Endlich was anything but calm inside, with the wild horde, as irresponsible in their present state of mind as a pack of idiot baboons, bearing down on him. But he forced his tone to be conversational when he spoke.
"Hello, Neely," he said. "You mentioned you liked tomatoes. Maybe you were kidding. Anyhow I brought you along home with me, so you could have some. Here on the ground, right in front of you, is a whole bushel. The regular asteroids price-considering the trouble it takes to grow 'em, and the amount of dough a guy like you can make for himself out here, is five bucks apiece. But for you, right now, they're all free. Here, have a nice fresh, ripe one, Neely."
The big man glared at his captor for a second, after he had looked dazedly around. He would have leaped to his feet—except that the muzzle of his own blaster was leveled at the center of his chest, at a range of not over twenty inches. For a fleeting instant, Neely looked scared and prudent. Then he saw his pals, landing like a flock of birds, just beyond the transparent side of the greenhouse. And he heard their shouts, coming loudly from Endlich's helmet-phones:
"We come after you, Neely! We'll get the damn yokel off your neck . . . Come on, guys—let's turn the place upside down! . . ."
Neely grew courageous—yes, maybe it did take a certain animal nerve to do what he did. His battered and bloodied lip curled.
"Whatdayuh think you're up to, Pun'kin-head!" he snarled slowly, his tone dripping contempt for the insanely foolish. He laughed sourly, "Haw-haw-haw." Then his face twisted into a confident and mocking leer. To carry the mockery farther, a big paw reached out and grabbed the proffered tomato from Endlich's hand. "Sure—thanks. Anything to oblige!" He took a great bite from the fruit, clowning the action with a forced expression of relish. "Ummm!" he grunted. In danger, he was being the showman, playing for the approval of his pals. He was proving his comic coolness—that even now he was master of the situation, and was in no hurry to be rescued. "Come on, punk!" he ordered Endlich. "Where is the next one, seeing you're so generous? Be polite to your guest!"
Endlich handed him a second tomato. But as he did so, it seemed all the things he dreaded would happen were breathing down his back. For the faces that he glimpsed beyond the plastic showed the twisted expressions that betray the point where savage humor imperceptibly becomes murderous. A dozen blasters were leveled at him.
But the eyes of the men outside showed, too, the kind of interest that any odd procedure can command. They stood still for a moment, watching, commenting:
"Hey—Neelyl See if you can down the next one with one bitel . .. Don't eat 'em all, Neely! Save some for usl . . ."
Endlich was following no complete plan. He had only the feeling that somewhere here there might be a dramatic touch that, by a long chance, would yield him a toehold on the situation. Without a word, he gave Neely a third tomato. Then a fourth and a fifth . . .
Neely kept gobbling and clowning.
Yeah—but can this sort of horseplay go on until one man has consumed an entire bushel of tomatoes? The question began to shine speculatively in the faces of the onlookers. It began to appeal to their wolfish sense of comedy. And it started to betray itself—in another manner—in Neely's face.
After the fifteenth tomato, he burped and balked. "That's enough kiddin' around, Pun'kin-head," he growled. "Get away with your garden truckl I should be beatin' you to a grease-pot right this minutel Why—I—"
Then Neely tried to lunge for the blaster. As Endlich squeezed the trigger, he turned the weapon aside a trifle, so that the beam of energy flicked past Neely's ear and splashed garden soil that turned incandescent, instantly.
John Endlich might have died in that moment, cut down from behind. That he wasn't probably meant that, from the position of complete underdog among the spectators, his popularity had risen some.
"Neely," he said with a grin, "how can you start beatin', when you ain't done eatin'? Neely—here I am, trying to be friendly and hospitable, and you aren't cooperating. A whole bushel of juicy tomatoes—symbols of civilization way out here in the asteroids—and you haven't even made a dent in 'em yetl What's the matter, Neely? Lose your appetite? Herel Eat! . . ."
Endlich's tone was falsely persuasive. For there was a steely note of command in it. And the blaster in Endlich's hand was pointed straight at Neely's chest.
Neely's eyes began to look frightened and sullen. He shifted uncomfortably, and the bushel basket creaked under his weight.
