Collected Fiction Page 12

  In front of the tent stood an Earthman, surrounded by an angry group of Polarian officers. Tarz stabbed a stiff forefinger at him. “This . . .” His voice shook. “This person has subjected Phalanx Leader Dor to an insult so terrible that it can only be wiped out with blood!”

  “Why inform me,” said Kincaide stiffly. “My men are perfectly competent to conduct their own affairs of honor.”

  “Your man said he can’t accept the challenge until you give your permission.”

  “My permission?” said Kincaide in amazement. “Here, let me talk to him.” He shouldered his way through the crowd with Commander Simmons at his heels.

  “What kind of nonsense is . . .” His voice suddenly trailed off. “OH, NO! Not you again! Didn’t I order you sent to the psychcorpsman for observation?”

  Kit saluted respectfully and nodded.

  Kincaide snorted in disgust and turned to Prince Tarz. “Much as I dislike it, this is one case where I’m going to have to interfere. I can’t let this man fight, he’s mentally unbalanced.”

  Prince Tarz looked at Kit skeptically. “He looks all right to me.”

  “He’s suffering from delusions of grandeur,” explained Kincaide. “He was the pilot of the courier that was blasted by your cruiser. He was captured somehow and later escaped. The poor fellow’s mind cracked during his ordeal. He believes that he captured your cruiser with his bare hands and took it as a prize of war. He’s obviously unfit for combat.”

  Prince Tarz’ disbelief was obvious. “Since no Polarian ship has been involved in an incident with one of your fleet units, this man could not have been captured. Since he could not have been captured, you are obviously lying to protect him.”

  It was Kincaide’s turn to have his face whiten.

  “You are calling me a liar, sir?”

  “I am calling you a liar, sir.”

  “In that case may I suggest that two fighters be made ready at once. I will met you at sunset at eighty thousand feet.”

  Prince Tarz saluted stilly, made an abrupt about face, and started away, his officers following dose at his heels.

  The gap between the two groups widened for a moment and then suddenly a slight figure bolted from the Earthman’s ranks. It was Kit.

  He was yelling hotly.

  “Prince Tarz! Prince Tarz! Wait up! I can explain everything.” He heard Kincaide’s angry voice behind him, “Corpsman. place that man under restraint!” Grabbing hold of the Prince’s arm desperately, Kit swung him half around.

  “Sir, you’ve got to listen to me. It was a Saarian ship that captured me. They’re trying to get us to fight each other!”

  Tarz gave him a look usually reserved for small crawling things and brushed his hand away.

  Kit’s Adam’s apple jerked convulsively as he swallowed twice and then suddenly jerked his blaster from its holster and jammed it into Prince Tarz’ midriff. A gasp of horror went up from both parties.

  Kit’s voice shook. “I’m a peace loving citizen and I’m not going to sit back and let myself get sucked into a war that has no point. I’ve got something to say and I’m going to be listened to or else!” Kit’s voice wasn’t the only thing that was shaking. His hand was trembling so badly that his trigger finger kept bouncing against the firing stud. Prince Tarz noticed it and felt a sudden urge to talk things over.

  From the corner of his eye Kit saw Space Marshall Kincaide running toward him. “Stand back, sir,” he yelled. “If you try to grab me, this thing might go off.” Kincaide skidded to a sudden halt.

  “Put that gun down, Carpenter. This is a truce site.”

  Kit’s voice had steadied. “I’ll put it down under one condition. You two have got to promise that you’ll give me ten minutes to explain what’s going on. After that I don’t care what you do with me.”

  “Certainly not!” snapped Kincaide. “I refuse to be intimidated!”

  “You refuse to be intimidated?” howled Prince Tarz. “Whose belly is that blaster sticking in, anyway? You can have your ten minutes,” he said to Kit.

  “No!” said Kincaide stubbornly.

  “May I point to the consequences if I should be killed by a member of your forces on a truce site,” said Tarz.

  Kincaide thought about it for a moment and then reluctantly growled, “All right, ten minutes it is.”

