, Peewee.”
Saying that I was going to find a weapon wasn’t finding one. That corridor had nothing but more holes like the one I had been down—which was why Peewee had looked for me there; it was one of the few places where she had not been allowed to wander at will. Jock had been correct on one point: Peewee—and the Mother Thing—had been star prisoners, allowed all privileges except freedom…whereas Jock and Tim and myself had been third-class prisoners and/or soup bones. It fitted the theory that Peewee and the Mother Thing were hostages rather than ordinary P.W.s.
I didn’t explore those holes after I looked down one and saw a human skeleton—maybe they got tired of tossing food to him. When I straightened up Peewee said, “What are you shaking about?”
“Nothing. Come on.”
“I want to see.”
“Peewee, every second counts and we’ve done nothing but yak. Come on. Stay behind me.”
I kept her from seeing the skeleton, a major triumph over that little curiosity box—although it probably would not have affected her much; Peewee was sentimental only when it suited her.
“Stay behind me” had the correct gallant sound but it was not based on reason. I forgot that attack could come from the rear—I should have said: “Follow me and watch behind us.”
She did anyway. I heard a squeal and whirled around to see a wormface with one of those camera-like things aimed at me. Even though Tim h
ad used one on me I didn’t realize what it was; for a moment I froze.
But not Peewee. She launched herself through the air, attacking with both hands and both feet in the gallant audacity and utter recklessness of a kitten.
That saved me. Her attack would not have hurt anything but another kitten but it mixed him up so that he didn’t finish what he was doing, namely paralyzing or killing me; he tripped over her and went down.
And I stomped him. With my bare feet I stomped him, landing on that lobster-horror head with both feet.
His head crunched. It felt awful.
It was like jumping on a strawberry box. It splintered and crunched and went to pieces. I cringed at the feel, even though I was in an agony to fight, to kill. I trampled worms and hopped away, feeling sick. I scooped up Peewee and pulled her back, as anxious to get clear as I had been to join battle seconds before.
I hadn’t killed it. For an awful moment I thought I was going to have to wade back in. Then I saw that while it was alive, it did not seem aware of us. It flopped like a chicken freshly chopped, then quieted and began to move purposefully.
But it couldn’t see. I had smashed its eyes and maybe its ears—but certainly those terrible eyes.
It felt around the floor carefully, then got to its feet, still undamaged except that its head was a crushed ruin. It stood still, braced tripod-style by that third appendage, and felt the air. I pulled us back farther.
It began to walk. Not toward us or I would have screamed. It moved away, ricocheted off a wall, straightened out, and went back the way we had come.
It reached one of those holes they used for prisoners, walked into it and dropped.
I sighed, and realized that I had been holding Peewee too tightly to breathe, I put her down.
“There’s your weapon,” she said.
“Huh?”
“On the floor. Just beyond where I dropped Madame Pompadour. The gadget.” She went over, picked up her dolly, brushed away bits of ruined wormface, then took the camera-like thing and handed it to me. “Be careful. Don’t point it toward you. Or me.”
“Peewee,” I said faintly, “don’t you ever have an attack of nerves?”