"You're yella as any damn pun'kinl" he said loudly. "You don't fight fairl . . . Guys—what's the matter with you? Get this nut with the blaster offa me! . . ."
"Hmm—yella," Endlich seemed to muse. "Maybe not as yella as you were once—coming around here at night with a whole gang, not so long ago—"
"Call me yella?" Neely hollered. "Why, you lousy yokel, if you didn't have that blaster—"
Endlich said grimly, "But I got it, friendl" He sent a stream of energy from the blaster right past Neely's head, so close that a shock of the other's hair smoked and curled into black wisps. "And watch your language—my wife and kids can hear you—"
Neely's thick shoulders hunched. He ducked nervously, rubbing his head—and for the first time there was a hint of genuine alarm in his voice. "All right," he growled, "all right! Take it easy—"
Something deep within John Endlich relaxed—a cold tight knot seemed to unwind—for, at that moment, he knew that Neely was beginning to lose. The big man's evident discomfort and fear were the marks of weakness—to his followers at least; and with them, he could never be a leader, again. Moreover, he had allowed himself to be maneuvered into the position of being the butt of a practical joke, that, by his own code, must be followed up, to its nasty, if interesting, outcome. The spectators began to resemble Romans at the circus, with Neely the victim. And the victim's downfall was tragically swift.
"Come on, Neelyl You heard what PunTdns said," somebody yelled. "Jeez—a whole bushel. Let's see how many you can eat, Neely. . . . Damned if this ain't gonna be rich! Don't let us down, Neely! Nobody's hurtin' yuh. All you have to do is eat—all them nice tamadas . . . Hey, Neely—if that bushel ain't enough for you, I'll personally buy you another, at the reglar price. Haw-haw-haw . . . Lucky Neely! Look at him! Having a swell banquet. Better than if he was home . . . Haw-haw-haw . . . Come on, Pun'kins—make him eat! . . ."
Yeah, under certain conditions human nature can be pretty fickle. Wonderingly, John Endlich felt himself to be respected— the Top Man. The guy who had shown courage and ingenuity, and was winning, by the harsh code of men who had been roughened and soured by space—by life among the asteroids.
For a little while then, he had to be hard. He thrust another tomato toward Neely, at the same time directing a thin stream from the blaster just past the big nose. Neely ate six more tomatoes with a will, his eyes popping, sweat streaming down his forehead.
Endlich's next blaster-stream barely missed Neely's booted toe. The persuasive shot was worth fifty-five more dollars in garden fruit consumed. The crowd gave with mock cheers and bravos, and demanded more action.
"That makes thirty-two . . . Come on, Neely—that's just a good start. You got a long, long ways to go . . . Come on, Pun'kins— bet you can stuff fifty into him . . ."
To goad Neely on in this ludicrous and savage game, Endlich next just scorched the metal at Neely's shoulder. It isn't to be said that Endlich didn't enjoy his revenge—for all the anguish and real danger that Neely had caused him. But as this fierce yet childish sport went on, and the going turned really rough for the big asteroid miner, Endlich's anger began to be mixed with self-disgust. He'd always be a hot-tempered guy; he couldn't help that. But now, satisfaction, and a hopeful glimpse of peace ahead, burned the fury out of him and touched him with shame. Still, for a little more, he had to go on. Again and again, as before, he used that blaster. But, as he did so, he talked, ramblingly, knowing that the audience, too, would hear what he said. Maybe, in a way, it was a lecture; but he couldn't help that:
"Have another tomato, Neely. Sorry to do things like this—but it's your own way. So why should you complain? Funny, ain't it? A man can get even too many tomatoes. Civilized tomatoes. Part of something most guys around here have been homesick for, for a long time . . . Maybe that's what has been most of the trouble out here in the asteroids. Not enough civilization. On Earth we were used to certain standards—in spite of being rough enough there, too. Here, the traces got kicked over. But on this side of
Vesta, an idea begins to soak in: This used to be nice country-blue sky, trees growing. Some of that is coming back, Neely. And order with it. Because, deep in our guts, that's what we all want. And fresh vegetables'll help . . . Have another tomato, Neely. Or should we call it enough, guys?"
"Neely, you ain't gonna quit now?" somebody guffawed. "You're doin' almost good. Haw-hawl"
Neely's face was purple. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth hung partly open. "Gawd—no—please!" he croaked.