  “I have complete freedom to do anything I want without interference?” asked Kit.

  The two commanders nodded. With a shaky sigh of relief, Kit shoved his blaster back in its holster.

  “Good. Now follow me.” With the two groups trailing behind him, he walked across the field to the six man scout in which he had arrived two hours before. Kit punched the release stud beneath the outer hatch of its entrance lock. A moment later the assembled officers gasped in amazement as two warriors wearing tremendous thurk pelts and gigantic green beards swaggered out into the bright sunlight.

  “It can’t be!” gasped Tarz.

  Kit stepped back three paces, flopped down on his knees, and knocked his head against the earth three times. He was the only one aware that he had all his fingers crossed and was trying desperately to interlock his toes. Raising his head, he addressed a point half way between the two figures.

  “Your pardon, Holyness, but would you deign to reveal which of these bodies is the vessel of thy terrible spirit? It would be unseemly if we gave homage to the wrong one, for is it not written, ‘There is but one Thweela’.”

  The two green bearded figures stepped forward as one god and proclaimed in unison, “I am Thweela.”

  Kit uncrossed his fingers.

  “Lord, we cannot give worship until we know in truth which of thee is the true god of death and destruction. Let the true strike down the false that we may tremble before him.”

  A moment went by without response and then simultaneously the two figures sprang apart and faced each other in a half crouch. There was a flicker of light on steel and each held his glittering battle sickle ready. Slowly, light as jungle cats and as terrible to the sight, they circled each other warily until without warning, his lips spewing insults, one danced forward, his blade set for a midriff cut. The other dropped his guard and with an underhand swing, caught his opponent’s sickle in the hook of his own. There was a moment’s ferocious tugging as each sought to wrest away the other’s weapon. They pulled closer until they were pressed chest to chest. Faces twisting horribly, they howled at each other. A thin white froth began to form on their lips.

  Prince Tarz and Space Marshall Kincaide stood side by side watching the struggle in amazement, their differences momentarily forgotten. With the air of a ringmaster about to present the special feature attraction, Kit stepped up to them and saluted.

  “By your leave, gentlemen.”

  Before either of them could answer, he stepped over to the two straining warriors and gripped each by the shoulder. With a sudden wrench he jerked them apart and swung them around so they both stood facing him. Then slowly and deliberately, he unhooked his gun belt and dropped both harness and blaster to the ground.

  “Watch it, Carpenter,” yelled Kincaide involuntarily. “They’re battle-crazy. They’ll split your skull if you interfere!”

  Kit ignored him and suddenly, without warning, administered the supreme insult as with cold deliberation he spit first in the right eye of the warrior on his left, and then in the left eye of the warrior on his right. Then without waiting for either of them to react, he reached forward and grabbed hold of both their beards simultaneously. With a quick jerk he pulled them completely off and threw them to the ground. With the air of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he pointed to the bared faces.

  “Observe, gentlemen. No chins.”

  Then, pulling his right hand in close to his chest so that it couldn’t be seen by the groups behind him, he made a sudden gesture. The result was electric. Two shrieks of fright rang out and a second later all that could be seen of the two Thweelas were their backs as they scuttled in terror back
into the scout.

  Kit turned and displayed his clenched fist, “My secret weapon,” he said modestly.

  Space Marshall Kincaide fingered his lantern jaw and Prince Tarz rubbed his long pointed one. Then they went to look for the Saarian emissary who didn’t have any chin at all.

  “. . . and so,” Kit finally concluded, “the escape they had planned for me to make didn’t come off. The way they had it set up, I was supposed to knock out the guard, take his keys, and escape in a scout that just happened to be standing by with its jets primed. My report on what they were planning to do with me would have made conflict inevitable. Fortunately Thweela moved in just at the right time.” An old and walrus-mustached staff officer harrumphed. “But spitting! Really, Carpenter, things like that just aren’t done by gentlemen—not even temporary gentlemen!”

