The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s

The lighting was dim.

‘Low angstrom range,’ the Director commented.

‘I can’t see them,’ Dusty said, peering into the bowl of gloom.

‘It,’ said the Director. ‘We only managed to catch one.’

‘What is the name of the species?’

‘Er – Pogsmith.’

‘Oh … After the planet? I thought they only named dominant species after the planet?’

‘This is the only, consequently the dominant, species, Mr. Miller.’

‘I see. Then how do you know they are not – people, rather than animals?’

‘Why, they behave like animals.’

‘I don’t see that that’s any – never mind; where is this creature, Mr. Director? I can see nothing in there but an old bucket.’

‘That, at the moment, is Pogsmith.’

Taking hold of a wheel set in an upright in the glassite, the Director spun it, setting in motion an automatic prodder. It reached out and tipped the bucket gently over. The bucket turned smoothly into a red nose, from which a hand extended in the direction of the Director.

The latter coughed, turned away, and said: ‘Until the creature condescends to turn into its usual shape, you might be interested to hear about the first and only expedition to the strange and remote planet of Pogsmith.’

‘Well, thanks very much,’ Daisy said, ‘but I think perhaps we’d better be – ’

‘It so happens,’ the Director said, ‘I was on the exploratory ship as zoologist at the time. You are singularly fortunate to hear this first-hand account.

‘Pogsmith the planet was so named after Pogsmith, our radio operator – a sort of memorial to the poor fellow. The only thing they had in common were peculiar features. The operator had one eye and a ginger beard, and the planet – well …’ He rotated his claws in the famous Puss gesture of amazement.

‘Pogsmith is the only planet in a system of three giant suns, a red, a yellow and a blue one. It is smaller than Mercury and, containing no heavy metals, has an extremely low density. Yet during a period of its orbit it comes almost within Roche’s Limit of two of the suns. The wonder is that this fragile little world did not disintegrate eons ago! It only seems to survive this perilous part of its course by speeding up its axial revolution tremendously.

‘This we noted as we glided in for a landing. The amazing thing was that the planet held an atmosphere, a pungent mixture of neon and argon that we found stayed electrostatically attracted to the surface, due to the continual absorption through it of random and charged gamma particles which combined – ’ Noting the blank expression on Dusty’s face, the Director cleared both his throats and changed his tack.

‘There were no seas, but the ground was broken and mountainous. We found a plain near the equator and feathered down. The ship immediately rose again. The captain swore, touched the fore jets and set our tail firmly in the dust once more. The ship was immediately flung back into the air. We could not stay down! So we floated and chewed our nails. On other planets, the difficulty is always getting off them; yet here the situation was paradoxically reversed.

‘Everyone was completely baffled, until I came forward with the obvious solution. The planet’s mass was so low and its axial rotation so fast that centrifugal force had overcome gravity at the equator! Following my careful instructions, the captain moved to the north pole, and there we could land in the usual manner. An additional advantage was the lower temperature – only 160°. At the equator it had been about 245°.

‘I only tell you this to make the point that any life on such a world was bound to be eccentric.’

‘Oh quite, Director. Daisy dear, are you all right?’ Dusty Miller bent anxiously over his wife, who was fluttering her eyes.

‘Yes, fine, thank you. Don’t interrupt, dear. You were saying, sir?’

‘We climbed out, the five of us – in space suits, of course. It was eerie to a degree. The sky was nearly black, owing to the tenuous atmosphere, although there were a few very low grey clouds. The blue sun moved from about five to twenty degrees above the horizon, revolving so rapidly round the sky that it looked like an azure spiral. Every now and then, the red sun would appear, climb to zenith and sink again. Unfortunately, we were too far north to see the third sun; I remember feeling vaguely aggrieved about it at the time.

‘What a spectacle, though! We stood amazed. Both visible suns were at least fourteen times as big as a full moon on Earth and their shifting, blending shadow spun a kaleidoscope of stupendous colour. We cried our delight aloud, lifting up hands that had become unpredictable rainbows.

‘Pogsmith had no eye for beauty. He had, as I said, only one eye, and this was on the main chance. He disappeared over that low hill which is always near any spaceship about to encounter danger in all the science-fiction stories I have read. We heard his startled shout, and ran to see what was wrong. A hundred yards ahead of him was a torpedo. It was scampering towards him. It had legs. These changed to wheels, and the wheels to flappers.