An embarrassed hush fell over the crowd. Back home on Earth, they had all been more-or-less average men. Finally someone said, expressing the intrusion among them of the better dignity of man:
"Aw—let the poor dope go . .
Then and there, John Endlich sold what was left of his first bushel of tomatoes. One of his customers—the once loud-mouthed Schmidt—even said, rather stiffly, "Pun'kins—you're all right."
And these guys were the real roughnecks of the mining camp.
Is it necessary to mention that, as they were leaving, Neely lost his pride completely, soiling the inside of his helmet's face-window so that he could scarcely see out of it? That, amid the raucous laughter of his companions, which still sounded slightly self-conscious and pitying. Thus Alf Neely sank at last to the level of helpless oblivion and nonentity.
A week of Vestal days later, in the afternoon, Rose and the kids came to John Endlich, who was toiling over his cucumbers.
"Their name is Harper, Pop!" Bubs shouted.
"And they've got three children!" Evelyn added.
John Endlich straightened, shaking a kink out of his tired back. "Who?" he questioned.
"The people who are going to be our new neighbors, Johnny," Rose said happily. "We just picked up the news on the radio— from their ship, which is approaching from space right now! I hope they're nice folks. And, Johnny—there used to be country schools with no more than five pupils . . ."
"Sure," John Endlich said.
Something felt warm around his heart. Leave it to a woman to think of a school—the symbol of civilization, marching now across the void. John Endlich thought of the trouble at the mining camp, which his first load of fresh vegetables, picked up by a small space boat, had perhaps helped to end. He thought of the relics in this strange land. Things that were like legends of a lost pastoral beauty. Things that could come back. The second family of homesteaders was almost here. Endlich was reconciled to domesticity. He felt at home; he felt proud.
Bees buzzed near him. A tay-tay bug from a perished era, hummed and scraped out a mournful sound.
"I wonder if the Harper kids'll call you Mr. Punldns, Pop," Bubs remarked. "Like the miners still do."
John Endlich laughed. But somehow he was prouder than ever. Maybe the name would be a legend, too.
A AR OUT in the galaxy weird worlds circle still stranger suns—suns which warp climate and nature. Those from Terra who try to play the colonist under these suns lead queer lives. To survive, Max Miles discovered, one must learn to exist under the natural conditions on such a world, and not in opposition to them. And because he digested that lesson early and thoroughly, he won a deadly game.
JEROME BIXBY
I
Max Miles did mysterious things to the battered, broken-dialed control panel, and Mary the stratocoupe promptly went into her act. The old one-man jet flipped a wing at zenith and lost three hundred feet of altitude in six seconds. Miles sparred with the panel, got upside up again, stared back at a cloud of dust they had whisked from a hilltop. He gave the panel a right to the jaw. Mary sighed heavily with her airfoils and circled in resignation toward the green and ochre valley below, grounding at last in the meadow with jolts and scrapings.
Miles kicked off the drive with one foot, shoved open the port with the other. He poised, a small healthy-looking man with blue eyes and more scalp than hair, his knees bent for the short drop to the ground; and—as usually happened—the scene outside caught him up and held him for several delicious moments. His thoughts sidestepped into well-worn and agreeable tracks as he looked upon the neatly furrowed fields that spread to the encircling hills; the stone-lined irrigation ditches; the long sprawling kanl racks; the shining sunmill that jutted above the yard by the cottage.
There goes the Babe, he thought, and watched the tiny sun as it seemed to hesitate, then withdraw suddenly—in a blink-behind the near horizon. The clouded sky immediately began changing its heaped-up, and fortunately high-up, ammonia vapors from red to purple and then to neutral grey as the upthrust arc of sunlight narrowed and faded.
"Miles' Matchless Acres," this valley was, in his letters to his friends on Earth; the Agricultural Registry in Three Major listed it with less whoopdedoo as: "Sections 764-5-6 Alcron; product (s): kanl, linla; owner (s) Maxwell Julius Miles, age 41, vol. Earth July 2691."
But Max Miles was fired with the blooded pride of the pioneer—and the less unselfish pride of the landowner. This was his farm. Ipso facto it was the best farm on Goran Three.