  “I know,” said Kit apologetically, “but you all thought I was crazy. I had to do something drastic to get you all to listen to me long enough for me to show what had happened.”

  Prince Tarz held up his hand for silence. “I’m still confused. For one thing, the crew of that cruiser carried side arms. A Saarian not only couldn’t carry a weapon, he’d get sick at his stomach at the sight of one.”

  “A normal Saarian, you mean,” corrected Kit. “What you overlooked was that even though they have a fear of violence that you might term psychopathic, the Saarians are not a stupid race. We put them in a spot where they had to take action, so they did. Knowing the pugnacious nature of both our cultures, what easier way to get us off their necks than to have a supposed Polarian cruiser destroy an Earth ship during negotiations? They predicted the consequence perfectly. Earth would accuse, Polarius would deny, both sides would lose their tempers, and BANG!” He turned to the Saarian emissary.

  “If you were up in a tree with two jungle beasts prowling around underneath, would you be able to use a blaster in your own defense?”

  The Saarian shuddered at the thought. “Of course not!”

  “But if they started fighting among themselves?”

  “If violent creatures choose to destroy themselves, it is no concern of mine,” said the little man.

  Kincaide was still not wholly convinced. “But where could they find a crew for a ship of war?”

  “It’s simple,” said Kit. “Check over the pattern of violence displayed by the crew after they captured me. They destroyed my ship, but before they did so they were careful to get me off safely. Once I was prisoner, there was a constant threat of violence, but note that it was never actually carried out. It’s true that no sane Saarian would act as they did—but why assume they were sane? When the Saarians had to find men capable of the show of violence, they went to the only place where such men could be found, their insane asylums. Obviously, in a non-violent culture, the violent men would be considered mad. So the Saarians solved their problem by staffing the cruiser with men they considered to be homicidal maniacs. Unfortunately for them, when it came to an actual show of violence, when I socked one of them on the nose, the madmen weren’t any better able to take it than the sane.”

  “The sane?” asked Kincaide.

  “There were some—the priesthood. They were really the crew’s keepers. There had to be somebody along to keep that bunch in line. Being by. profession in constant contact with the violent, they had stronger stomachs than the rest.”

  He paused and motioned to an alert-looking, white-headed man who had just entered the tent. “Here’s the chief psychtech now. I think he’ll be able to back up what I just told you.”

  The white-haired man advanced, saluted, and began his report.

  “A thorough examination of the two Saarians brought in by Pilot Officer Carpenter has just been completed. In both cases we found conflicting delusional syndromes. Each of them is a psychotic whose paranoia expresses itself periodically in grandiose delusions. What makes these cases interesting, however, is that a second delusional pattern has artificially been imposed on them so that they are usually under the impression that they are members of the Polarian space forces. This, however, occasionally breaks down and the original syndrome becomes temporarily dominant.”

  “In other words,” said Kincaide helpfully, “they’re nuts!”

  The psychtech frowned and said severely, “Paranoid syndromes are a phenomenon that is by no means foreign to normal human psychology. The degree of divergency can only be determined by relating it to the norm.

  Since the norm itself is relative . . .”

  “All right,” said Kincaide hastily, “they’re not nuts.”

  The psychtech frowned at the interruption and continued. “On Saar these men would be considered detention cases because the Saarian social pattern has moved so far along the road to non-violence that the symbol—the angry word or the threatening gesture—is viewed with the same alarm that more aggressive cultures reserve for the actual deed itself. Placed in a Polarian or a Terrestrial context, however, these men would be viewed as harmless eccentrics. No matter how they rant and posture, they’re constitutionally incapable of actual violence.”

  “Well, I guess that ties it up,” said Tarz. He turned to Kit. “You of course have the gratitude of the Polarian people for preventing an unnecessary war, but the next time you feel impelled to pull a stunt like this, leave your blaster at home. The way your hand was shaking, I was afraid you’d let the thing off by accident.”

  Kit pulled his weapon out of its holster and laughed. “This? It isn’t loaded. You see, sir, regulations provide that we have to wear these, but I’ve always been afraid that it might go off by accident. So I never loaded it.