‘Abruptly it stopped. It changed again – into something very like a terrestrial pig. That, we have found since, is its natural form. But under the fluctuating conditions that exist on its world it has developed protective and projective mimicry to an extraordinary degree.

‘“Come on,” Pogsmith bellowed. “Let’s capture it!”

‘I was naturally in favour of the idea. But Pogsmith acted first.

‘He flung himself on the creature. It was an unwise thing to do, and I should have behaved differently. Even as he moved, the amazing animal altered its form again. It grew boots, a ginger beard, a space suit. It turned, in fact, into an absolute double of Pogsmith.

‘They fought desperately together. We closed in upon them and pulled them apart – no easy matter for only four of us.

‘Then came a problem. Which of them was Pogsmith? Neither showed any inclination to turn into anything further. The pig, with a good deal of common sense, realised he was safe in his disguise.

‘Both cursed when we prodded them. Both vowed he was the only genuine and original Pogsmith. Both begged to be released.

‘So, at my suggestion, we released them, the idea being that the fake would immediately attempt to escape. But no, both stood tamely there and suggested a return to the ship. Evidently the pig’s curiosity had been roused.

‘We only resolved the deadlock by a brilliant idea of mine. Obviously the creature could only stimulate outward appearances; we had but to take blood slides to tell one Pogsmith from the other.

‘They both came meekly to the air lock. But there a strange thing happened. We stopped. We looked again at the twins. The Captain spoke first.

‘“Silly of us,” he said. “I know which the real Pogsmith is – it’s this one,” and he clapped his hand on the nearer of the two.

‘We all agreed vehemently with him. At the time it was suddenly more than obvious which was which. We pushed away the one we decided was the fake and hurried into the ship, shutting the lock behind us.

‘“Phew!” one of the crew said. “Lucky we suddenly saw sense. Let’s get away from here!”

‘And so we did. We were off and away at once, leaving the planet and its suns far behind. The incident had destroyed a lot of our self-confidence; for one thing, no doubt each of us had the thought: ‘Supposing more of the creatures had come up and joined in the fun? Should we ever have sorted ourselves out?’

‘Pogsmith, always taciturn, was more silent than ever. We did not like to remind him of his unpleasant experience, but finally I asked: “Are you feeling yourself again, Pogsmith?”

‘For reply, he winked his one eye at me and slowly – turned into a pig!

‘We saw it all then. We had been tricked by some form of mass-hypnotism into leaving the real radio op. behind. By then we were three days spaceborne, and poor old Pogsmith had air enough for, at a maximum, thirty-six hours. What could we do? As a memorial to our late friend, we christened the planet Pogsmith, and kept heading for home.

‘The crew were not only furious with the creature, they were frightened of it, and its power. They voted to scoot it out of the airlock at once. But I spoke up in the cause of science, and explained what a valuable zoological discovery we had made. After much argument, the masquerader’s life was saved, and we brought it here, to the zoo.’

There was a short silence in the dome.

‘A very extraordinary tale indeed!’ Dusty Miller exclaimed.

‘The truth is frequently extraordinary,’ the Director said, with emphasis.

‘Do you reckon he’s pulling our legs?’ Daisy whispered to her husband.

‘I don’t know.’

They turned and stared solemnly into the arena. Pogsmith had resumed its natural form. It was decidedly porcine, although its face bore an expression of almost classical serenity seldom noticeable on pig countenances. Seeing it was being observed, it commenced to change shape.

‘Actually, it is rather parrot-like,’ the Director said contemptuously. ‘It never composes its own shape, almost always copies something it has seen. Look, you notice it is doing me now …’

Mrs. Miller let out a loud shriek.

‘When has it seen you naked?’ she asked.

‘Madam, I assure you I’m not – ’

‘Never mind how good the likeness is,’ Dusty said sternly. ‘I did not bring my wife here to be insulted by that obscene creature or anyone else! I suggest we leave this instant.’

‘Very well then,’ snapped the Director angrily, ‘although I am in no way responsible for that thing’s behaviour.’

‘Do let’s get out,’ Daisy said, her face still crimson. ‘Take my arm, Marmaduke.’

‘You go on, dear, with the Director. I won’t be a minute – I just want to read this information panel again.’