He jumped, and Three's gravity—.5403 Earth—socked his feet gently into the tangled grass. Waves and eddies of stink—there's no other word for it—came at him from all directions; stink that was a level eight-foot blanket over the Alcron lowlands. Miles grinned and ducked under Mary's stubby wing, savoring the heavily-laden air with the peculiar gusto of one to whom an unpleasant thing has become pleasantly familiar. Sliding open the cargo hatch, he hoisted a box of supplies to his shoulder and started up the path for the cottage, squinting into the gloom of oncoming evening.
Several dark shapes seemed to materialize at the meadow's edge, vague and hulking against the backdrop of intertwined kanl trees. Miles wondered, as he often had, how any critter as big as the average Crony could move so silently and so fast. . . .
"Is it Miles?" The sibilant whisper was beamed, by thoroughly unhuman vocal chords, at the little Earthman.
"It is Miles," he replied, and although he recognized the voice, courtesy demanded that he add: "Is it Fir?"
"It is Fir, with Tos. What is your wish?"
"None, save to retire. The farm is well?"
The answering whisper carried overtones of satisfaction. "It is well, Miles. You will find an account on your desk—" and the figures melted into the thick-hung blackness.
Miles grinned, trudged on up the path. Gone for half a day's shopping—and his workers had kept a record of the farm's happenings. That was Lin's work, he suspected. His big foreman enjoyed the assumption of tasks over and above those assigned him; such as his regular trips to the cottage, a few minutes before Grandpa, to make certain that Miles was awake and aware.
The natives of Goran Three were certainly not the most beautiful to look upon—although reasonably humanoid and not at all disturbing to a human, if the human were forewarned—but he'd stack them for common decency against any blank sapiens in the catalogued systems. And work! They'd work their hands to the— well, no, not to the bone. At least so far as Miles or anyone else could know for sure. Couple of years ago some stiffnecked medicos from Mars General had come to Three with ideas about examining the Cronies and placing them in the exact black and white scheme of things. After a while they had gone back to Mars, disgruntled, carrying fogged X-ray plates and souvenir scalpels that had blunted on chitinous hides. One amiable Crony had signed a release, submitted to an atomic drill—and exited laughing.
Miles himself had often wondered about the physiological set-up of the Cronies. After all, he thought, living with equal comfort under both the Ba
be and Grandpa was somewhat like breathing both air and water. Or air and fire, more like it.
But then, the Cronies were paradoxical from the word go. With one of the highest racial I. Q.'s known, so far as could be determined, considering the difficulty of establishing suitable criteria, they acted like kids, preferring to spend much of their time romping and singing in the sunlight and working gratis as farmhands for the Earth settlers.
Which, argued some scientists, along with the hints occasionally dropped and the gadgets often carried but never shared by the Cronies, was no small indication of their cultural status: highly advanced, with the arts and technology to produce anything and everything they could possibly want except exercise.
Other scientists argued decadence.
All the scientists would have loved to examine just one of those gadgets, to have entered just one of the great shining Hives that lay scattered across the face of Goran Three, and thereby see exactly what was what.
But after several decades of being neatly rebuffed in such attempts, Earth scientists knew the following and little else: the Cronies were tough, brilliant, amiable and—telepathic. They were not, however—and thank Heaven—able to read Earth minds. This the Cronies admitted.
The binary-meter on Miles' wrist suddenly began to agitate— buzzing wasp-like—and grew hot. The illuminated dial, controlled by the master-meter in Three Minor, told him that he could expect Grandpa in precisely an hour and a half from now.
"Damn crazy place to live," he confided to the meter. Then his blue eyes snapped half-shut with annoyance as the heat increased. "All right, all right! I'm not asleep this time—!"
He made whistling noises and thumped the box of supplies to the ground, grabbed at the meter to click it off. Pain faded. Miles flipped the wrist around to cool it, cussing the meter—but without enthusiasm, for he remembered the time he had been asleep, lying in the grass at the far end of the meadow. Good Martian wine and a very bad book had eased him into a weighted slumber, and the brilliance of certain death had begun to silhouette the distant hills. The meter had all but fried his wrist in its effort to get him on his feet. He still had the scar—and the nightmare memory of that frantic race with Grandpa.