  See!” He waved the blaster in Tarz’ general direction and pressed the firing stud. A flash of actinic light fanned a scant six inches above the Polarian commander’s head. The back side of the tent and the top half of the communications mast that stood behind it vanished forever. A moment later howls of anguish rose from the encampment as the gaseous cloud of metal from the mast began to condense and spatter the area with tiny drops of molten metal.

  Space Marshall Kincaide’s voice was strangely soft when he finally spoke. “In your short but checkered military career, didn’t anybody ever see fit to inform you that a Mark IV blaster has a built-in charge?”

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said Kit apologetically, “but the day they gave the lecture on side-arms I was on guard duty and . . .”

  He shrugged.

  “Get that character out of here,” yelled Tarz, “or we’re going to have a brand new war on our hands!”

  “One second,” said Kincaide, struck by a sudden thought, “I know you’ve had a hard day, Carpenter, but if it wouldn’t be too much to ask . . . that pouch you were sent out from Earth with . . . it had my laundry in it.”

  “Regret to report, sir,” said Kit, “that I burned it up. You see . . .”

  Kincaide looked at Tarz and Tarz looked at Kincaide. Moved by a single thought, they both started to rise from the table. Kit started to back nervously toward the door. Then with an effort they both caught themselves and sat down again.

  Negotiations returned to normal as Tarz stabbed his finger down at the point on the map that marked the largest of the stellite deposits. “Now my government insists . . .”

  There was an interruption from the Saurian end of the table. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” said the little emissary, “but I am afraid that on the behalf of my government I shall have to ask you to give up this division of what isn’t yours and remove yourselves and your forces to your home systems.”

  Tarz and Kincaide stared at him in amazement. Then the Polarian gave a short barking laugh. “Look at who’s giving orders. The rabbit is showing his teeth.”

  For once the Saurian didn’t subside in frightened confusion. Instead he rose to his feet and held his hands up for silence. He trembled visibly, but even so there was a certain dignity about him as if he were drawing on sources of hidden internal strength.

  “You have called us rabbits,” he said
quietly. “This is not correct, Though you cannot understand it, we have come of age. In this coming we have put the brawling manners of our childhood so far behind us that only our unfortunates, our psychotics, are still capable of even the threat of violence.

  “But this you should remember: there are cultures in this galaxy of a wildness that makes yours seem those of meek and timid children. Space wolves straining at the leash, begging for an excuse to spring at your throats.”

  He turned to Tarz. “You who boast of martial prowess, would you care to match ships with the Rigelians?”

  A momentary expression of fear flickered across the Prince’s face.

  “We have other madmen and other ships,” said the Saarian. “An exact replica of your own flagship is hanging off Orionis now, manned by green-bearded men. If it came out of hyperspace in the middle of a crowded space lane and blasted a men chant ship, would not the Rigelian war lords be grateful?”

  Tarz turned deathly pale and sat down abruptly.

  Kincaide sickened inside as he had a momentary vision of a blackened, burning Earth englobed by the blood-red ships of Achernar.

  The little man left his place at the end of the table and walked through the silence to the door of the tent.

  “And now if you’ll excuse me,” he said politely, “I am late for my lute lesson. On behalf of the people of Saar, may I wish you both a pleasant and speedy voyage home.”

  Late that evening a pilot officer of the Planetary Ferry Command walked happily up the embarkation ramp of Space Marshall Kincaide’s flagship, his discharge papers tucked safely away in an inner pocket. The diamond studded Terrestrial Cross and the great gleaming Polarian emerald of the Order of Merit, Third Grade, that had just been pinned to his chest, sparkled under the floodlights. There was a beatific smile on his face and a song in his heart as his fingers stroked these tributes from two great peace loving systems. Meanwhile a busy little calculating machine inside his head was rapidly converting them into crisp piles of one hundred credit notes. Civilian-to-be Kittridge Carpenter, owner and chief pilot of Ajax Carriers, was going home.