He prodded her surreptitiously in the ribs to make sure he was obeyed. As soon as they were out of sight, he tried the inner door. It was merely a portion of the arena wall, indistinguishable from within, but easily movable from without by the turn of a wheel.

‘We’ll soon see whether it wasn’t a pack of nonsense he was telling us,’ Dusty muttered to himself. He never liked to believe anything until he had personally tested its veracity. The next moment he was inside the dome.

The naked Director withered and shrunk into Pogsmith’s natural shape. It turned and faced Dusty inquisitively, snorting quietly.

‘All right, old boy, there, there now, just want to have a proper look at you,’ Dusty said soothingly, making a coaxing noise and extending one hand. For a moment he was alarmed at his temerity. Was the thing carnivorous or not? He halted. They surveyed each other from five yards’ range.

‘The lighting isn’t very good in here,’ Dusty said apologetically. ‘Let’s see some of these stunts from close range.’

As if it understood – how efficient was that dead field round the brain? – the pig, with astonishing speed, grew a ginger beard and arms. It became Pogsmith. One eye glared at Dusty.

‘This is a devil of a predicament,’ it said. With animal savagery, it flung itself at Dusty, catching him a knock-out blow on the jaw, and bolted for the open door.

Feebly, he opened his eyes. An angry face glared down into his; it was the Director.

‘Ah, Miller, conscious at last! Well, your visit to us is over. There’s an auto-rocket here standing by to take you and your wife straight back to Earth.’

‘Pogsmith?’ groaned Dusty.

‘You may very well ask! The unhappy creature must have been almost crazed by boredom from its confinement. It is now hiding among the zoo buildings, having so far eluded all our efforts to recapture it. You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Your infernal curiosity is going to cost us a pretty penny, I can tell you! You’re a mischief-maker, sir, that’s what – a mischief-maker!’

‘You won’t find Pogsmith by raving at me,’ Dusty retorted irritably, brushing dust out of his clothes.

‘Can’t you see the poor man’s had enough, Director?’ Daisy asked, turning nevertheless to the poor man in question to whisper fiercely: ‘A brilliant performance you’ve made of yourself, Marmaduke. Just you wait …’

Dusty rubbed an aching jaw and followed dejectedly along a metal ramp which led to a two-man shuttle. It was a small Mercury–Earth ship that would travel auto all the way: in five minutes he could be away from the scene of his foolishness – and there would be no eavesdroppers on whatever lecture was coming.

The Director followed them to the open hatch. There he caught Dusty’s arm.

‘No ill feelings,’ he said.

Miller shook the Director’s hand and his own head dazedly and passed into the ship. With a quiet click, the door closed behind him. He staggered through the airlock and sank on to an acceleration couch.

Daisy had hardly begun to unload her vocabulary before the growl of blast take-off drowned all other sounds. They hurled upwards, and in two breath-taking minutes stars and darkness showed outside and the bright crescent of Mercury floated below.

‘Now …’ said Daisy. ‘Never in all my life – ’ She stopped, her mouth hung open, her eyes fixed glassily on a point behind Dusty’s head. He turned.

The door of a small luggage store had opened. A figure as like the Director’s as an egg is like an egg stood there glaring at them.

‘How – ’ said Dusty.

‘He’s tricked us,’ said the Director. ‘He bound and gagged me … I’ve only just struggled free … He’s – ooooh!’

He staggered back as Dusty attacked him. His foot slipped and he fell against the wall.

‘Quick, Daisy, quick!’ Dusty bellowed. ‘Help me get him in the airlock. It’s Pogsmith!’

She stood there wringing her hands helplessly. ‘How do you know this is Pogsmith?’ she asked.

‘Of course it is,’ snapped Dusty, glad to be again master of the situation. ‘Isn’t it obvious he’d try and escape like this? I’m not being fooled twice. Now lend a hand, will you?’

Still struggling and protesting, the Director was propelled into the airlock and shut in. Mopping his brow, Dusty pressed the manual switch that opened the outer door. There was a hiss of expiring air – and expiring Director.

At the Galactic Zoo the incident was soon forgotten. The Director quickly recovered his old prestige. But he was never the same man again – he had a tendency, in private, to grow red whiskers and one triumphant eye.

Conviction

The four Supreme Ultralords stood apart from the crowd, waiting, speaking to nobody. Yet Mordregon, son of Great Mordregon; Arntibis Isis of Sirius III, the Proctor Superior from the Tenth Sector; Deln Phi J. Bunswacki, Ruler of the Margins; and Ped2 of the Dominion of the Sack watched, as did the countless other members of the Diet of the Ultralords of the Home Galaxy, the entrance into their council chamber of the alien, David Stevens of Earth.

Stevens hesitated on the threshold of the hall. The hesitation was part-natural, part-feigned; he had come here primed to play a part and knowing a pause for awe might be expected of him; but he had not calculated on the real awe which filled him. He had come to stand trial, for himself, for Earth, he had come prepared – as far as a man may prepare for the unpredictable. Yet, as the dolly ushered him into the hall, he knew crushingly that the task was to be more terrible than any he had visualised.

The cream of the Galaxy took in his hesitation.

He started to walk towards the dais upon which Mordregon and his colleagues waited. The effort of forcing his legs to go into action set a dew of perspiration on his forehead.

‘God help me!’ he whispered. But these were the gods of the galaxy; was there, over them, One with no material being and infinite power? Enough. Concentrate.

Squaring his shoulders, Stevens walked between the massed shapes of the rulers of the Home Galaxy. Although it had been expressly stated before he left Earth that no powers, such as telepathy, which he did not possess, would be used against him, he could feel a weight of mental power all round him. Strange faces watched him, some just remotely human, strange robes stirred as he brushed past them. The diversity! he thought. The astounding, teeming womb of the universe!

Pride suddenly gripped him. He found courage to stare back into the multitudinous eyes. They should be made to know the mettle of man. Whatever they were planning to do with him, he also had his own plans for them.

Just as it seemed only fitting to him that man should walk in this hall, it seemed no less fitting that of all the millions on Earth, he, David Stevens, should be that man. With the egotism inherent in junior races, he felt sure he could pass their trial. What if he had been awed at first? A self-confident technological civilisation, proud of its exploration projects on Mercury and Neptune, is naturally somewhat abashed by the appearance of a culture spreading luxuriously over fifty hundred thousand planets.

With a flourish, he bowed before Mordregon and the other Supreme Ultralords.

‘I offer greetings from my planet Earth of Sol,’ he said in a resonant voice.

‘You are welcome here, David Stevens of Earth,’ Mordregon replied graciously. A small object the size of a hen’s egg floated fifteen inches from his beak. All other members of the council, Stevens included, were attended by similar devices, automatic interpreters.

Mordregon was mountainous. Below his beaked head, his body bulged like an upturned grand piano. A cascade of clicking black and white ivory rectangles clothed him. Each rectangle, Stevens noted, rotated perpetually on its longitudinal axis, fanning him, ventilating him, as if he burned continually of an inexorable disease (which was in fact the case).

‘I am happy to come here in peace,’ Stevens said. ‘And shall be still happier to know why I have been brought here. My journey has been long and partially unexplained.’

At the word ‘peace’, Mordregon made a grimace like a smile, although his beak remained unsmiling.

‘Partially, perhaps; but partially is not entirely,’ Mordregon said. ‘The robot ship told you you would be collected to stand trial in the name of Earth. That seems to us quite sufficient information to work on.’

The automatic translators gave an edge of irony to the Ultralord’s voice. The tone brought faint colour to Stevens’s cheeks. He was angry, and suddenly happy to let them see he was angry.

‘Then you have never been in my position,’ he said ‘Mine was an executive post at Port Ganymede. I never had anything to do with politics. I was down at the methane reagent post when your robot ship arrived and designated me in purely arbitrary fashion. I was simply told I would be collected for trial in three months – like a convict – like a bundle of dirty laundry!’ He looked hard at them, anxious to see their first reaction to his anger, wondering whether, he had gone too far. Ordinarily, Stevens was not a man who indulged his emotions. When he spoke, the hen’s egg before his mouth sucked up all sound, leaving the air dry and silent, so that he was unable to hear the translation going over; he thought, half-hopefully, that it might omit the outburst in traditional interpreter fashion. This hope was at once crushed.

‘Irritation means unbalance,’ said Deln Phi J. Bunswacki. It was the only sentence he spoke throughout the interview. On his shoulders, a mighty brain siphoned its thoughts beneath a transparent skull case; he wore what appeared to be a garishly cheap blue pin-stripe suit, but the stripes moved as symbiotic organisms plied up and down them ceaselessly, ingurgitating any microbes which might threaten the health of Deln Phi. J. Bunswacki. Slightly revolted, Stevens turned back to Mordregon.

‘You are playing with me,’ he said quietly. ‘Do I abuse your hospitality by asking you to get down to business?’

That, he thought, was better. Yet what were they thinking? His manner is too unstable? He seems to be impervious to the idea of his own insignificance? This was going to be the whole of hell: to have to guess what they were thinking, knowing they knew he was guessing, not knowing how many levels above his own their IQ was.

Acidic apprehension turned in Stevens’s stomach. His hand fluttered up to the lump below his right ear; he fingered it nervously, and only with an effort broke off the betraying gesture. To this vast concourse, he was insignificant: yet to Earth – to Earth he was their sole hope. Their sole hope! – And he could not keep himself from shaking.

Mordregon was speaking again. What had he been saying?

‘… customary. Into this hall in the city of Grapfth on the planet Xaquibadd in the Periphery of the Dominion of the Sack are invited all new races, each as it is discovered.’

Those big words don’t frighten me, Stevens told himself, because, to a great extent, they did. Suddenly he saw the solar system as a tiny sack, into which he longed to crawl and hide.

‘Is this place Grapfth the centre of your Empire?’ he asked.

‘No; as I said, it is in a peripheral region – for safety reasons, you understand,’ Mordregon explained.

‘Safety reasons? You mean you are afraid of me?’

Mordregon raised a brow at Ped2 of the Sack. Ped2, under an acre of coloured, stereoscopic nylon, was animated cactus, more beautiful, more intricate than his clothing. Captive butterflies on germanium, degravitized chains turned among the blossoms on his head; they fluttered up and then re-alighted as Ped2 nodded and spoke briefly to the Earthman. ‘Every race has peculiar talents or abilities of its own,’ he explained. ‘It is partly to discover those abilities that you aliens are invited here. Unfortunately, your predecessor turned out to be a member of a race of self-propagating nuclear weapons left over from some ancient war or other. He talked quite intelligently, until one of us mentioned the key word “goodwill”, whereupon he exploded and blew this entire hall to bits.’

Reminiscent chuckles sounded round him as he told the story.

Stevens said angrily: ‘You expect me to believe that? Then how have you all survived?’

‘Oh, we are not really here,’ Ped2 said genially, interlocking a nest of spikes behind his great head. ‘You can’t expect us to make the long journey to Xaquibadd every time some petty little system – no offence of course – is discovered. You’re talking to three-dimensional images of us; even the hall’s only there – or here, if you prefer it (location is merely a philosophical quibble) in a sort of sub-molecular fashion.’

Catching sight of the dazed look on the Earthman’s face, Ped2 could not resist driving home another point. (His was a childish race: theologians had died out among them only some four thousand years ago.)

‘We are not even talking to you in a sense you would understand, David Stevens of Earth,’ he said. ‘Having as yet no instantaneous communicator across light-year distances, we are letting a robot brain on Xaquibadd do the talking for us. We can check with it afterwards; if a mistake has been made, we can always get in touch with you.’

It was said not without an easy menace, but Stevens received at least a part of it eagerly. They had as yet no instantaneous communicator! No sub-radio, that could leap light-years without time lag! Involuntarily, he again fingered the tiny lump beneath the lobe of his right ear, and then thrust his hand deep into his pocket. So Earth had a chance of bargaining with these colossi after all! His confidence soared.

To Ped2, Mordregon was saying: ‘You must not mock our invited guest.’

‘I have heard that word “invited” from you before,’ Stevens said. ‘This has all seemed to me personally more like a summons. Your robot, without further explanation, simply told me it would be back for me in three months, giving me time to prepare for trial.’

‘That was reasonable, surely?’ Mordregon said. ‘It could have interviewed you then, unprepared.’

‘But it didn’t say what I was to prepare for,’ Stevens replied, exasperation bursting into his mind as he remembered those three months. What madness they had been, as he spent them preparing frantically for this interview; all the wise and cunning men of the system had visited him: logicians, actors, philosophers, generals, mathematicians … And the surgeons! Yes, the skilful surgeons, burying the creations of the technologists in his ear and throat.